6 ms·

> It’s quite clear that that is YOUR problem. It’s funny when people like yourself claim “I’m not X” while then clear laying the case. if you don't see a probl

> It’s quite clear that that is YOUR problem. It’s funny when people like yourself claim “I’m not X” while then clear laying the case. if you don't see a problem in changing someone else's literature and culture (I am Italian and have read Pinocchio since I was a kid) than you probably don't know what respect for different cultures is. I would never think of a movie were Kunta Kinte is Dutch and is portrait by Chris Hemsworth. Would you? Also: my favourite roman emperor is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septimius_Severus He was black. But in the small village in Tuscany of 1800 depicted in Pinocchio there were no black people, I can assure you.

keepper 4y ago
So you’re now equating a pseudo historical character with a children’s book? Oh brother… I was not born in Italy, but I am of Italian descent btw. Not sure why that matters, but it probably does to you :-/ Also, I guess you mean only true northern Italians can play the character lol why don’t you phrase it like that as well. See how absurd it sounds?
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > So you’re now equating a pseudo historical character with a children’s book? So you're not aware that Pinocchio is a metaphorical book about Italian society and the need for free, universal, public schools in Italy? > only true northern Italians "true northern Italians" do not exist. They are like any other Italian. It is absurd to think the contrary. Probably even "Italian" as a distinct ethnicity doesn't exist. Collodi is part of our culture, the blue fairy is part of our culture, we don't identify with her because she's white, but because she's good.
  - fttx_ 4y ago
    I think you're right. Italian is not an ethnicity. Italy hasn't been a unified political entity for very long. There are Italians from all sorts of different ethnicities and races. Would it be okay for a Black person to play this role if they were Italian? If not, why is it okay for non-Italian white actors to play other roles? Is a Corsican person Italian? Is an Italian-American? Is Mario Balotelli (for example)? Why does any of this matter?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
rendall 4y ago
Don't worry, it's not you. People who are quick to call someone racist are nearly always struggling internally with their own racism. To their credit they feel quite a lot of shame about that, but until it's resolved they can be quite unpleasant.
- burnished 4y ago
  Let me offer a different perspective: the complaint is inconsistent and solely focused on race, which makes it appear racist.
  - rendall 4y ago
    I think GP is not arguing his case well, especially not to Americans, who come with a preset cluster of expectations and arcane protocols to signal that we "get it". And, sure, anti-Black racism might be his prime motivation. But, just assuming it's so, when someone questions American appropriation of his own culture's literary traditions is ... it's frankly imperialist. "Americans agree: Italian who questions American depictions of Italian cultural traditions is just a bigot" Have a bit more charity.
    - mcphage 4y ago
      The only part of the depiction he’s complaining about is race, though.
      - rendall 4y ago
        Dunno. Ask. Listen. Be humble. Have a hypothesis and then do your best to falsify that. Give him all of the charity he needs to refute your guess that he's a bigot. "So you say that there is a convention in Italian literature of depicting other-worldly beings as having freakishly white skin. Would you be ok with the Pinocchio reboot if the same African-descended actress portrayed the fairy, but were instead made up with freakishly white skin?" If he doesn't refute your generous chances, then guess what? You found a bigot. Congratulations. If everyone were more parsimonious about it, calling someone a racist or white supremacist or a Nazi would actually have some meaning again. At this point it's just coming to mean "This person disagrees with me and I don't like it". Remember, these depictions are intended to be immersive. If some element reminds the watcher that they are watching a story, and they find it difficult to suspend their disbelief, they're not going to like it. That could mean an actor with clearly incorrect ancestry for the role. For example, in the real world, a rural village of people whose ancestors have been in the same region for hundreds or thousands of years are going to look a lot alike. This is why Finns do not look like Khoisan. Everyone knows this. No one has a problem with this. If your fantasy setting has human beings (or humanoid beings) living for generations together in a small rural village, and you just throw a bunch of different real-world ancestries in there, a Khoisan burgher and a Finnish tavern keeper, that's going to need some kind of explanation. Highlighting that as a problem isn't automagically racist. Maybe it's "magic world" and people there just have that kind of reproductive variability. Cool. Whatever it is, it needs a reason. But without that, it comes off as immersion-disrupting tokenism. So, no, I don't think "focusing on race" is an automatic signifier of racism.
treis 4y ago
>But in the small village in Tuscany of 1800 depicted in Pinocchio there were no black people, I can assure you. Probably not many English speakers either.
- wizofaus 4y ago
  Or fairies. Or talking puppets.
brobinson 4y ago
>He was black. A quick search shows results saying his ancestors were all from northern Africa and the Middle East. He doesn't even look black in various busts/statues depicting him. He definitely looks north African. I'm pretty into Roman history, and this is the first time I've ever encountered someone suggesting there was a "black" (in the modern sense of the word) emperor.
- Amezarak 4y ago
  Not commenting on Severus specifically, I’ve noticed that it seems really common in modern times for some reason for people to believe “white” means European, even though “white” people lived indigenously throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia - including people with blue eyes or red/blonde hair. Similarly, “African” is for some reason taken to exclusively mean “sub-Saharan” even though as you note most people would not identify most North African ethnic groups as black.
tzs 4y ago
> I would never think of a movie were Kunta Kinte is Dutch and is portrait by Chris Hemsworth Kunta Kinte was a slave in a story that heavily dealt with slavery, set in a time and setting where slavery was race-based, for an audience somewhat familiar with the history of that time and setting. If you made him Dutch and portrayed by Chris Hemsworth you'd have to include in your movie all kinds of extra exposition and world building to set the background for the story. Most of the race changes people have mentioned so far did not involve characters where their race was either important to the story or to reducing the amount of exposition and world building you need to convey the story's context to the audience.
- peoplefromibiza 4y ago
  > did not involve characters where their race was either important to I think the appearances of a character is quite important if the author took the time to describe it, don't you think? Would a Little women adaptation where the three women are two trans gender people, one Black, one Asian and one South American person that identifies as woman, be a good idea? We all know what "Little women" is about, we all expect that, not something else completely unrelated to the original IP. Why isn't Jay Gatsby black in the movies and only black people in the book are also black in the movie? Want my opinion? People are making a big fuss about the ethnicity of actors, but I'm more inclined to think that Disney's worried about another failure like Tim Burton's Dumbo (the original Dumbo is considered unacceptable by today's standards and people staid away from the new one) and is playing it safe with a story (Pinocchio) that has no such bad legacy attached. it's so safe that there's even a "project Pinocchio" in my country against racism in schools. > If you made him Dutch and portrayed by Chris Hemsworth you'd have to include in your movie all kinds of extra exposition and world building to set the background for the story. That's exactly my point. A black fairy is not an issue because she is black, but because it's a plot hole that the original story don't have.
  - pvaldes 4y ago
    The black bald fairy is just a stunt to create fake controversy, to sell tickets. And if any children read this, let me tell you that either you run to ask money to your parents and go to itchy and scratchy land, or you are a bunch of little racists. You are warned. Gimme money.
nec4b 4y ago
Septimius Severus was not black. He may had darker skin, but was not sub Saharan black.

