Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,623
edits
Race Lift: Difference between revisions
→Film: copyedits, added example
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (boldface on title drop) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (→Film: copyedits, added example) |
||
Line 227:
=== Film ===
*
* Ming the Merciless, a [[Fu Manchu]]-style [[Yellow Peril]] villain in the original ''[[Flash Gordon (comic strip)|Flash Gordon]]'' comics and serials, was played by Max von Sydow in [[Flash Gordon (film)|the 1980 movie]], although he was still obviously meant to be Asian (or rather a [[Human Alien]] with a European-looking daughter). They attempted to distance Ming from his roots by casting the white, non-mustachioed, full-haired John Ralston in [[Flash Gordon (TV series)|the 2007 TV series]]. It ''really'' [[Dork Age|doesn't work]].
* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] had Juan "Johnnie" Rico in ''[[Starship Troopers]]'' being a Filipino. Paul Verhoeven turned him into pretty white boy Caspar Van Dien, with the same ironic sensibility that made him cast actors pushing 30 as the supposedly high school age leads. There was all of one line mentioning his race, so book covers and adaptations- including anime adaptation by Sunrise- nearly always get it wrong. Heinlein liked making minority characters with all of one line mentioning their race in general, including ''[[The Cat Who Walks Through Walls]]'', ''[[The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress]]'', ''[[Friday (novel)|Friday]]'', and ''[[Tunnel in the Sky]]''.
* The African-American hero of David Gerrold's ''Dingilliad'' trilogy is depicted on all three covers as a blond Caucasian. This also happened with the principal guest character in at least one edition of Gerrold's ''[[Star Trek]]'' novel ''The Galactic Whirlpool''.
* [[Steven Spielberg]]'s
* The book ''Bringing Down the House'' is about how the mostly Asian-American MIT Blackjack Team counted cards to rack in big cash at casinos. Of course, its film adaptation ''[[21 (2008 film)|
* [http://veejane.livejournal.com/385338.html Brit Johnson], a famous black scout in the old west was in many Westerns in the 40s and 50s... played exclusively by white men. Many of "hanging judge" Parker's "catchers" were black (often with some Cherokee blood too), including the most famous. One movie version gave him a black bailiff, that was as close as Hollywood got.
* The [[Development Hell|long-stalled]] film adaptation of ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' would reportedly have had the mostly-Japanese cast of the original series changed to white people. For instance, official concept art had Asuka Soryu and Misato Katsuragi changed to "Kate Rose" and "Susan Whitnall" respectively.
* In ''A Mighty Heart'', Angelina Jolie plays the role of real-life Afro-Chinese-Cuban/Dutch-Jew reporter Mariane Pearl. The casting was criticized in some circles, though the character's race wasn't changed for the film and Jolie's skin tone actually does resemble the real person.
* Angelina Jolie plays Fox in ''[[Wanted]]'', a character visually modeled after Halle Berry.
Line 240:
* ''13'', the English-language remake of French thriller ''13 Tzameti'' changes the location from France to England and changes the main character from an ethnic minority for his homeland (Georgian) to a standard Englishman. This is a rare case of a Caucasian character (from Caucasia) being changed to a Caucasian (white) character.
* When the movie ''[[Pay It Forward]]'' was adapted from the book of the same name, the hideously scarred black teacher Reuben St. Clair becomes hideously scarred white teacher Eugene Simonet (played by Kevin Spacey). They couldn't get Denzel Washington for the part, so they had to change the character.
* In the
* The Western ''Ulzana's Raid'' originally intended a Native American scout, Ke-Ni-Tay, to be the main character, albeit played by a "blacked-up" Jorge Luke. In a case of [[Executive Meddling]], a white scout played by Burt Lanchaster became the lead and Ke-Ni-Tay was grudgingly reduced to a support character.
* A [[Live Action Adaptation]] of the indie comic book ''[[The Weapon]]'' has recently been announced, and the hero of the book named Tommy Zhou has been cast. The actor they chose? David Henrie. Yes, ''[[Wizards of Waverly Place]]'' David Henrie.
* In [[Arthur C. Clarke]]'s novel ''[[2010: The Year We Make Contact]]'', the scientist responsible for the HAL 9000, Dr. Sivasubramanian Chandrasegarampillai—or Dr. Chandra—is from India. In the film version, he's Bob Balaban. But still named Dr. Chandra.
* The movie version of ''[[A Beautiful Mind]]'' turns John Nash's wife, a Hispanic woman (albeit quite pale) named Alicia, into an Anglo woman named Alice played by Jennifer Connolly.
* The movie ''Stuck'' was based on the [http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/06/27/windshield.death/index.html?iref=allsearch horrific incident of Chante Mallard hitting a homeless man with her car, and leaving him to die trapped in her windshield.] The movie casts white Mena Suvari as Chante, despite Chante being African-American. What's worse is that they give her cornrows in order portray her better. You could say that this is a case of [[Political Correctness Gone Mad]] as to not portray a black woman in a negative light, but ''cornrows?!''
* In the film version of [[George R. R. Martin]]'s short story "Nightflyers", Melantha Jhirl (renamed Miranda in the film), who is described as having coal-black skin, is played by [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0829252/ Catherine Mary Stewart].
