Madame Web

[battlewraith]

14 minutes ago, Ghost said:

last part first - you’ve taken the time to go back and forth with everyone in this thread.  Refuting everything.  That’s arguing.
 

As for overboard…

Snow White not incorporating dwarfs in their live action remake because it may offend someone.

Changing the race of the Little Mermaid instead of, you know telling a new story with new characters.

Making sure every last demographic is represented in the final seasons of Sex Education - when they weren’t present at the start.

Kevin Smith He-Man show was about……a woman.

The recent L&O controversy.

Do we need to talk about the current gaming situation too?

Look, as I said before.  I don’t care if a show is about straight, white, black, Asian, LGBTQ+ characters.  If it looks interesting, I’ll watch it.  
Stop trying to shoehorn them in.

Stop using the time I watch a movie as a way to preach to me - If I want to be preached to, I’ll go to church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So just casting a role as a different ethnicity is preaching to you? 

The reason they "shoehorn them in" is simply to give those actors more opportunities. We've been through eras where was not the case, and it's pretty clear what that is like in terms of the roles available. You can always say well just make up new characters with new stories. To a certain extent, yes. But overall, people want the familiar. Why is it when you go to the comic books store there's still so much Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, etc. People want the same sort of thing. That's the reality. 

 

 

[ZacKing]

22 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Ok, so "the message" is things like multiculturalism, diversity, being supportive of lgbtq--stuff like that? It might seem clear to you, but it's kind of vague to me. Some douche snearing "the message" over this picture is not really that explanatory.

 

But if I was trying to explain to the industry what they need to do in order to be more successful, it would be something like this:

1. Go back to stories and characterizations solely of straight white people.

2. The men do shit and the women look good and are supportive of the men.

3. Assume a white, north American (probably Christian) audience.

 

Is that the strategy?

 

This is really, really ignorant.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression reading your post here that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow a far right evangelical radical.  That's just not true.  It seems to me you haven't done any research on your own and looked into why people rail against "the message".

 

First, it's not "the message", it's how it's being conveyed.  A message of tolerance and acceptance of everyone regardless of race or gender or orientation is a good thing and a wonderful message to have.  @Ghost is exactly right though, it's the preachy way it's being conveyed, along with studios and actors using it as an excuse for poor ticket sales on bad films.  For example, did you see "Bros"?  If not, then according to the actor, you're a homophobe.  Did you go and see "The Woman King"?  If not, then according to the studio and actors, you're a racist misogynist.  How should people react when they're being accused of being something they aren't like that?  Maybe they just don't like romantic comedies or pseudo-historical period dramas.

 

20 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Riiight and have you done this? Like what makes you think that the people making these movies don't see what they are doing as exactly that? I love this hindsight mentality that armchair critics have--"Hey, the LOTR movies were huge hits because it had a great story, great actors, and so on. So just do that again." As if Peter Jackson was able to continue that level of quality for the Hobbit movies, when he presumably had more control and more resources to work with. Not. 

 

The Hobbit films raked in billions.  What's your point?  And Peter Jackson didn't want to do another trilogy.  The studio basically forced him into it. 

 

20 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Untalented actors huh? Ezra Miller is a lunatic. But I saw that Flash movie and his acting wasn't the problem. He was cast in the part because of his previous performances in other projects, they didn't just randomly select some weird guy.

 

Ezra Miller is an awful actor.  He's a huge part of the problem as he's not leading man material and can't carry a film on his own, which is why Keaton was brought back to try and salvage the movie with the nostalgia factor.  He's totally miscast as The Flash and a solo movie for him never should have been greenlit in my opinion.

 

20 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Yeah they're probably doing that to a certain extant. It certainly helps that there actually oodles of xenophobes, racists, misogynists and whatnot on social media pissing and moaning about movies and trying to tank them before they even open.

 

Well sure, there's idiots everywhere but they're easily identified and just as easily ignored.

 

20 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Godzilla: Minus One is a Godzilla movie. How many other well crafted and acted foreign films are doing those kinds of numbers?  You really think that speaks to the point you're making? 

 

Being foreign made has nothing to do with it.  It was a successful movie made on a budget that's a fraction of what Hollywood spends on movies of that type.  Yes, it speaks exactly to the point I was making about budgets.

