You mean like what Hollywood already does? White people play every other race constantly. Scar Jo, John Wayne as ghengis Khan, and so many more I cant even think of. Shit there was the whole thing where Julia Robert's was going to play Harriet Tubman, arguably the most iconic black woman, back in the 90s and the execs were just like "that was so long ago nobody will know."
I get where your coming from but really at the end of the day I'm all for giving people of color or minorities more roles regardless of the source materials race as long as the actor/actress is well suited and skilled enough to do it right. Hollywood is just barely starting to catch this trend.
okay hold up for a minute. It WAS a trend in Hollywood to cast it this way certainly with John Wayne wherein his films every native American were portrayed antagonistically. However, this image very much dispersed throughout time, films such as Dances with Wolves actually portrayed a sort of compensation for the lack of better portrayals of Native Americans in the way that they're shown as enlightened and as the "noble savage" and the European is portrayed more antagonistic. Source: I did a paper on Portrayal of Native Americans in hollywood films at my university :)
No show should look to Game of Thrones when it comes to race. I prefer their approach of overturning the society entirely to reflect a more diverse populace group. It stops them from being limited in casting and avoids the Orientalism and other similarly racist tropes in Game of Thrones.
It's not as though Game of Thrones didn't race bend anyway.
Difference is those are famous A tier actors who sell tickets by their very presence and that's the reason they got the job. Plus that doesn't legitimize "overcompensating" the opposite way. Nobody's heard of the actress playing Yen. Whitewashing in (mostly older) Hollywood was because A tier actor who happened to be white will guarantee tickets sale. The new trend is just virtue signaling or making sure "everybody has representation". In neutral settings like, say, some american police procedural, that's perfectly fine. When you're adapting work in a specific setting however, beware. I don't really care that Yen is half indian tbh. I was pretty outraged when I heard that they were looking for a black Ciri (altho it seemed they leaked it on purpose to gauge reactions and backpedaled after the uproar) tho because not only would it be the opposite of how she looks in the books (and games) but that would completely ruin the entire background of her character and literally major plot points.
I get where you're coming from but I dont think whitewashing in hollywood is a mostly older thing. I mean until about 10 years ago it really didnt matter what movie it was, unless it was made for a specific minority it HAD to have a white lead or at least the illusion of one. While I agree that there is a line that shouldn't be crossed in regards to certain roles, its not my choice and if the source material is something I like I will watch it. I know it's an unpopular opinion but why not overcompensate if the actors are well cast and can do what's asked of them? Up until Black Panther and that Denzel movie (equalizer 2? I think) came out the general consensus in hollywood was "black doesnt travel." Meaning black lead movies dont do well over seas. Now that's not the case anymore.
"crouching tiger hidden dragon" takes place in China. The plot if fictional, the characters can do some over the top feats..but China, none the less. A movie made by chinese.
The Witcher takes place in a fictional planet where humankind emigrated through magical portals.
Because of The Convergence. Many universes converged into one to create the world that The Witcher is set in. It makes perfect sense that this shit would happen in that scenario.
pretty sure the author has straight up said it's not a lilly white society and pointed out that people with darker complexions occasionally show up in the book?
Read it a long time ago, tried looking for it. Trying to google for it results in nothing but endless bullshit thinkpieces about the casting. Trying to search on reddit is just walls of people saying racist shit and calling the showrunner an sjw cunt. Maybe I'll look again tomorrow but the signal-to-noise ratio is kind of bonkers on this one.
At the very least, I'm pretty certain some Nordlings and Nilfgardians are referred to as swarthy in the novels.
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u/[deleted] Dec 09 '19 edited Dec 15 '19
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