[keepper]

>Another example is the new Disney's Pinocchio, were the Blue Fairy is portrait by a black woman. The problem is not that she is black of course. but that the original story is set in Italy, Tuscany, mid 1800, were no black woman was ever seen

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.

And for the récord, i hope you open up a geography book. There’s been black people in Italy for pretty much all it’s history. You may want to also read a few history books. (Black moors, Alessandro de' Medici, etc )

Also, can people just chill with this racist crap. It’s freaking art, up to interpretation. An actor can be of any race or gender. Get over it.

[oblio]

> There’s been black people in Italy for pretty much all it’s history. You may want to also read a few history books. (Black moors, Alessandro de' Medici, etc )

I hate this argument because it's disingenuous. It's in great part a lie and undermines the push for diversity.

Just because there were 1-2-5-100, in major cities, in countries with populations of millions, didn't make them common and frankly more than a curiosity people would gawk at everywhere except for their immediate residential area.

The vast majority of people until 1900 or so lived and died within 100km from where they were born, most likely a village.

The average Congolese in 1700 died without ever seeing a European or a Chinese person.

The average Chinese in 1700 died without ever seeing an African or European.

The average European in 1700 died without ever seeing an African or Chinese person.

Heck, even today, go to poorer and less developed countries and tell me how many outsiders from far away you see. Moldova, Belarus, Tadjikistan, etc.

[amanaplanacanal]

It would be a sad world if we judged all of our entertainment by how close they were to “average”.

[Bakary]

Racism certainly plays a big part in the frequency of such complaints, but it nonetheless raises some important questions.

Ultimately, nobody really, genuinely holds the opinion that an actor can be of any appearance for any role. There will always be exceptions that will break their immersion, because unlike with theatre there is the expectation that the movie is WYSIWYG.

To give an extreme example, would you be completely undisturbed if the main character in 12 years a Slave was portrayed by John Malkovich? Or if a Jewish camp inmate in Schindler's list was portrayed as a black person? I don't think either example would sit well with the vast majority of people, no matter how racist or not racist they might be.

That's why pointing out that black people did exist in Italy is correct but beaide the point. The real debate is around the acceptability of certain expectations, and what determines the criteria for this acceptability.

[throw-away_42]

> [would you be completely undisturbed] if a Jewish camp inmate in Schindler's list was portrayed as a black person?

Why would you be disturbed in the slightest? Hitler hated blacks, and yes, some WERE actually in concentration camps:

"Although no exact figures exist, it is known that a significant number of black people were detained in concentration camps and forced labour camps during the Nazi reign, and that many were murdered. Nonetheless, there seems to be little interest in Hitler’s black victims. Their plight is not talked about enough. This is partly because unlike Jews, Roma and Sinti, black people were not marked for destruction. But they were denied their human rights, sterilised, persecuted, experimented upon and murdered in camps."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/27/black-...

[satyrnein]

I was surprised to learn (about myself at least) that this isn't really true, when I saw the musical Hamilton. Of course, the characters also break out into song, etc.

[peoplefromibiza]

> 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

He was black.

But in the small village in Tuscany of 1800 depicted in Pinocchio there were no black people, I can assure you.

[brobinson]

>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.

[rendall]

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.

[tzs]

> 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.

[treis]

>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.

[nec4b]

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

[keepper]

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?

[sensanaty]

> There’s been black people in Italy for pretty much all it’s history. You may want to also read a few history books. (Black moors, Alessandro de' Medici, etc )

I've always hated this disingenuous line of arguing. Yes, technically there were some black people in Italy, but these types of arguments always frame it in such a way that it seems like it was a common thing to witness for the average citizen. The large, large majority of Italians (we're talking in the past obviously) have never seen anything other than other Italians, and those few foreign black people were very much a rarity.

Hell, go to places like Serbia today as a black man and you'll be gawked at like you're an alien, even in the capital Belgrade, yet alone in the smaller cities. Or do the flipside, go to a remote part of a country like Indonesia as a white man, like a random village in Papua or even a city like Jogja (and it's not exactly a small or unpopular city either), and you'll similarly be gawked at.

I'm a Serb (so corpse-white when I don't tan) but lived in Indonesia my whole life, I can't tell you the number of times I've been in situations where people have looked at me in fascination because of my white skin, even in places where tourists are common. If you go to Borobudur as a white person, you're going to be asked to have your picture taken by a dozen curious Indonesians who have never in their lives seen a white person in real life, and this is a massively popular tourist spot in a pretty massive city with plenty of foreigners coming and going.

So sure, there were some black people in Italy, but let's not pretend like that was anywhere near the norm or something you could expect to see every day in 1700s Italy as an average Italian.

[wizofaus]

"go to places like Serbia today as a black man and you'll be gawked at like you're an alien"

But don't you agree this is something we should be trying to improve, and we could do so by ensuring that movie casting better reflects the more racially diverse situation we enjoy in the developed world (who produce much content exported to less diverse parts of the world)?