* All of [[Disney]]'s ''[[Escape to Witch Mountain|Witch Mountain]]'' movies demonstrate a rather subtle form of this trope. In the original novel ''[[Escape to Witch Mountain]]'' by Alexander Key, Tony and Tia are described as appearing Latin or Mediterranean, with olive skin, dark eyes and dark hair. However, in all of the films Disney has made using this property, the aliens (children and adults alike) have been turned into blonde, blue-eyed Aryan stereotypes.
** This could have possibly been a riff on ''[[The Midwich Cuckoos]]''. But it probably wasn't; Disney didn't do that kind of pop culture reference in the 1970s.
* Averted with ''[[Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle]]''. Director Danny Leiner was well aware of Hollywood's tendency to shy away from Asian leads and originally feared that "Harold and Kumar" would turn into "Joe and Dave Go To McDonald's".
* While the American version of ''[[The Grudge]]'' is still set in Tokyo, it changes most of the main characters into white people.
* The live-action [[The King of Fighters (film)|''King of Fighters'' movie]] isn't very good for a whole host of reasons, but one of the most jarring issues is that Kyo Kusanagi - the most popular character in the series in Japan - is played by a guy who is as white as the driven snow. His father - explicitly his ''biological father'' - is played by a Japanese guy. It's made even worse by the fact that all the flashbacks have the character being played by a young Asian boy. A half-hearted attempt is made to explain this with Iori insulting Kyo as a "half-breed", which [[The Spoony Experiment]] mocked with "yeah, half white and the other half white!".
* The film adaptation of ''[[The Hunger Games]]'' has some possible examples.
** In the books, Katniss's race is never made explicit. She has "olive" skin, and her mother and sister are fair-skinned, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. In the film, she's played by Jennifer Lawrence, who does not have what would be considered "olive" skin. Several international covers, [https://web.archive.org/web/20130619001439/http://www.wondrousreads.com/2009/02/us-vs-uk-hunger-games-cover.html including the original UK version], show an apparently Caucasian girl.
Line 258:
* The live-action ''[[Tekken]]'' film had Brazilian Christie played by white Kelly Overton. When she was cast, cue dozens of internet arguments claiming that Christie was really black, Hispanic or even Asian ethnicity. In what may count as an inversion, the Irish Anna Williams was played by a Spanish actress but Anna's background is never stated.
* The film ''[[Extraordinary Measures]]'' stars [[Harrison Ford]] as Dr. Robert Stonehill, who cured Pompe disease. The scientist who actually cured the disease was Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen. The real Dr. Chen did not wish to be fictionalized, but that still doesn't explain why they needed to change the character's race.
* Ben Affleck
* In ''[[Mortal Kombat (film)|Mortal Kombat]]'' Rayden is curiously white for an Asian deity. Likewise, Kano went from half-Japanese to Australian background. Trevor Goddard's performance eventually caused Midway to [[Retcon]] him into being Australian.
** It's helpful to remember that Rayden is a god, not a human, and thus is not bound by cosmetic appearances. And since in the film he is the mentor to a team that is two-thirds white, [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|it is understandable that in-universe Rayden would look like Christopher Lambert]].
** Interestingly, Trevor Goddard is actually English, and spent most of his career claiming to have Australian ancestry and putting on a (poor) imitation accent in the belief that this would land him more roles. To this troper Kano's admitedly hard-to-place voice sounds more east-end gangster than Australian. This means that video game Kano's subsequent race lift was pretty baseless.
* The 2006 film adaptation of ''[[Dead or Alive]]'', ''[[DOA: Dead or Alive]]'', had the Japanese Kasumi and Ayane played by the half-Japanese Devon Aoki and the white Natassia Malthe respectively. Strangely, this applied only to them: Ryu Hayabusa and Hayate were played by the half-Japanese half-Chinese Kane Kosugi and the Taiwanese Collin Chou.
** Malthe is in fact half-Malaysian. It's just very hard to tell, especially with her very European-sounding name.
* ''[[Hachi: A Dog's Story]]'' is an American remake of ''Hachikō Monogatari'', in turn based on the story of [[Hachiko|the real Akita dog named Hachiko]]. The movie is moved from
* In the film adaption of ''[[Spawn]]'' in 1997, the man Al Simmons'(Spawn) wife remarried was changed from a black man to a white man. Apparently it was felt that there were far too many African Americans in the original comic, and on screen it would turn the film into a "black movie".
* In ''[[Rising Sun]]'', Wesley Snipes's character is white in the books. The murderer is {{spoiler|changed from Japanese to white.}}
* In ''[[The Dark Knight Saga|The Dark Knight Rises]]'', [[Big Bad]] Bane, half-British and half-Hispanic <ref>British father and Santa Priscan mother, born and raised in a ''high-security prison'' in Santa Prisca, a Spanish-colonized Caribbean island. The trait is important to the character but not established in his first appearance.</ref> in the comics, is played by Brit Tom Hardy. Hardy's features and accent are ambiguous and distorted, and some his actions take place in South America, so his race could go any which way, if it becomes an issue at all.
* In the process of adapting ''[[30 Days of Night]]'', not only were the paunchy, late-thirties, happily married main couple made buff, mid-twenties, and sexily divorced; the Native American Eben Olemaun became the white Eben Oleson.
* Applied to the ''marketing'' of the [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] film ''[[Black Panther (film)|Black Panther]]'' in mainland China: Everything possible was done to obscure the simple fact that most of the cast was black in the posters and other promotional materials, because rampant prejudice among Chinese movie-goers would have sunk the film otherwise.
=== Literature ===
| |||