keepper 4y ago

So you’re now equating a pseudo historical character with a children’s book? Oh brother… I was not born in Italy, but I am of Italian descent btw. Not sure why that matters, but it probably does to you :-/ Also, I guess you mean only true northern Italians can play the character lol why don’t you phrase it like that as well. See how absurd it sounds?

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> So you’re now equating a pseudo historical character with a children’s book? So you're not aware that Pinocchio is a metaphorical book about Italian society and the need for free, universal, public schools in Italy? > only true northern Italians "true northern Italians" do not exist. They are like any other Italian. It is absurd to think the contrary. Probably even "Italian" as a distinct ethnicity doesn't exist. Collodi is part of our culture, the blue fairy is part of our culture, we don't identify with her because she's white, but because she's good.
- fttx_ 4y ago
  I think you're right. Italian is not an ethnicity. Italy hasn't been a unified political entity for very long. There are Italians from all sorts of different ethnicities and races. Would it be okay for a Black person to play this role if they were Italian? If not, why is it okay for non-Italian white actors to play other roles? Is a Corsican person Italian? Is an Italian-American? Is Mario Balotelli (for example)? Why does any of this matter?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - LawTalkingGuy 4y ago
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

rendall 4y ago

Don't worry, it's not you. People who are quick to call someone racist are nearly always struggling internally with their own racism. To their credit they feel quite a lot of shame about that, but until it's resolved they can be quite unpleasant.

