Volume 1, Issue 74, June 22, 2010: Racist Casting in Hollywood

I've been having my issues with Hollywood lately. More and more each day I grow to detest them. Not only do they make shitty remakes, but their colorblind casting is deplorable. I heard today that Angelina Jolie was being casted as Cleopatra in an upcoming Cleopatra biopic. I really like Angelina Jolie but this bothers me. This isn't the second time that she has been casted like this.

Racism is over my ass!

Jolie played Marianne Pearl who is real life was a biracial woman in the movie "A Mighty Heart".  They basically gave her a bad tan, crusty cheap curly wig so she can play Pearl. I don't give a shit how full Jolie's lips are, she's white end of story and her lips don't give her a pass to play a Black character. Why go through all that trouble trying to make a White woman Black when you can find a biracial or fair skinned Black actress who could have easily played Marlene Pearl? Does Thandi Newton ring a bell?

On the topic of Cleopatra. I'm so tired of people thinking that she is white. Cleopatra VII(69 BC-August 12, 30 BC) was the last ruler of Egypt and she was apart of the Ptolemaic Dynasty. The Ptolemy's ruled Egypt 300 years prior to Cleopatra's birth; Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great and the Macedonians. When Alexander died, his generals, including Ptolemy I, divided up his conquered lands and they each ruled a province. Cleopatra VII was the daughter of Ptolemy XII, the identity of her mother is unknown. Her sisters and brothers all shared the same father but had different mothers who were unknown to history. The remains and tomb of Arsinoe IV, Ptolemy's youngest daughter and Cleopatra's half-sister, is only proof of how the Ptolemy's looked. The researchers who found her say that her skull shows an admixture of Black African/Egyptian and Macedonian Greek facial features.

Cleopatra VII wasn't a White woman. Sorry Hollywood, you can't win with your Mighty Whitey propaganda this time.

This is how Cleopatra and Arsinoe possibly looked.

This is how Hollywood wants Cleopatra to look.

There are some other notable and recent cases of the whites casts as minorities are DBZ, The Prince of Persia and Avatar: The Last Airbender. I previously wrote about DBZ and all of the problems I had with the American adaptation of it. One of the big flaws of the film is Goku being played by white actor Justin Chadwin in the Dragonball Evolution film, when we all know damn well that Goku is clearly Asian.

Avatar the Last Airbender(not to be confused with James Cameron's Avatar) is a live adaptation of the Anime Avatar. It's being directed by M. Night Shamaylan. Already it sounds bad but here's where it get worst. The original anime series, which I love,  follows the main protagonist Aang and his friends Katara and Sokka who must save the world by defeating the destructive Fire Nation. The Avatar series is heavily influenced by Japanese, Chinese, Indian and Native American cultures; the series contains many references to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shamanism.

The heroes of the story are Aang, Katara, and Sukko. Aang is an airbender(possibly Tibetan?) and Katara/Sukko are from the Inuit/Eskimo inspired water bender tribe. The villains are the Fire Nation who are Chinese/Japanese including Prince Zuko and his sister Princess Azula. But in the live action movie, Kara and Souka are turned into WASPy Abercrombie-like teenagers and Zuko is turned into the Indian from Slumdog Millionaire? M. Night Shamalayan should be ashamed of himself. He is an Indian American and he should know the troubles that minorties face in Hollywood with the limited roles and oppurtunies. Why isn't he doing anything about this? This is his movie after all. SMDH.

Ahh, good ol' Hollywood racism.SMDH

I love how Hollywood tries so hard to be liberal and open-minded when they are neither. They are racist, out of touch and they like to promote propaganda. I'm tired of Asians, Latinos, Blacks and Native Americans being stereotyped and blacklisted from Hollywood. I'm sick of Asian men being only in martial arts movies, playing the villains, and never getting the love interest/sex scene. I'm sick of Black women having to act out ghetto streotypes and as jezebels in movies to get an Oscar nomination.

I'm sick of Latino men and Black men playing thugs and hustlers. I'm sick of Latinas having to be Mestizo to get some work in Hollywood; Hollywood likes to make its viewers believe that Alexis Biedel and Zoe Saldana aren't Latinas because of their skin color. I'm tired of Asian women having to play sluts, dragon ladys and submissive geishas. I'm sick of Whites trying to pass for Native Americans. I'm sick of them casting the usual tokens like Halle Berry, Lucy Liu, etc in everything and anything while ignoring the lesser know and more talented minority actors.I'm sick of them being afraid to portray interracial romances; and it the do it's always between a white person and a person of color. Never two people of color from two different races. I'm sick of movies that have a minority characters in need of a "Mighty White" savior. I'm just sick of it all. That's why I prefer foregin films. The American film industry is still stuck in the 1950s.

Volume 1, Issues 67, June 3, 2010: Where Did All The Supermodels Go?

I've been meaning to write about this issue that has been infecting the fashion industry for at least a decade. When I look at the covers and the contents of fashion industry magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Lucky, Teen Vogue, and Elle Girl, I feel nothing but disappointment. They have some ads from the top designers, very little coverages of special events, fashion shows, trunks shows, lackluster editorials, and the most disheartening thing of it all is, they always have a actress, a singer, or any celebrity. Why? What happened to all the supermodels?

Once upon of time, in a magical kingdom called the 1990s, fashion magazines actually featured models on their cover, such as Naomi Campbell, Veronica Webb, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, etc. You learned about their backgrounds, upbringings, their projects, etc. When I look at the magazines today, its full of singers, actresses trying to model. Most of these actresses have enough press and media coverage already as it is. It's a rare opportunity to see supermodels on the cover of Vogue, Elle, or any other high profile fashion magazine. If they ever do they feature a model on the cover it's always Giselle Budenchen, who is past her prime, overrated and boring. I think its very unfair to the majority of models trying to break it in the industry.

  

Models face fierce competition, body image issues, racism, and low pay. Now they have to compete with these outsiders for photo shoots, ad campaigns, and covers. What happened to singers just being singers? Actresses just being actresses, and models just being models? Seriously, why do celebrities think they can do anything just because they have some fame? Most of the actresses/singers who have appeared in the magazines aren't even fresh either, it's like you see the same person on the magazine all the time. Some examples of this: Keira Knightly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Blake Lively, Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Gardner, Sienna Miller(What is her appeal?), Nicole Kidman, Rihanna and her forehead, Beyonce, Miley Cyrus(why God? why?), Kristen Stewart, any other overrated actress/pop star who wants to model.

It's bad enough that we have to see these women on TV and movies all the time. Now I have to read about them in fashion magazines. Some of them can't dress for their life(Beyonce with her ugly mermaid pageant dresses and Kristen Stewart with her coke whore chic). I miss the days when I could name models by just looking at them on paper. This is why there are very few opportunities for models of color also, actresses/pop stars are snatching all of their jobs. These are models who deserve to be on the cover for once, Jordann Dunn, Chanel Iman, Emanuela de Paule, Sessilee Lopez, Du Juan, Crystal Renn, Ling Tan, Ai Tominaga, Juliana Imai, Coco Rocha, etc.