Society/Culture Actors who take on a character with a different skin colour or gender preference.

Is cultural appropriation a bad thing or should it be encouraged?

  • Wrong

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • We need more of it

    Votes: 2 50.0%
  • Its wrong if you are white, straight, able bodied but right for everyone else?

    Votes: 2 50.0%

  • Total voters
    4

Remove this Banner Ad

I think as long as the portayal isn't meant to belittle an ethnic group or an ilness or a mental condition it's fine. Daniel Day Lewis played a profoundly disabled man in My Left Foot. That's cool.

I even think Tropic Thunder - Robert Downey Jnr in blackface - was cool when you consider why the character looked like that.
It's pretty simple really. It's generally ok, as long as you're not punching down. It's similar to modern attitudes to a lot of sensitive topics.
 
Aug 21, 2016
15,562
24,464
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
Oldham
Jesus Christ as a white man has always struck me as innocuous considering the part of the world he's meant to be from.

MANDY: Well, I suppose I should have told you a long time ago, but...

BRIAN: What?

MANDY: Well, Brian,... your father isn't Mr. Cohen.

BRIAN: I never thought he was.

MANDY: Now, none of your cheek! He was a Roman, Brian. He was a centurion in the Roman army.

BRIAN: You mean... you were raped?

MANDY: Well, at first, yes.

BRIAN: Who was it?

MANDY: Heh. Nortius Maximus his name was. Hmm. Promised me the known world he did. I was to be taken to Rome, House by the Forum. Slaves. Asses' milk. As much gold as I could eat. Then, he, having his way with me had... voom! Like a rat out of an aqueduct.

BRIAN: The bastard!

MANDY: Yeah. So, next time you go on about the 'bloody Romans', don't forget you're one of them.

BRIAN: I'm not a Roman, Mum, and I never will be! I'm a Kike! A Yid! A Hebe! A Hook-nose! I'm Kosher, Mum! I'm a Red Sea Pedestrian, and proud of it!
 

Log in to remove this ad.

Hoops

Brownlow Medallist
Jul 30, 2004
10,099
7,316
Forever in contention
AFL Club
Geelong
Other Teams
Vixens
I think as long as the portayal isn't meant to belittle an ethnic group or an ilness or a mental condition it's fine. Daniel Day Lewis played a profoundly disabled man in My Left Foot. That's cool.

I even think Tropic Thunder - Robert Downey Jnr in blackface - was cool when you consider why the character looked like that.
Daniel Day Lewis even played a native American. Not sure he could get away with that now.

Hamilton annoys me because if you are playing a white male I don't care if you're an Asian female if you are doing a biopic or period drama then you should look the part. Even if you do sing your lines.
 
Last edited:
Daniel Day Lewis even played a native American. Not sure he could get away with that now.

Hamilton annoys me because if you are playing a white male I don't care if you're a Asian female if you are doing a biopic or period drama then you should look the part. Even if you do sing your lines.

hamilton isnt black people playing white, its playing up an alternate history shtick where race isnt the factor is was (which is why the races of the cast jump around and dont match the original broadway). this actually got criticism back in the early days in the USA for whitewashing the slavery element

the equivalent is the way people have been doing Shakespeare for years in locations/times/peoples outside those original written for

On DDL, he didnt play a native american. Hawkeye was a child of white parents who grew up with the tribe
 
Apr 18, 2011
18,655
39,862
AFL Club
Hawthorn
Other Teams
Six decades of domination
Daniel Day Lewis even played a native American. Not sure he could get away with that now.

Hamilton annoys me because if you are playing a white male I don't care if you're an Asian female if you are doing a biopic or period drama then you should look the part. Even if you do sing your lines.

DDL's character in Last of the Mohican's was white, at least according to the books. Just grew up with Indians.
 
Back