When is it okay to race/gender swap a movie role?

Some recent examples:

• Paul Feig's all female Ghostbusters
• Johnny Depp portraying Tonto in The Lone Ranger
• Scarlett Johanson being cast in the lead of Ghost in the Shell

Some specific questions on the topic:

(a) Is it okay to replace a straight while male character because of the historic power balance and abundance of alternatives?

(b) Is it okay to gender/race swap if the gender/race has no bearing on the character or story being told?

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It's an interesting question of judgement. I've always thought that, if race or gender is essential to the character, then the actor should match the character. Interestingly, in two of the cases you mention (the Ghostbusters do-over and The Lone Ranger), IMO, the movies sucked so badly that the gender/race switch was the least of the problems. It's definitely a problem with historical characters, probably less with fictional ones, but if the race of the character is an important characteristic that influences the history or experience of the character, it definitely doesn't work. Ditto gender.

In olden days of film making it was due to pure discrimination and racism (as almost all ethnic groups were portrayed by whites, or else portrayed as stereotypes).

Today it is an insulting form of tokenism driven by Political Correctness (insulting, that is, to the source material, to fans of the source material and to audiences).

Who says ghostbusters have to be male? Well, they have never met ghostbusters in real life, then.
I'm more worried about them making a good movie than having top actress in the lead role. It's great they have top actress in the lead role.
Can't quite understand the question. If you mean for example black man playing Charlemagne, then that's preposterous.
It is ok unless it is explicitly referred character being of a specific gender/race/age and actor isn't representative of that. Comedies are exceptions.

I actually dont care as long as they don't do this



I havent seen Lone Ranger and have no idea who Tonto is.

Will not see Ghostbusters or the female reboot of Oceans 11. That just seems ridiculous to me. Find new material rather than rebooting just for a gender swap. It offends my ovaries.

Who is that in the picture, Dani? Looks like Brian Dennehy. (And who is it supposed to be?)

Tonto was the Lone Ranger's side-kick and was a Native American - a Comanche to be precise. Tonto first appeared in the Lone Ranger radio series in 1933.
In the Lone Ranger TV series, Tonto was most famously portrayed by Native American actor Jay Silverheels. In a 1981 movie version (which failed miserably) Tonto was played by another Native American actor, Michael Horse. Johnny Depp played Tonto in the latest film version of the Lone Ranger - Depp is not Native American and the movie drastically changed the look of the character. (I haven't seen any version.)

Oh right. I thought the OP meant Tonto was a woman who was gender swapped. I;m with you now. Thanks Cp. Johnny Depp does have native american heritage though, doesnt he?

My pic is Brian Dennehy playing Kublai Khan. This is the Khan in the tv show Marco Polo played by Benjamin Wong



This is what the Khan looked like according to an historical painting



I havent seen the Dennehy version and as much as I like him I wont

Depp does indeed claim to have some Native American blood, but it's so distant as to hardly qualify him as N.A. I didn't see the movie, but he just didn't look the way Tonto has always been depicted. Tonto always wore a tan rawhide outfit, while Depp's version is half naked, covered with black and white paint and sporting a dead crow on his head!

Yeah, with so many actors of varying ethnicities, I don't know why they choose people who are not of that ethnicity - especially in the case of historical roles (like your example of Kublai Khan). Why use a white guy in that role?

Yeah there was huge debate about actors cast in Whiskey Tango Foxtrot to play Afghans when there are stacks of Afghan American actors. This is not what I thought Hollyweed was on about with diversity.

Alfred Mollina is an Italian Brit cast to play Massoud. I thought he was good in the role but really? That's about as far as Afghan as I am from Chinese.

I just want the most talented person to get the job.

When it makes sense.

An example:

In Dr. Strange's comics "The Ancient One" is a shapeshifting Asian Kung Fu Master straight out of the Japanese Kung Fu movies. You won't get more stereotypical than that [and so is Iron Man's Mandarin]

In the movie He is a Celtic woman.

Now, Disney/Marvel took the character and changed him into a non Tibetan looking woman due to the Chinese Market [it would offend the chinese if the character was indeed depicted as a Tibetan, politics and all that]

But the way that change was done, makes sense because the character in the Comic DOES shapeshift.

And portraying him as a character from the 70's would also be weird as hell.

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Great question and it's of particular interest to me at the moment because of the ongoing changes being made to Doctor Who. I'll think about it and try and come up with a decent answer.

As to GITS

The Major, doesn't have a specific race [though her name is Japanese, although it's not her real name either - Motoko Kusanagi] because the Manga/Anime depicts her city as multicultural [as was Blade Runner, where it takes some influence]. This is very predominant in Manga in general [the latest addition being Attack on Titan, in which the characters are Asian but with German names, or German with Asian names].

This is fairly common in Anime/Manga, where you can see that certain character have definitely an Asian semblance [the eyes] but most simply don't. The lead characters usually have round big eyes that is one of the traits of Caucasians.

This is also made to appeal to international viewers. .

Non-Sequitur

And they got backlash from that decision. While I agree that it was the better choice, you're always going to have someone on the other side of the fence.

The whole white-washing fiasco can be a little ridiculous, but can sometimes have merit.


Something that is the least offensive, but done due to the talents of the actress:




VS

Something pretty racist.



VS

What the hell were they thinking?




But hey, us white people aren't the only ones taking over roles!!!!!






So many people are offended by these two casting choices. But who cares. If it's good for the film, why be upset? It just so happens that both of those comic book movies stink.

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Yeah, the precious snowflakes got offended.

The first example you gave is actually pretty good. She does look like her.

The 2nd and 3rd are babies of their time. Racism was pretty damn heavy back then [plus all the international politics that involved]

The 4th is the slap in the face. So, the dude is black... and he is Miss Invisible Woman's brother.

It didn't really add anything to the dynamic of the characters or the story. So he's black, she's adopted.....okay. How does that play into the interactions of the characters? It doesn't. How does it play with race relations in the film? It doesn't. What does Jordan bring to the table for the character? He's young and we want to be diverse.

I get bringing in diversity, but shouldn't it be done with purpose for something? Not just to please the status quo? I'm assuming something on the next statement because the film hasn't been released yet, but in the new Alien: Covenant film, the crew explore the planet with the purpose of population. They are literally brought on the mission to create life. So why is there a gay couple? They can't reproduce. Bring them over with the next wave of people to start living there.

I feel like Hollywood have a set list of TO DO's now, so they seem progressive.

Have a gay character: Check - This is the most recent one. It's not a problem for me, it just sticks out like a sore thumb for some films, but more often television.

I fully agree with everything you said. There's a lot of "social politics" in Hollywood. The example you just gave of Alien Covenant is really glaring.

It makes no sense whatsoever to have a gay couple as colonists. They can maybe reproduce by donating sperm to the females, but logistically it's way too cumbersome.

[to be honest, the "human vegetation" and "who planted it" made no sense whatsoever as well; again it's Prometheus level of bad writing]

Female Ghostbusters is also a glaring example of SJW catering.

In most cases, if race or gender is not important to the character then I would just say it would be fair for the most talented actor or actress to get cast. If however, the character is meant to be say, an Afghan, I'd expect an actual Afghan to be cast. Since there are plenty of Afghan actors, it just doesn't make sense to me why he/she wouldn't get cast and for the role to go to a white guy instead. It just makes it a more accurate portrayal. Adding one black guy or one female or one POC character just to make a film seem more 'diverse' on the other hand feels stupid and insincere.

so in the olden days, it was cause everyone was racist, but today, we aren't racist enough?

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