"Casting of white actor as Martin Luther King prompts outrage"

[ItachiZaku]

If Jesus can be played by white dudes, why can't Martin Luther the King?

[Adamas102]

If Jesus can be played by white dudes, why can't Martin Luther the King?

Good job! Now this thread will be about whether or not Jesus (as portrayed in biblical literature) was a historical figure.

[Uzkin]

I don't recall examples of black people being cast as historically-existing white people. Obviously, you have some in mind?

The Marshal of Finland (2012):

Mannerheim served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War, Regent of Finland (1918–1919), commander-in-chief of Finland's defence forces during World War II, Marshal of Finland, and the sixth president of Finland (1944–1946). In a Finnish survey 53 years after his death, Mannerheim was voted the greatest Finn of all time.

[sarahtasher]

stromtroopers don't have a set race, there's no need to be upset over their race being different. the clones had mostly died out by the time of 4, 5, and 6 and they recruited new instead of cloning more.

Confirmed as canon in Rebels, where old clones (one of them either suffering from SWish Alzheimer, dementia, or too many blows to the head) live in retirement.

- - - Updated - - -

Do people complain that much when Ralph Fiennes play Coriolanus Yugoslavian civil war style instead of putting people in togas ?

[Drutt]

It's interesting that the director went this route.

It's worth noting first that the director is black. That's a fairly important item to note, because anyone knee-jerking "racism" is accusing the director of being racially prejudiced against himself.

It's also worth noting that he didn't cast a white actor as Martin Luther King. He cast a black actor AND a white actor as Martin Luther King.

King's message was essentially that we're all the same and skin colour isn't important. A director decides to explore that theme in a play and run with two lead actors of different races, and some people lost their minds.

If anything, it just proves MLK's message is more relevant than ever in the modern world. People are still looking at skin colour as "us and them", instead of "person". If we're truly taking MLK's messages to heart and if our society is truly over such things, no one would bat an eyelid. Instead, you get militant outrage.

[AndaliteBandit]

The Marshal of Finland (2012):

2.5 stars out of 10, sounds like we should be holding that movie up as an example of what not to do.

[Independent voter]

Here's the director who cast the white dude as Othello.

Why he’s interesting … Oatman’s play Eclipse: The War Between Pac and B.I.G., about Tupac Shakur’s rivalry with fellow rapper Biggie Smalls, will be produced in March and April at Karamu House, where Oatman is playwright-in-residence. He has reported on the AIDS crisis in Africa for the Botswana Gazette and been featured in NPR’s essay series This I Believe.

Why Tupac? … “He can make a song like ‘Brenda’s Got A Baby,’ which is a very sympathetic song that takes the headline of a girl throwing her baby in the trash and backtracks to let you know how she got there, or he can be in a pool somewhere with strippers,” Oatman says. He’s “a tragic figure: He sowed the seeds of his own destruction.”

Reporting in Botswana … During Oatman’s internship in Africa, he interviewed a morgue worker who stacked the bodies of AIDS victims and chronicled the bar scene where young Botswanans hooked up for unprotected sex.

How he got into writing … He wrote a poem about a girl he liked in high school. His mother responded by buying him an electric typewriter.

[the game]

Maybe they could just have the actor where a helmet the whole movie. Then it wouldn't matter what color he is.

[satimy]

Good now you assholes know how I feel about blacktastic 4 and Mexican Spider-Man. Eat it

[Masoner]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2...sity?CMP=fb_gu

Casting of white actor as Martin Luther King prompts outrage from playwright

"The casting of a white actor as Martin Luther King in an Ohio university production of Katori Hall’s acclaimed play The Mountaintop was “a disservice to not just Dr King but an entire community”, the playwright has said.

Hall wrote an essay for the African American cultural website the Root on Monday about Kent State University’s production of her play, which dramatizes the night before King was assassinated in 1968.

Hall told the Guardian that director Michael Oatman’s decision to double-cast the six-show production with a black actor and a white actor as King went “deeper than just casting a white man in the role of MLK”.

“I just really feel as though it echoes this pervasive erasure of the black body and the silencing of a black community – theatrically and also, literally, in the world,” she said.

Oatman, who like Hall is black, said in a statement in August promoting the play that he chose a white actor for the production “to explore the issue of racial ownership and authenticity”.

“I didn’t want this to be a stunt, but a true exploration of King’s wish that we all be judged by the content of our character and not the color of our skin,” Oatman said. “I wanted the contrast … I wanted to see how the words rang differently or indeed the same, coming from two different actors, with two different racial backgrounds.”"

“With a playwright’s intention being dangerously distorted, Oatman’s experiment proved to be a self-serving and disrespectful directing exercise for a paying audience,” Hall wrote.

Since the Kent State University production ran, Hall has adjusted The Mountaintop’s licensing agreement to say: “Both characters are intended to be played by actors who are African-American or Black. Any other casting choice requires the prior approval of the author.”

People are afraid of reality and open dialogue.

- - - Updated - - -

Maybe they could just have the actor where a helmet the whole movie. Then it wouldn't matter what color he is.

Another way to look @ this is that Black people (this generation) have been brought up to idolize MLK. To them he literally is a god (Jesus).

[sarahtasher]

Reality and dialogue ?

You mean screeching ''SJW dumb ! SJW stupid ! and shouting ''ugly lesbian'' or ''beta'' when someone reply ?