 

20 hours ago, battlewraith said:

And the thing about Hollywood budgets is this: it's an industry. It doesn't matter whether spending all that money on a film pays off with respect to profit. The money is spent to keep the machinery running--to keep all those creative teams employed. Flops are not only expected, they use creative bookkeeping to act like high grossing films performed poorly. 

 

This is just flat out wrong.  Movie studios are businesses who don't have limitless funds.  They're in the business of making as much money as they can for their shareholders. 

[ZacKing]

18 hours ago, battlewraith said:

 

No. It doesn't. A well written and produced film will probably do well financially. Being well written and produced does not entail that a film is going to do well. The film may be marketed poorly. It may be ahead of it's time. It may be ignored because of other films that are out at the same time. It may be too niche for a general audience. etc. Likewise, a lot of high grossing blockbuster films are absolute shite.

 

You're using subjective opinions for excuses which is ok, but it's not a real measure of success or failure.  Box office receipts and profits are the objective measure because numbers don't lie.  Films that rake in big profits are successful which means most paying customers found them to be well written and well produced.  That's a fact, whether you personally liked the movie or not.   I didn't like "Titanic", but it raked in billions, so it's a success whether I think it was a good movie or not.

[ZacKing]

17 hours ago, Excraft said:

You've been throwing around all sorts of reasons as to why people aren't turning out to see movies - post COVID, foreign competition and the like.  While those are true to a degree, people are still turning out for good movies and there are well written, well produced movies surpassing the billion dollar mark at the box office.

 

^Exactly. 

[Excraft]

14 hours ago, battlewraith said:

All it shows is that these films sold tickets. That's it.

 

Correct.  It shows that for whatever reason, people spent their money on the film because they found it to be well crafted enough to spend money on.  That's undeniable.

 

14 hours ago, battlewraith said:

So by your logic, 50 Shades of Grey is a better produced, more well written film than Citizen Kane or The Thing. If we look at album sales, a quick google search says that Mozart and Beethoven have each sold about 5.5 million each. Britney Spears has sold 150 million. Best selling car: Toyota Corolla. If sales are your objective criteria for quality...knock yourself out dude.

 

Opinions are subjective whether you like it or not.  You may believe that Citizen Kane or The Thing are much better movies than Barbie, but that's your personal opinion.  The majority of movie goers disagreed and spent their money elsewhere.  Again, that's undeniable fact. 

 

14 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Part of the problem here is that you think a subjective opinion is worthless. All opinions are the same. They aren't. A plumber will give you an opinion. A doctor will give you an opinion. These opinions are more valuable because they are informed by knowledge of the field and experience. Same goes with the arts. There is a motion picture industry that encompasses actors, directors, critics, etc. There are general standards for things like acting, directing, writing, etc. None of these things simply default to what sold the best. Yeesh.

 

That's not at all what I said.  Again, the "quality" of a film based on opinion is a subjective measure.  Box office numbers don't lie.  If a movie tanks, the audience didn't find it worthwhile to spend their money on.  If a movie pulls in billions in profits, it's a success regardless of what some movie critic might say.  There's been tons of movies that are critically acclaimed but failed at the box office.  It's great the critics loved them and we may agree with their opinion, but the opinions of those critics didn't put money in the bank for the studio.

[ThaOGDreamWeaver]

15 hours ago, battlewraith said:

I'm sure you could find people out there that believe films like Gymkata, Ishtar and Battlefield Earth are the most underrated true masterpieces of cinema in human history. 

I'm sure you could, but they're mostly not allowed out without a minder or to use sharp cutlery.

 

 

 

[Ghost]

14 hours ago, battlewraith said:

 

So just casting a role as a different ethnicity is preaching to you? 

The reason they "shoehorn them in" is simply to give those actors more opportunities. We've been through eras where was not the case, and it's pretty clear what that is like in terms of the roles available. You can always say well just make up new characters with new stories. To a certain extent, yes. But overall, people want the familiar. Why is it when you go to the comic books store there's still so much Batman, Superman, Spiderman, Hulk, etc. People want the same sort of thing. That's the reality. 

 

 

Changing an establish story to drive home the point that “men are not needed because women are better” is preaching - Ala the Cinderella and Snow White live action remakes.  The all-female Ghostbuster.  The newly announced Pirate of The Caribbean movie.

Making an original story with a strong female character is not preaching.  Movies like Alien, Hunger Games, The Princess (a movie I absolutely love btw).  Great movies with great female leads.

