Barsoom or Bust: Bow down and be humbled, fools!

[kali921]

So, I have a ton of links to post about Andrew Stanton's collaboration with Disney for the upcoming John Carter of Mars films, particularly about the fact that there's some rather horrific whitewashing going on in the casting of the Red Martians in the same way that the cast of the live-action Avatar film is being whitewashed

Comments

[merrickm]

So what are they going to do, put her in redface to play Dejah?

Well, yeah. That's what I'd do, regardless of the ethnicity of whoever was playing her (though I'd probably have someone darker-skinned playing her as well). I never pictured them as having the complexion of any real human ethnicity. They're reddish copper. Yeah, a lot of art has Dejah as a stereotypical Exotic Beauty of Persianish appearance, but as you pointed out, a lot of art of her has her wearing clothes. (Which of course she'll have to be in any live-action movie adaptation in order for the movie to be remotely marketable enough to get the budget such an adaptation would require. I don't think any studio is gonna go for the naked thing.)

Mind you, were it up to me- well if it were up to me this wouldn't be live action, but if it was- I'd still cast a Middle Eastern or possibly Native American actress just in homage to the way she looked on a lot of covers, as well as to emphasize her being racially different than John Carter, but I'd still put coppery makeup on her if there was the budget for it. I don't think of it like like the Avatar clusterfuck because in Avatar the races were obviously meant to correspond to real ethnic groups in the real world. Now, if they cast a white actress and leave her with human-looking skin, then that's a problem, yes.

They'll attempt to tone down the sexism presumably through the standard Hollywood method of toning down the sexism in such things, which is making Dejah more of an Action Girl and having her beat up more people, probably save John from a fight he's losing at some critical point, that sort of thing. I don't think there's as much racism that needs to be toned down as the Tarzan books, but it's been a while, may be something I'm not remembering. Other than that, put some clothes on the characters for the appeasement of the ratings board and you're good to go.

[kali921]

Mind you, were it up to me- well if it were up to me this wouldn't be live action, but if it was- I'd still cast a Middle Eastern or possibly Native American actress just in homage to the way she looked on a lot of covers, as well as to emphasize her being racially different than John Carter, but I'd still put coppery makeup on her if there was the budget for it.

Er...the Red Martians always read to me as Burroughs' partial inversion - a sci fi fantasy inversion, partial - of the Red Indian trope. Yes, even with some of the problematic depictions in the Barsoom books when it comes to race and gender. (I thought it was sort of a poetic justice that the White Martians were assholes while the Red Martians were most clearly not.)

These books started to be written in the very early 20th century; it was more common for Americans and Western Europeans to think of/refer to Native Americans/First Nation people as "red" rather than "brown."
So, to me, it makes sense to focus less on the RED and focus more on the COPPER and BROWN if you're going to cast for a live-action film version of the Barsoomverse because it reflects more progressive thinking about racial tropes and identity. And there is no shortage of beautiful coppery brown or brownish copper people to cast in such a film. Add some red body paint for the Red Martian cast? Sure, why not. But start with Caucasian people to begin with, which seems to be the case given the other casting announcements that I've seen? No. Fail. Epic, epic fail. I've never thought of Dejah Thoris as white.

Stanton and Disney have a chance here to utilize some criminally underused actors of color, and they're eschewing that in favor of bland and pale.

I don't think of it like like the Avatar clusterfuck because in Avatar the races were obviously meant to correspond to real ethnic groups in the real world.

I disagree in part - there are more parallels than you might initially think. The flora and fauna of Avatar were fantastical in the way that Barsoom is, although Barsoom is clearly a more alien world, what with it being MARS (despite the fact that it was extrapolated from current scientific thinking about Mars). The divergence comes when you get to the people, but even then, Barsoom is populated by cultures and people that often resonate, however remotely, with things that are recognizably human. Yes, even acknowledging that Barsoom is high space fantasy mixed with Conan. Example: Red Martian culture is a slightly veiled homage to Greco-Roman culture.

And, uh, the Black Martians - yeah, no similarity there to anything on Earth, no sirree.

If the Red Martians are going to be a big part of this film -- and they should be since they are in the books -- than cast them appropriately. If you want a mordern vision of Barsoom, then cast the people of Barsoom to reflect its true diversity.

[merrickm]

Huh, well, like I said, it's been years since I read the books (and I don't think I read them all- mostly drawing a blank on Black Martians, for example) so no doubt you are right, in which case this casting is even more clearly no good at all than I thought. (Also, as I recall, the books I read as a kid didn't have pictures, which probably contributed to me imagining less human Red Martians than others.)

[jmatonak]

I don't think it was deliberate, as in "an attempt" to do anything- I thought their hybrid vigor just enabled them to survive where the "purer" races mostly didn't.

But I am working from extremely spotty memory here.