burnished 4y ago
Let me offer a different perspective: the complaint is inconsistent and solely focused on race, which makes it appear racist.
- rendall 4y ago
  I think GP is not arguing his case well, especially not to Americans, who come with a preset cluster of expectations and arcane protocols to signal that we "get it". And, sure, anti-Black racism might be his prime motivation. But, just assuming it's so, when someone questions American appropriation of his own culture's literary traditions is ... it's frankly imperialist. "Americans agree: Italian who questions American depictions of Italian cultural traditions is just a bigot" Have a bit more charity.
  - mcphage 4y ago
    The only part of the depiction he’s complaining about is race, though.
    - rendall 4y ago
      Dunno. Ask. Listen. Be humble. Have a hypothesis and then do your best to falsify that. Give him all of the charity he needs to refute your guess that he's a bigot. "So you say that there is a convention in Italian literature of depicting other-worldly beings as having freakishly white skin. Would you be ok with the Pinocchio reboot if the same African-descended actress portrayed the fairy, but were instead made up with freakishly white skin?" If he doesn't refute your generous chances, then guess what? You found a bigot. Congratulations. If everyone were more parsimonious about it, calling someone a racist or white supremacist or a Nazi would actually have some meaning again. At this point it's just coming to mean "This person disagrees with me and I don't like it". Remember, these depictions are intended to be immersive. If some element reminds the watcher that they are watching a story, and they find it difficult to suspend their disbelief, they're not going to like it. That could mean an actor with clearly incorrect ancestry for the role. For example, in the real world, a rural village of people whose ancestors have been in the same region for hundreds or thousands of years are going to look a lot alike. This is why Finns do not look like Khoisan. Everyone knows this. No one has a problem with this. If your fantasy setting has human beings (or humanoid beings) living for generations together in a small rural village, and you just throw a bunch of different real-world ancestries in there, a Khoisan burgher and a Finnish tavern keeper, that's going to need some kind of explanation. Highlighting that as a problem isn't automagically racist. Maybe it's "magic world" and people there just have that kind of reproductive variability. Cool. Whatever it is, it needs a reason. But without that, it comes off as immersion-disrupting tokenism. So, no, I don't think "focusing on race" is an automatic signifier of racism.

treis 4y ago

>But in the small village in Tuscany of 1800 depicted in Pinocchio there were no black people, I can assure you. Probably not many English speakers either.

wizofaus 4y ago
Or fairies. Or talking puppets.

brobinson 4y ago

>He was black. A quick search shows results saying his ancestors were all from northern Africa and the Middle East. He doesn't even look black in various busts/statues depicting him. He definitely looks north African. I'm pretty into Roman history, and this is the first time I've ever encountered someone suggesting there was a "black" (in the modern sense of the word) emperor.

Amezarak 4y ago
Not commenting on Severus specifically, I’ve noticed that it seems really common in modern times for some reason for people to believe “white” means European, even though “white” people lived indigenously throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia - including people with blue eyes or red/blonde hair. Similarly, “African” is for some reason taken to exclusively mean “sub-Saharan” even though as you note most people would not identify most North African ethnic groups as black.

tzs 4y ago

> I would never think of a movie were Kunta Kinte is Dutch and is portrait by Chris Hemsworth Kunta Kinte was a slave in a story that heavily dealt with slavery, set in a time and setting where slavery was race-based, for an audience somewhat familiar with the history of that time and setting. If you made him Dutch and portrayed by Chris Hemsworth you'd have to include in your movie all kinds of extra exposition and world building to set the background for the story. Most of the race changes people have mentioned so far did not involve characters where their race was either important to the story or to reducing the amount of exposition and world building you need to convey the story's context to the audience.

peoplefromibiza 4y ago
> did not involve characters where their race was either important to I think the appearances of a character is quite important if the author took the time to describe it, don't you think? Would a Little women adaptation where the three women are two trans gender people, one Black, one Asian and one South American person that identifies as woman, be a good idea? We all know what "Little women" is about, we all expect that, not something else completely unrelated to the original IP. Why isn't Jay Gatsby black in the movies and only black people in the book are also black in the movie? Want my opinion? People are making a big fuss about the ethnicity of actors, but I'm more inclined to think that Disney's worried about another failure like Tim Burton's Dumbo (the original Dumbo is considered unacceptable by today's standards and people staid away from the new one) and is playing it safe with a story (Pinocchio) that has no such bad legacy attached. it's so safe that there's even a "project Pinocchio" in my country against racism in schools. > If you made him Dutch and portrayed by Chris Hemsworth you'd have to include in your movie all kinds of extra exposition and world building to set the background for the story. That's exactly my point. A black fairy is not an issue because she is black, but because it's a plot hole that the original story don't have.
- pvaldes 4y ago
  The black bald fairy is just a stunt to create fake controversy, to sell tickets. And if any children read this, let me tell you that either you run to ask money to your parents and go to itchy and scratchy land, or you are a bunch of little racists. You are warned. Gimme money.

nec4b 4y ago

Septimius Severus was not black. He may had darker skin, but was not sub Saharan black.