 

Changing the race of established characters to show us they can be great too - Cleopatra, Little Mermaid, Snow White is not giving them work also.  It’s preaching.

Want to give work to actors of a certain race?  Great!  There are plenty of stories that haven’t been told of great things done by people of color/different ethnicities.

On a side note - funny you mentioned “giving actors more opportunities” when 7 are not being given opportunities in the Snow White remake because seeing them on screen may “offend” people.  You can’t make this stuff up!

 

Shoehorning has nothing to do with opportunities.  It has to do with checking off boxes.

Need a person of color.

Need a non-binary character.

Need a trans character.

Need a gay/lesbian character.

Need a non-white character (pref female).

All of that is fine, if that’s the story you want to tell.  It’s not fine when you try to figure out a way to cram them all into everything - including pre-established stories/characters.

 

At the end of the day, you can believe the continued drop in ticket sales comes down to covid, streaming, homophobia, whatever you like.

Just as I can can think it comes down to writers being more concerned with checking boxes, than telling a good story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[battlewraith]

3 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

 

You're using subjective opinions for excuses which is ok, but it's not a real measure of success or failure.  Box office receipts and profits are the objective measure because numbers don't lie.  Films that rake in big profits are successful which means most paying customers found them to be well written and well produced.  That's a fact, whether you personally liked the movie or not.   I didn't like "Titanic", but it raked in billions, so it's a success whether I think it was a good movie or not.

 

What is so fucking hard about this? I'm not disputing that these things are financial successes. What I'm disputing is this assertion that if something is a financial success that it means that film is well written and produced. And the inverse--that if something was not successful financial then it was NOT well written and produced. 

 

19 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

The Hobbit films raked in billions.  What's your point?  And Peter Jackson didn't want to do another trilogy.  The studio basically forced him into it. 

 

The point is this: some people here think that it's just a simple matter of doing well crafted stories with interesting characters. Peter Jackson's LOTR films are being held up as an example of this--instead of a lightning-in-a-bottle situation where things came together to make great films. Ok, well then be consistent. I don't give a crap whether Jackson wanted to do the Hobbit movies or not. He's a professional and according to your calculus he should have been able to replicate or exceed the success of the first trilogy with the second. That was not the case, and I think that most of Peter Jackson's output falls far short of the LOTR movies.

 

48 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Well sure, there's idiots everywhere but they're easily identified and just as easily ignored.

 

Ok so when it's actual racists, etc. spreading their views, that's easy to ignore. But the whining of some industry execs or performers is...intolerable apparently? 

 

58 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

This is really, really ignorant.  Maybe I'm wrong, but I get the impression reading your post here that anyone who disagrees with you is somehow a far right evangelical radical.  That's just not true.  It seems to me you haven't done any research on your own and looked into why people rail against "the message".

 

Well, I still had to look up "the message." I'm not clear on whether this is something that developed on reddit or 4chan or something. Or if this was coined and/or popularized by some influencer like the Critical Drinker. There doesn't seem a hard definition of what "the message" is. On one end of the spectrum, it seems to simply be complaining about preachiness/soapboxing about generally accepted values (which assumes that they are generally accepted). On the other end, it seems to be taken as a conspiracy by leftists to squeeze out conservative or libertarian values. 

 

I am ignorant of this nonsense. Thank god. I see a trailer for a movie and if it looks interesting I go see it. Then discuss with friends and family. The only opinions I care about are from the creatives involved. I give zero fucks about what studio execs or social media influencers have to say about it. My assumption is that people bothered by "the message" are reacting to both changing trends and online social media outrage peddlers that enflame and validate their anger.

 

Honestly, the most hilarious/disturbing thing taken from this conversation is the FIGURES DON'T LIE view of art. 

But it makes sense. The global porn market made something like 100 billion dollars last year. People will pay for well produced, good stories with interesting characters!

[Frostbiter]

We interrupt this thread for not having the required amount of Toto.

 

 

You have now fulfilled your daily Toto allotment. Thank you.

[battlewraith]

13 minutes ago, Ghost said:

At the end of the day, you can believe the continued drop in ticket sales comes down to covid, streaming, homophobia, whatever you like.

Just as I can can think it comes down to writers being more concerned with checking boxes, than telling a good story.

