Ethnic Revisionism - Mary: Queen of the Multicultural Scots

Dr_serious2

sk8erboii wrote: »

I literally have no idea what youre talking about. Though you definitely have too much emotional investment in this forum. Big yikes. Im out anyway

Big yikes. Literally. Cringe. Guys. Legit. Lol dude. You must have grown up watching too many American television programmes.

Do you speak like that in an Irish workplace? I'd say you are a bit of a laughing stock if you do.

Also, did you name yourself after an Avril Lavigne song?

goose2005

Varik wrote: »

Charlie chan was played by Asian actors but the big movies came after the original author died and they used original stories and that's when they were white actors.

Watched a few of them and he's portrayed very positively. One thing I really noticed was how american they had his children, both were very baseball and apple pie american especially when you consider some of these came along during WW2 when to a lot of Americans that's what the enemy looked like.

The Chinese were on the Allied side in ww2 and propaganda was careful to distinguish them from "Japs":

Undividual

sk8erboii wrote: »

Typing like an american?

Lol?

Laugh out loud?

Undividual

Bannasidhe wrote: »

My point also stands - you felt the presence of non-White European faces in a film that never claimed to be historically accurate was going too far but it has been shown that Non-White faces would have been seen in the Court of Elizabeth I so it's not 'revisionism'. They would also,not necessarily, have been 'chambermaids' - or even servants.

Yet you are ok with the demonstrably completely incorrect for the sake of drama parts of the film.

You are projecting back and assuming based not on knowledge of the time period but on what you think should be the case.

Louis XIV of France was a devout Catholic - his brother Phillippe duc d'Orleans was a very out homosexual who conducted many affairs with men while living in Versailles.

Explain to me why two of the main aides (the English envoy and the queen's closest lady-in-waiting) were both played by people of colour when the actual people they play were white? That absolutely is revisionism.

Your point seems to be "Black/asian people were in England at the time." I am not disputing that. What I object to is the frankly patronizing re-writing of history to assuage modern liberal guilt over historic racial oppression.

Also to say that homosexuality was practiced is completely different to say that it was publicly accepted, which I assume it wasn't in Christian countries.

sk8erboii

Dr_serious2 wrote: »

Big yikes. Literally. Cringe. Guys. Legit. Lol dude. You must have grown up watching too many American television programmes.

Do you speak like that in an Irish workplace? I'd say you are a bit of a laughing stock if you do.

Also, did you name yourself after an Avril Lavigne song?

Yikes. Stop trying to diagnose forum posts. Its getting pretty sad.

‘Irish workplace’ lol like anyones saying ‘top’o the morning to ya laddie’ these days

:eyeroll:

Undividual

sk8erboii wrote: »

I literally have no idea what youre talking about. Though you definitely have too much emotional investment in this forum. Big yikes. Im out anyway

sk8erboii wrote: »

Yikes. Stop trying to diagnose forum posts. Its getting pretty sad.

‘Irish workplace’ lol like anyones saying ‘top’o the morning to ya laddie’ these days

:eyeroll:

"I'm out, I'm in! Mega yikes!!!"

Laugh out loud!?!

sk8erboii

Undividual wrote: »

"I'm out, I'm in! Mega yikes!!!"

Laugh out loud!?!

On topic: Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on tv

Undividual

sk8erboii wrote: »

On topic: Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on tv

On topic, why was neither of the main characters in Mary Queen of Scots 'brown'?

sk8erboii

Undividual wrote: »

On topic, why was neither of the main characters in Mary Queen of Scots 'brown'?

Objection: Question is not on topic. Tangential and leading. I refuse to answer your honor

Gimme A Pound

Undividual wrote: »

Laugh out loud?

Come on, Undividual - surely you've laughed out loud with a question mark.

Undividual

sk8erboii wrote: »

Objection: Question is not on topic. Tangential and leading. I refuse to answer your honor

I'm just a skater boy (sic), I said see you later boy.

For some reason, I don't believe you're socially adept.

Undividual

Francesca Sour Stomach wrote: »

Come on, Undividual - surely you've laughed out loud with a question mark.

I only LOL with exclamation marks or commas.

sk8erboii

Undividual wrote: »

For some reason, I don't believe you're socially adept.

On topic: Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on movies (;

Thephantomsmask

jmayo wrote: »

Margot Robbie is excellent in everything and especially in nothing

Just saw picture of her in it. :eek:
What a waste.

FFS they should issue a fatwa on whatever muppet(s) decided to put that makeup on one of the most perfect faces in the world.

That is the type of make up Elizabeth wore to cover the small pox scars on her face, portraits from the time even show the heavy white make up.

