You're being specious here. Productions don't just HAPPEN - they're made, BY PEOPLE. The only way a production these days would be all-white is if there's 1. a very good reason for it (like idk, it's about actual Nazis or something) 2. someone somewhere MADE DECISIONS that led to it, in which case they are very much responsible and very much culpable.
You're portraying this as though there were some kind of random force at play that just somehow, without anyone noticing or interfering, conspired to coincidentally make something all-white. That's not how it works.
I don't know a very good reason for an ALL-WHITE cast, either. It's easiest for smaller productions with few actors (though of course it's also very difficult to be diverse with VERY few actors, I don't think anyone would argue diversity in a 2-person show for example). And you'd need a story in which those people being white MATTERS. Hence my Nazi example above - though it's not the only possibility, of course. But sure: if you HAVE a good reason for restricting things to white people, I'm all for it. There aren't many such good reasons and not many stories where that's even remotely defensible, but it's far from impossible. For sure.
You're mixing up things.
Nobody is saying stories need to reflect reality. The reason people want more diversity isn't so stories look exactly like the real world. It's so we stop discriminating against people based on criteria that shouldn't matter, like skin color. It has nothing to do with trying to make stories match reality, and everything to do with trying to become better human beings. Diversity in cultural production matters because it helps us achieve that goal, by normalizing the irrelevance of things like skin color in areas where it shouldn't matter. Culture informs society, and vice versa.
Again, and as I've been saying constantly: if you have a GOOD REASON to restrict casting to certain ethnicities, that's fine. I'm only talking about productions where you DON'T have a good reason.
Casting a black person to play MLK, say, usually has a good reason behind it, because the character is almost inextricably associated with issues of skin color. But for most fictional characters, that's just not the same, and skin color - if it's even mentioned - is little more than a cosmetic detail like many others.
If you're excluding people of a particular skin color for NO good reason? Then that's racist for sure. Almost by definition, I'd say.
Nobody said everyone agrees with it. I don't even think it's relevant. What matters is do we have good reason to do something, not how popular it is. Many things weren't or aren't popular and we do them anyway because we know there's good reasons to do them; and those reasons are, of course, subject to constant revision and critical examination, and to change if and when it's warranted.
If we only ever did the most popular thing, not only would we end up with a colossal mess on our hands, we'd also be systematically oppressing minority positions just because they're minorities.
You think letting women vote or giving black people civil rights was universally POPULAR at the time? You think that should only have been done if and where it was POPULAR to do so?
Argumentum ad populum is a very prominent logical fallacy.
Don't portray this as an issue of freedom, pal.
You're FREE to make any kind of adaptation you wish. And we're FREE to criticize it.
Nobody is saying "you're not allowed to not have black people in this!", we're saying "if you choose to exclude black people, we want to know why - and if you don't have a good reason, we're pretty sure you're a racist".
The audacity of trying to portray this as some kind of issue of FREEDOM as though people were being persecuted just for having innocent beliefs that just happen to exclude black people is staggering, and quite frankly, a little insulting.
I don't really care. I can't speak for other people. I'm explaining myself as best I can, if other people play it fast and loose and make bad arguments or make good arguments in a bad way, that's on them. Everyone should be careful to express themselves properly in a debate, and observe the principles of reason and logic when they state their positions - the fact that sometimes people don't do that doesn't mean their points don't have merit, it just means some people make their points badly. Which goes for both good points AND bad points.
Yes, the correct way. "ALL THOSE WHO" already makes it very clear that this applies only to a SUBSET of people, and NOT to "anyone", like you claim.
Read better.
That depends on the details.
I don't consider them good reasons IN AND OF THEMSELVES. Just because something is set in, idk, Roman-time Germania doesn't mean all the actors have to be white. Would it be historically accurate to have black warriors in a Germanic tribe? No. Neither would it be accurate to have people exceedingly tall, or of particular hair styles or colors, or with Hollywood-perfect teeth or skin. But somehow we don't care about all the other things and suddenly DO care about skin color? Please.
It's called suspension of disbelief. Fiction operates on it in its entirety.
The same caveat as before applies, of course: if somehow the skin color IS relevant for some narrative reason, things are different. That could or could not be the case in the above example, depending on the particulars of that narrative. I'm talking about the principle of the thing.
I don't know. That depends on the case in question. If they bring good arguments, I'm happy to engage with them. If they're not bringing good arguments but belligerently insisting that everyone must be white anyway, certain conclusions seem to suggest themselves.
That's a tautology. "They're white in the book therefore they must be white in the film" doesn't hold water on its own, because there's a gazillion details you can pick out that are different from the book but don't matter and nobody is objecting to them. Which means you need MORE than just "it's not like it is in the book", because if that was your ONLY justification, then NO adaptation EVER would be acceptable. And that's clearly not the case.
No. You just didn't read it properly (again? geez, dude)
It says the reason: "because the PJ movies didn't have black dwarves".
If you have OTHER reasons, then that's not the statement I was talking about. Bring other reasons, and we can discuss those - I only discussed black dwarves being the reason. My whole point is that it's racist IF you DON'T have other (good) reasons.
Thanks, I guess, for proving once again that my 'the only three reasons people ever really give' still holds true. "It's not like it is in the book!" "Previous films didn't have black people!"
Would you like to add "Black people just don't, uh... fit..." and make it the full trifecta?
They're free to like whatever they want.
But if they like it specifically BECAUSE IT HAS NO BLACK PEOPLE IN IT, that's, well, racist. Doesn't mean they're not allowed to like it. Just means they're being kinda racist there.
I've explained many times why "It's not like the original!" is a circular, tautological argument. You're free to still use it, of course; nothing says you have to use good arguments. Just means people will engage with you accordingly.
And perhaps there's a need here to go a little bit deeper into yourself and find out why, exactly, skin color stands out as the deal breaker for you when it comes to accuracy to the text. I'll leave that to your personal introspection.
Nor does it change the fact that "some people don't like it" doesn't really matter to me on its own. I want to know reasons and justifications, not preferences. Preferences are cool and all, have them at your leisure, they just don't really do much in a debate. "I like vanilla ice cream, and I don't like chocolate". Cool. I guess. Now what? There's no engaging with that. And it also doesn't lead to "more people like vanilla than chocolate, therefore let's just stop making chocolate completely" being a remotely reasonable general position.
Oof. It's been a while since I've had an ironygasm.
As a matter of fact, I've done a lot more than that. I've asked for SPECIFIC reasons, and concluded the likelihood of them being racist or not based on those reasons. Not based on the initial statement or position alone, except in egregious cases (some people really don't even try to couch their attitude in distractions).
Are you deliberately misunderstanding this? I'm talking about cases where there is an objection based on skin color. Don't be obtuse.