 

Sure, everyone Is going to look at the situation from their own perspectives and biases. And you can read into what writers are doing any way you like. I suspect that in response to your comment they would say that for most of film history there was only a couple boxes. And in instances where there was a narrative reason for another box--they filled it with a white actor. And the aging generation that is now outraged. or at least their parent's generation, was completely fine with that. They didn't see these distortions as antithetical to telling a good story.

[Ghost]

16 minutes ago, battlewraith said:

 

Sure, everyone Is going to look at the situation from their own perspectives and biases. And you can read into what writers are doing any way you like. I suspect that in response to your comment they would say that for most of film history there was only a couple boxes. And in instances where there was a narrative reason for another box--they filled it with a white actor. And the aging generation that is now outraged. or at least their parent's generation, was completely fine with that. They didn't see these distortions as antithetical to telling a good story.

I think the difference is that in the past when casting - they casted what was written.  
Need a straight white female?  Find one.

Need a gay Asian? Find one.

Now it “seems” to be the other way around.

”I need to figure out how to fit the following into my script” with little or no regard how it affects the script or final product.

 

For me, it doesn’t matter if it fits the story.  
When it doesn’t fit or make sense, I have an issue with it.

 

Now don’t get me wrong.

I don’t think every movie is like this.  From everything I’ve read about Madame Web - that doesn’t appear to be the reason for its failure.  It just sounds like a badly written script, which makes no sense and features no action (which can overcome a nonsensical script)

But, there are studios (Disney) that seem to be creating this way - and then screaming racism or homophobia when the movie fails.

 

[Excraft]

18 hours ago, battlewraith said:

So just casting a role as a different ethnicity is preaching to you? 

 

I wonder, would you have no issue at all were a film or films produced as period pieces during WW II where all of the Germans were cast with gay, black actors?  How about a biographical drama on the life of Nelson Mandela with an Asian man in the lead role as Mandela?  Would you be fine with a film set in Wakanda cast with all non-black actors?  Or a bio-pic of Queen Elizabeth with a latino man cast in the role of the Queen?  Do you honestly believe there wouldn't be massive backlash against movie studios were any of this to happen?

 

18 hours ago, battlewraith said:

You can always say well just make up new characters with new stories. To a certain extent, yes.

 

Jack Kirby and Stan Lee did it for decades.  JK Rowling did it too.  So did George R.R. Martin, Tom Clancy, Stephen King and so on.  It may not be easy, but it isn't impossible. 

 

I get that historically there wasn't as much opportunity for non-Caucasian actors and actresses, but that's not really true any more and hasn't been for quite some time.  There is a long and growing list of non-Caucasian actors and actresses winning the highest awards in the entertainment industry.  You talk about staples of the comic industry like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and the like selling well because people want familiarity.  Isn't it understandable then for some people to question why race and/or gender swapping needs to take place if they want to see the characters they're familiar with?

 

3 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Peter Jackson's LOTR films are being held up as an example of this--instead of a lightning-in-a-bottle situation where things came together to make great films. Ok, well then be consistent. I don't give a crap whether Jackson wanted to do the Hobbit movies or not. He's a professional and according to your calculus he should have been able to replicate or exceed the success of the first trilogy with the second. That was not the case, and I think that most of Peter Jackson's output falls far short of the LOTR movies.

 

The LoTR trilogy brought in around 3 billion in box office.  The Hobbit trilogy brought in just over 2.9 billion.  Seems they replicated the success just fine.  You could argue that that the Hobbit films had a much higher budget for various reasons so all tallied it made less overall in terms of profit compared to LoTR, but it still brought in a ton of money.  But there again, it had fantastic source material to work with.

 

3 hours ago, battlewraith said:

Ok so when it's actual racists, etc. spreading their views, that's easy to ignore. But the whining of some industry execs or performers is...intolerable apparently? 

 

It doesn't matter who is doing it.  Those spewing division and hate should be ignored wherever they are and whomever they are. 

 

3 hours ago, battlewraith said:

My assumption is that people bothered by "the message" are reacting to both changing trends and online social media outrage peddlers that enflame and validate their anger.

 

I think your assumption on this is about as wrong as wrong could be.  As someone said above, it's not the message, it's the delivery.  

[Judasace]

34 minutes ago, Krimson said:

No one said a thing when Charlton Heston was cast as Moses or when Elizabeth Taylor was cast as Cleopatra.

 

Nice 60+ year old examples. Now tell me some stories about Jefferson Davis.

