roxics
Veteran
This has been on my mind since I read an article a few weeks back (I can't find now) where the author was talking about Hollywood's constant remakes of King Arthur movies. They were suggesting other potential mythological characters to make movies about instead. One suggestion was the Epic of Gilgamesh, which sounds great. However they added the caveat that should such a movie be made, it needs to be made with an all middle eastern cast and crew. And while I understand the motive for that, it got me thinking. Why stop there? My not shoot it in Arabic or some other middle eastern language? At what point is it even a Hollywood movie anymore?
What is a Hollywood movie?
I think Hollywood is a location where a bunch of movie studios sprung up making movies in America for American audiences. I might even argue that Hollywood has been a positive force that helped bind together an otherwise large landmass into a single country. Helping to a create a uniform pop culture from coast to coast. Maybe even better than apple pie, the railroad, and American political forces. At some point Hollywood started exporting those films around the world. With it, they started exporting American culture.
If you think about it, it was inevitable that Hollywood films would become more popular worldwide. Whatever formula those studios came up with, it worked across fifty states, each with subtle cultural variations. So why would it also not work across other nation states? At the very least the ones that spoke English. And so it did.
But now Hollywood seems to be putting a lot of emphasis on appeasing larger and larger crowds. The huge Chinese market for example. Obviously Hollywood is not just a location but a business and they have dollar signs in their eyes.
Every culture and society throughout history has tried to preserve their culture through artwork and crafts. They have passed down legends and stories, music, and so on from generation to generation. At some point Hollywood was that for American culture. In most ways I think it still is, but if it's trying to appease audiences worldwide and audiences are demanding it represent certain stories with certain people in certain locations outside America, is it still American cinema or is it now something else?
To put it another way, should we be asking the Roman empire to become more diverse as it conquers all of Europe and north Africa or should we instead ask it to stop conquering all these places and let them do their own thing, their own way? After all, Hollywood is not the only cinema in the world. There is Bollywood, Nollywood, Chinese cinema, German, Japanese, you name it. Each catering to their given area. Localizing content and legends to their demographic, even if the root of those stories are pulled from somewhere else.
Which is where we get into controversial waters. But it's an argument that should be put out there. When you have white guys like Jake Gyllenhaal playing the prince of Persia, some people say "hey... wait a minute." Understandably. But on the other hand, if you consider that it's made by an American studio, and America is made up of roughly seventy-seven percent white people, and representation matters because people like to see people that are like themselves (usually), then it begins to make sense why there is a white guy playing the prince of Persia. In the same way that we would fully expect Nollywood, which is made up of mostly black Africans, to cast other black Africans to play the roles of characters in a localization of a King Arthur story for their audiences, rather than importing white guys from England. That would be a movie I would love to see by the way.
So I guess the big question is, what is a better route to take? Is it better to have a variety of smaller cinemas in the world, each representing their given culture in a given area for a given demographic, or is it better to have a large umbrella that is trying to be everything to everyone, everywhere? Which is where is feels like Hollywood is starting to go.
What is a Hollywood movie?
I think Hollywood is a location where a bunch of movie studios sprung up making movies in America for American audiences. I might even argue that Hollywood has been a positive force that helped bind together an otherwise large landmass into a single country. Helping to a create a uniform pop culture from coast to coast. Maybe even better than apple pie, the railroad, and American political forces. At some point Hollywood started exporting those films around the world. With it, they started exporting American culture.
If you think about it, it was inevitable that Hollywood films would become more popular worldwide. Whatever formula those studios came up with, it worked across fifty states, each with subtle cultural variations. So why would it also not work across other nation states? At the very least the ones that spoke English. And so it did.
But now Hollywood seems to be putting a lot of emphasis on appeasing larger and larger crowds. The huge Chinese market for example. Obviously Hollywood is not just a location but a business and they have dollar signs in their eyes.
Every culture and society throughout history has tried to preserve their culture through artwork and crafts. They have passed down legends and stories, music, and so on from generation to generation. At some point Hollywood was that for American culture. In most ways I think it still is, but if it's trying to appease audiences worldwide and audiences are demanding it represent certain stories with certain people in certain locations outside America, is it still American cinema or is it now something else?
To put it another way, should we be asking the Roman empire to become more diverse as it conquers all of Europe and north Africa or should we instead ask it to stop conquering all these places and let them do their own thing, their own way? After all, Hollywood is not the only cinema in the world. There is Bollywood, Nollywood, Chinese cinema, German, Japanese, you name it. Each catering to their given area. Localizing content and legends to their demographic, even if the root of those stories are pulled from somewhere else.
Which is where we get into controversial waters. But it's an argument that should be put out there. When you have white guys like Jake Gyllenhaal playing the prince of Persia, some people say "hey... wait a minute." Understandably. But on the other hand, if you consider that it's made by an American studio, and America is made up of roughly seventy-seven percent white people, and representation matters because people like to see people that are like themselves (usually), then it begins to make sense why there is a white guy playing the prince of Persia. In the same way that we would fully expect Nollywood, which is made up of mostly black Africans, to cast other black Africans to play the roles of characters in a localization of a King Arthur story for their audiences, rather than importing white guys from England. That would be a movie I would love to see by the way.
So I guess the big question is, what is a better route to take? Is it better to have a variety of smaller cinemas in the world, each representing their given culture in a given area for a given demographic, or is it better to have a large umbrella that is trying to be everything to everyone, everywhere? Which is where is feels like Hollywood is starting to go.
For translation, voice-over etc ethnicity should not be an issue. Gender and age may be for a voice over but not translation. By and large race blind casting is a good idea unless the story requires a race, gender, age etc. because it is significant in the story. I believe that the first Michael Jackson Bio Pic got cancelled because Michael Jackson wanted a white child to play him as a child... 