Undividual

skater boy wrote: »

On topic: Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on movies (;

Call me old fashioned, I think ethnicities should stick to their own medieval fantasy genres. :rolleyes:

Gimme A Pound

sk8erboii wrote: »

On topic: Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on movies (;

Obviously, but sometimes they can be cast out of context. Ditto if white people were cast out of context.

You keep posting something that was not said (that black or dark skinned people shouldn't be in film at all) and that's trolling.

sk8erboii

Undividual wrote: »

Call me old fashioned, I think ethnicities should stick to their own medieval fantasy genres. :rolleyes:

Thats a funny movie tbh. Dunno why ur hating on it

sk8erboii

Francesca Sour Stomach wrote: »

Obviously, but sometimes they can be cast out of context. Ditto if white people were cast out of context.

You keep posting something that was not said (that black or dark skinned people shouldn't be in film at all) and that's trolling.

Reaching mate. Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on movies. Thats why i find this thread ridiculous. Its just whinging cause there was a black lady lol

Undividual

sk8erboii wrote: »

Reaching mate. Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on movies. Thats why i find this thread ridiculous. Its just whinging cause there was a black lady lol

You're dumb

sk8erboii

Undividual wrote: »

You're dumb

Reported for trolling

Undividual

sk8erboii wrote: »

Reported for trolling

Reported for drolling

pleas advice

sk8erboii wrote: »

Reaching mate. Theres literally nothing wrong with brown people on movies.

i love a bit of dark humour, big Momma's House, the nutty professor, all those great films, love 'em all

Dr_serious2

sk8erboii wrote: »

Yikes. Stop trying to diagnose forum posts. Its getting pretty sad.

‘Irish workplace’ lol like anyones saying ‘top’o the morning to ya laddie’ these days

:eyeroll:

Irish people never said top o the morning to you. That is an American idea of the way we talked.

I am not diagnosing anything. I just find it very sad that a fully grown Irish adult (presumably) feels the need to speak like an American teenager.

Mrs Shuttleworth

Haven't read the whole thread but as someone who has worked in the industry I can tell you that the reason for ethnic minority actors appearing suddenly in roles that seem historically inaccurate is due to new BAFTA guidelines in the UK (for feature films) and "Project Diamond" for television.

It is now mandatory to have a proportion of minority actors and also LGBT actors and character portrayals in all British state funded cinematic output in leading roles and technical roles, or else the film in question is disqualified from consideration for BAFTA awards. Some film makers expressed concern at the time that creativity could be stifled.

I haven't seen the films the OP mentions but "Mary Poppins Returns" is another example. Black actors were playing lawyers in 1930s London. That film somewhat got away with it in that it's effectively a fantasy piece.

http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/new-diversity-requirement-film-awards

Bannasidhe

Undividual wrote: »

Explain to me why two of the main aides (the English envoy and the queen's closest lady-in-waiting) were both played by people of colour when the actual people they play were white? That absolutely is revisionism.

Your point seems to be "Black/asian people were in England at the time." I am not disputing that. What I object to is the frankly patronizing re-writing of history to assuage modern liberal guilt over historic racial oppression.

Also to say that homosexuality was practiced is completely different to say that it was publicly accepted, which I assume it wasn't in Christian countries.

They had Mary speaking with a Scottish accent!
They had Mary and Elizabeth meet!

Neither of these two things are true.

It is not - and does not claim to be - historically accurate. It is drama based on some things that may or may not have happened in the 16th century.

It's not 'revisionism' - which is when a different interpretation is made by historians of historical events but still based in the sources. No amount of revision would have Mary Stuart speaking English with a Scottish accent. As a small child she would have spoken Gaelic and French - as a very small child she moved to, and was educated in France. English, was at best, her 4th language (Latin would have been 3rd).

Yet, it's the non-white faces and cross-dressing/homosexual people here are claiming is 'revisionism' when not-white faces and cross-dressing/homosexual people genuinely were in existence in England at the time - albeit not where the writers of this piece of fiction based on real events have them occurring.

It's not history, it's drama.

As for your assumption about what Catholics would and would not accept - as I pointed out, King Louis XIV of France must not have gotten the memo.

And as other posters have pointed out in this thread, race only began to become an issue in this time period with the growth in the Slave Trade to the Americas. But racism was in it's infancy. They hated people for their religion, not their colour.

What I object to is people with no knowledge of the time period projecting their own contemporary politics back in time and brandishing around terms like revisionism which they clearly don't understand to criticise what they don't agree with in a piece of drama.

sk8erboii

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

Haven't read the whole thread but as someone who has worked in the industry I can tell you that the reason for ethnic minority actors appearing suddenly in roles that seem historically inaccurate is due to new BAFTA guidelines in the UK (for feature films) and "Project Diamond" for television.