[Ghost]

35 minutes ago, Krimson said:

No one said a thing when Charlton Heston was cast as Moses or when Elizabeth Taylor was cast as Cleopatra.

Times were much different back then.

You shouldn’t be able to get away with it now.

[Excraft]

38 minutes ago, Krimson said:

No one said a thing when Charlton Heston was cast as Moses or when Elizabeth Taylor was cast as Cleopatra.

 

Yup.  John Wayne (badly) played Ghengis Khan too and Mickey Rooney played a Japanese man in Breakfast at Tiffany's.  But it's not the 1950's anymore. 

[PeregrineFalcon]

3 minutes ago, Krimson said:

So we ONLY had white actors in the 50s and 60s, right? But OF COURSE, the old examples get a free pass.

So you're saying that "It's ok to change characters and rewrite history and do other bad things because of stuff that happened 70 years ago." I thought the entire point behind being progressive was to not repeat the mistakes or bad actions of the past.

 

"It's ok when we do it!" Right?

[Judasace]

7 minutes ago, Krimson said:

So we ONLY had white actors in the 50s and 60s, right?

 

Who's "We"? I wasn't even born.

 

And also, yes, everyone knows that the practice of blackface/yellowface/whateverface was prevalent in the past. So was slavery, of all peoples. Society grows and evolve as time moves on. Saying that because things that happened 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago somehow means that practice is still going on and somehow justifies the continuation of that practice, as long as it's other races that are being swapped is just you being deliberately obtuse.

 

And of course there's the old saw "Two wrongs don't make a right."

Edited February 16 by Judasace

[Ghost]

7 minutes ago, Krimson said:

So we ONLY had white actors in the 50s and 60s, right? But OF COURSE, the old examples get a free pass.

What are you even talking about

[PeregrineFalcon]

11 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Movies rewrite history all the time. You think Commodus was killed by a guy who looked like Russel Crowe? He was strangled by his own sister. But that's not movie-worthy.

Ok. So you're completely fine with Charlton Heston playing Moses then, right? And you'd be ok with Ryan Gosling playing Black Panther?

 

If not then why not?

[Luminara]

31 minutes ago, Krimson said:

You think Commodus was killed by a guy who looked like Russel Crowe?

 

Of course not.

 

Russel Crowe looks like the guy who killed Commodus.  DUH.

[TheOtherTed]

This random video randomly popped up in my youtube feed this morning.  Still digesting some of its points, but it might be relevant to this convo - or at least tangentially related.  Long story short, she discusses why recent science fiction and fantasy books seem to be so heavy-handed about their messages (note lack of quotes or the word "the").

 

Disclaimer:  I haven't read any sci-fi more recent than William Gibson's All Tomorrow's Parties, so I have no idea how heavy-handed more recent writing has been.  Definitely noticed it in visual media, though.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK9aJ-sSGuA

 

 

Edited February 17 by TheOtherTed
Don't ask me about my business.

[PeregrineFalcon]

*crickets*  Yeah, that's what I figured. Ok, well here's a video that sums up what I think of Madame Web:

 

 

[battlewraith]

3 hours ago, Excraft said:

I wonder, would you have no issue at all were a film or films produced as period pieces during WW II where all of the Germans were cast with gay, black actors?  How about a biographical drama on the life of Nelson Mandela with an Asian man in the lead role as Mandela?  Would you be fine with a film set in Wakanda cast with all non-black actors?  Or a bio-pic of Queen Elizabeth with a latino man cast in the role of the Queen?  Do you honestly believe there wouldn't be massive backlash against movie studios were any of this to happen?

 

Depends on the context. I'm not like the people here complaining about casting as if it's this binary good or bad thing. You're the one complaining about it in principle, not me.

Colorblind casting is very common in theater. Part of the reason for this is that there are so many different productions of plays, and such a history of such productions, that nobody takes a representation of a character as some sort of historical document that must be accurate to some standard. Shakespeare nerds don't have a problem with it. Denzel Washington killed it as MacBeth. Lots of pop culture nerds are behind the curve in this regard sadly. 

 

5 hours ago, Excraft said:

I get that historically there wasn't as much opportunity for non-Caucasian actors and actresses, but that's not really true any more and hasn't been for quite some time.  There is a long and growing list of non-Caucasian actors and actresses winning the highest awards in the entertainment industry.  You talk about staples of the comic industry like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and the like selling well because people want familiarity.  Isn't it understandable then for some people to question why race and/or gender swapping needs to take place if they want to see the characters they're familiar with?

