Walt Disney Co on Friday said that remarks by activist investor Nelson Peltz criticizing the company for making movies dominated by female and Black actors is evidence that he shouldn’t be on Disney’s board.
Peltz, whose fight to join Disney as a director has become one of the year’s most bitter and closely watched board battles, in an interview with the Financial Times said Disney’s films have become too focused on delivering a message, and not enough on quality storytelling. He specifically took issue with “The Marvels” and “Black Panther.”
“Why do I have to have a Marvel that’s all women? Not that I have anything against women, but why do I have to do that?" Peltz said in the interview, published on Friday. "Why can’t I have Marvels that are both? Why do I need an all-Black cast?”
Asked about Peltz’s remarks, a Disney spokesperson responded: “This is exactly why Nelson Peltz shouldn’t be anywhere near a creatively driven company.”
Ok I am about to argue that having an all black cast in Africa is in fact racist.
So I did a very quick look through the 20 “black” actors that appear when you search “black panther cast” in Google. I selected every one with a character name.
Out of 20 exactly 2 are actually from Africa. And they are both from south Africa, notably not anywhere near the central African region of the mythical Wakanda.
So as an example; not only did they get say 90% of their actors to play, say, new Zealanders from Europe but just as a kick in the balls they got the rest from Australia.
As if being a COLOUR would be some great gesture as opposed to a linguistic and cultural identity.
That’s without even touching the numerous examples where marvel has done the opposite and just plain got away with it because it is a piece of European cultural heritage they are using for profit like in the cases of Little mermaid and snow white.
For the love of God just make good movies. People will watch watch whatever tripe Disney puts out that has a large enough marketing budget. But dear God have they put out some “successful” pieces of trash in the last few years. Largely being shit because of the forced diversity.
That’s not even addressing the problem of Black panther not really having anything black in it aside from the name. If they had any real balls they would make a Luke cage movie and actually address the issues instead of putting the word black in stuff and printing money cos it has “marvel”, “disney” and “black” in the same sentence.
Disney is without a doubt very agenda driven lately. Their “represetation” agenda is useless bullshittery at the least and actively harmful to the cultures it tries to represent at worst.
Good on you for admitting you’re a racist. You could have done it quicker tho.
While most of his comment read that way, reread the last two paragraphs. He definitely has a point there, all of the corporate inclusion and diversity is about market share, not addressing real issues.
His point was that none of the actors cast in the film actually come from the fictional country of Wakanda.
He did his research on it and everything.
His last two paragraphs and your entire comment are baseless assertions that are at best pointless cynicism (“they’re doing the right thing but only to make money” doesn’t counter the fact that they’re doing the right thing) and at worst it’s regurgitating current American right-wing propaganda (Branding “inclusion and diversity” as bad or outright illegal is a current right-wing political agenda item. It is designed to harm minorities by removing programs that have proven effective at lowering racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. in schools and the workplace).
It’s not a good look for either of you.
Like I said to that guy, did you even watch the movie? “Addressing real issues” was core to the movie. Michael B. Jordan’s character was motivated by hundreds of years of colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and racism faced by black people the world over, and specifically in the U.S.
American, you do not dictate your cultural heritage to the world. Go cry into the bloodstained flag of your failed state.
I’m not American.
Sorry I just heard racist bullshit and knee jerked.
Ass-u-me.
Er, yeah we do in fact dictate it. It’s kinda our whole thing.
I think maybe the young folks haven’t heard of cultural imperialism?
You don’t think black panther “address(ed) the issues”? Did you miss all of Michael B. Jordan’s character’s motivation? Or did you just not even watch the movie?
Dude, your moaning over a fictional story. There is no wakanda for them to draw staff from. Authenticity to the real world is an impossibility from the start, using that as a critique isnt a rational position. They could be authentic to the comic, that’s it. And they made their calls, even if you disagree with them. Maybe they auditioned every willing man in Africa, what do we know? Was it even filmed in Africa or was Wakanda, not being real and all, just CGI and built on a set.
That…tracks with how movies are made, my guy. Just saying.
Beyond that, Black Panther was a huge American production. Millions on millions of dollars on the line. They need actors the director can work with. How many actors do you think there are in Central Africa that speak fluent enough English that the director can wax on motive and speak the superlatively emotive, circularly self-referencing, psuedo-scientific humble-brag that is woke therapy-speak?
How many of those Central African actors in LA at the time of casting?
Don’t get offended on behalf of other people. All you do then is deny them a voice. The perpetually offended hurt every “cause” they match onto because they’re full of shit, just want attention (even if they have a point) and in general are just plain insufferable.
I don’t necessarily agree with you but I’m upvoting you for adding to the conversation, because I think you have some nuggets of truth but miss some of the forest for the trees. Particularly, that they did make Falcon and Winter soldier that addressed some of the issues you’re talking about.
Regardless it’d be cool if Lemmy were like old reddit before it got big, where even if people disagreed with you they’d engage and dispute your points rather than just calling you a racist and hitting downvote. Just makes discourse devolve into “both sides” screaming at each other with their fingers in their ears.