It is now mandatory to have a proportion of minority actors and also LGBT actors and character portrayals in all British state funded cinematic output in leading roles and technical roles, or else the film in question is disqualified from consideration for BAFTA awards. Some film makers expressed concern at the time that creativity could be stifled.

I haven't seen the films the OP mentions but "Mary Poppins Returns" is another example. Black actors were playing lawyers in 1930s London. That film somewhat got away with it in that it's effectively a fantasy piece.

http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/new-diversity-requirement-film-awards

Would be an interesting take, were the movie not made by american and chinese production companies not british

Bannasidhe

Mrs Shuttleworth wrote: »

Haven't read the whole thread but as someone who has worked in the industry I can tell you that the reason for ethnic minority actors appearing suddenly in roles that seem historically inaccurate is due to new BAFTA guidelines in the UK (for feature films) and "Project Diamond" for television.

It is now mandatory to have a proportion of minority actors and also LGBT actors and character portrayals in all British state funded cinematic output in leading roles and technical roles, or else the film in question is disqualified from consideration for BAFTA awards. Some film makers expressed concern at the time that creativity could be stifled.

I haven't seen the films the OP mentions but "Mary Poppins Returns" is another example. Black actors were playing lawyers in 1930s London. That film somewhat got away with it in that it's effectively a fantasy piece.

http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/new-diversity-requirement-film-awards

I have never seen a 'historically accurate' film. I seriously doubt it is possible to make one.
I have seen some that were not too off the wall like The Missionary, but every one of them tweaks, re-writes, adds characters, removes characters, changes locations for dramatic purposes, etc etc. It's the only way to fit complicated events that may span decades onto a short time frame.

Moral of the story - don't go looking for history on the Silver Screen.

By the way:

This is Hector Josephs.
Educated at Cambridge in the 1890s.
Lawyer and later Barrister (Kings Council).

In the 1920s/30s he was Attorney General of Guyana.

Undividual

Bannasidhe wrote: »

They had Mary speaking with a Scottish accent!
They had Mary and Elizabeth meet!

Neither of these two things are true.

It is not - and does not claim to be - historically accurate. It is drama based on some things that may or may not have happened in the 16th century.

It's not 'revisionism' - which is when a different interpretation is made by historians of historical events but still based in the sources. No amount of revision would have Mary Stuart speaking English with a Scottish accent. As a small child she would have spoken Gaelic and French - as a very small child she moved to, and was educated in France. English, was at best, her 4th language (Latin would have been 3rd).

Yet, it's the non-white faces and cross-dressing/homosexual people here are claiming is 'revisionism' when not-white faces and cross-dressing/homosexual people genuinely were in existence in England at the time - albeit not where the writers of this piece of fiction based on real events have them occurring.

It's not history, it's drama.

As for your assumption about what Catholics would and would not accept - as I pointed out, King Louis XIV of France must not have gotten the memo.

And as other posters have pointed out in this thread, race only began to become an issue in this time period with the growth in the Slave Trade to the Americas. But racism was in it's infancy. They hated people for their religion, not their colour.

What I object to is people with no knowledge of the time period projecting their own contemporary politics back in time and brandishing around terms like revisionism which they clearly don't understand to criticise what they don't agree with in a piece of drama.

I completely defer to your knowledge on the accents that the characters would have had. My point is that the viewer does not need to suspend belief when listening to one or another accent in the same way as viewing an ethnic substitution. It seems roughly the equivalent of all Romans in cinema using English accents.

To be fair, I think you're approaching my comment from a historical focus, whereas I'm more concerned with the art form and the writer's motivations. To substitute a French accent for a Scottish one will not offend many people in the way that substituting ethnicities (certainly in recent cinematic history) has.

The part highlighted in bold is my problem in a nutshell. If it is not revisionism (which I am open to changing my mind on), can you tell me the appropriate term for changing the ethnicity of historical characters in films?

Also, out of curiosity, why do you think were the two queens ethnicities left as white while only supporting characters were replaced?

I've nothing against black people, or asians, etc. but I do agree with the general premise of the thread. It's hard to take a film Seriously if it's based in an era where black people would be slaves, yet the town sheriff/president etc. in a film is played by Sam Jackson.

People are whinging about yer man from breaking bad playing a wheelchair-bound chap in a new film I believe, which is another load of nonsense.

Imagine casting (any white actor) as 'Smokey' in Friday. Would kill the film altogether. Being a white male really does seem to be heavily under attack of late. Women and any kind of minority seem to get wedged in everywhere regardless of the situation. Silly stuff altogether.

Undividual

Deleted User wrote: »

I've nothing against black people, or asians, etc. but...

"Looks like we got oursel's 'nuther one dem there racists! Alright boys, put on the rainbow hoods!"