 

The thing is these awards and opportunities you mention here are the result of activists in the industry setting standards for inclusiveness. The ability to do non-standard casting is the culmination of this effort, not some unrelated and unnecessary thing. 

 

Yeah it's understandable that people want the familiar. But that means we can't have anything else? Take the Little Mermaid. You have the original story and all the artistic depictions related to it. Then you have the original Disney version. Then you have the black version. If you don't like that version--don't watch it. You have all the other versions. All this pissing and moaning about companies selling a product boils down to people wanting that company to serve their interests in exactly the way they want, all the time. In other words, raw entitlement.

 

6 hours ago, Excraft said:

The LoTR trilogy brought in around 3 billion in box office.  The Hobbit trilogy brought in just over 2.9 billion.  Seems they replicated the success just fine.  You could argue that that the Hobbit films had a much higher budget for various reasons so all tallied it made less overall in terms of profit compared to LoTR, but it still brought in a ton of money.  But there again, it had fantastic source material to work with.

 

Ok so those movies were trash. Now, you're probably thinking that numbers don't lie and that my subjective opinion doesn't matter.

Here's the thing: the recent Little Mermaid film was a financial success. Numbers don't lie. So by your logic, all the complaints about the casting don't matter.

You're sitting on a limb, furiously sawing away it's connection to the tree.

[battlewraith]

4 hours ago, PeregrineFalcon said:

So you're saying that "It's ok to change characters and rewrite history and do other bad things because of stuff that happened 70 years ago." I thought the entire point behind being progressive was to not repeat the mistakes or bad actions of the past.

 

"It's ok when we do it!" Right?

 

No, it goes more like this:

 

You have an industry that's dominated by one demographic throughout most of it's existence. Minorities are either not represented at all, relegated to minor often stereotyped portrayals, or are portrayed by white actors. The general audience is perfectly fine with this. Gradually attitudes change, demographics change, economics change and the industry slowly catches up. Then suddenly somebody from the original demographic discovers racism when (gasp) a role that they think should be cast a certain way simply isn't. My heart breaks at this injustice, truly. The wounded party is going to have to....watch something else. Or just get over the casting decision. Meanwhile, the actor that lost out in the casting is going to have to wander out into the desert of other similar mainstream roles that they would be a fit for.

 

[Excraft]

1 hour ago, battlewraith said:

Depends on the context. I'm not like the people here complaining about casting as if it's this binary good or bad thing.

 

If you honestly believe there would be no public outcry over a film where all gay black actors were cast as Germans in a WW II film or a remake of The Color Purple with an all white cast, you're delusional.  You also can't have this both ways.  You've suggested people like and are drawn to familiarity, then belittle them when they complain about arbitrary changes to what they find familiar. 

 

1 hour ago, battlewraith said:

The thing is these awards and opportunities you mention here are the result of activists in the industry setting standards for inclusiveness.

 

This is absolutely positively 100% bullshit.  Actors and actresses like Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Fox, Forrest Whitaker, Viola Davis, Alfe Woodard all won Academy Awards and Emmys long before there were these modern "inclusivity" requirements.  They won because they were the best in their craft, not because of their skin color.  Trying to say they only won because of some arbitrary requirement is a huge insult to their talent.

 

1 hour ago, battlewraith said:

Ok so those movies were trash. Now, you're probably thinking that numbers don't lie and that my subjective opinion doesn't matter.

Here's the thing: the recent Little Mermaid film was a financial success. Numbers don't lie. So by your logic, all the complaints about the casting don't matter.

You're sitting on a limb, furiously sawing away it's connection to the tree.

 

You're really struggling to understand the concepts and differences between the subjective (opinions/feelings) and the objective (facts).  You can dislike The Hobbit trilogy all you like.  That doesn't change the fact that it was a financial success.  As for the Little Mermaid, from what I understand it essentially broke even, maybe.  If it did manage to turn a profit, then yes, it's a success too, regardless if some people disliked the casting.  Numbers don't lie and facts are facts.  It's a very simple concept to grasp.  If you don't believe in facts, why don't you share with us what you believe is a better objective measure that isn't based on opinions or feelings? 

 

1 hour ago, battlewraith said:

Minorities are either not represented at all, relegated to minor often stereotyped portrayals, or are portrayed by white actors.

 

This hasn't been the case for decades now.