Spidey-Reboot, Irfan Khan, Racism, Sherlock Holmes, Oh My...

[yaseen101]

Firstly, apparently Irfan Khan is in the Spider-reboot. Read more hereHowever, I'm not posting this so that I can share my enthusiasm with you guys but rather to address something that really struck a nerve with me and yes if you are wondering, fandom got their knickers in a twist with a poc being in this. (Read the comments in the link

Comments

[underlankers]

Sci-fi is simply 'kiddie stuff' to him because this whole nerd culture and everything is something that's not as deeply ingrained in India as it is in the US. Superman, Batman, Spider-man are all characters that are seen, marketed and viewed as kid's stuff.You won't find hordes of fat middle-aged white men fighting to grab the latest issue of X-Men at a specialty store or even any 'Comic Book Guy' equivalent in Indian Pop Culture just a bunch of eight year old kids...and me (plus a few others) in a bookstore.

This reminds me of how on a Godzilla forum I used to be a member of the majority of commenters were in their 30s at the youngest but were surprised to learn that in Japan Tokusatsu is kiddie stuff. And went rapidly from being surprised to being offended. What kind of movies has Mr. Khan been in?

[yaseen101]

Here's a complete list of roles he had done. :)

I haven't seen all of it but I recommend checking out Maqbool. It's Vishal Bhardwaj's adaptation of McBeth. It's basically darker n' edgier take on the play and set in India's Underworld. HOwever, it's infused with a sense of nuance, so it's okay I suppose. The rest, I'm ambivalent about because I haven't seen them yet.

His most recent role though is in another Vishal Bhardwaj movie 'Saath Khoon Maaf' (Seven Murders Forgiven) and since Vishal is known for his adaptation of classic literature and putting it in a modern Indian setting, this one's based on the Russian Play Susanna's Seven Husbands'. Irfan is playing one of the seven husbands, you can see him here

[box_in_the_box]

On the one hand, all the racist assholes taking pot-shots at him for being a dark-skinned Muslim need to die in a fucking fire.

On the other hand, this is the era of the Internet, so even if you give an interview to ONE publication that's targeted to ONE specific audience demographic, you're kind of a fucking idiot if you think that ALL the quotes from this same interview will NOT be disseminated to ALL the audience demographics out there ... including the one that will be PAYING MONEY for the genre that you just DISMISSED, genius.

Put it this way; if Generic Hunky Hetero White Guy Superstar got cast in a romantic comedy targeted toward a heavily female movie audience, and them proceeded to give an interview to a men's magazine in which he talked mad amounts of shit about both the genre of romantic comedies as a whole AND the women who watch them, then I would not cry tears of blood for him, Argentina, when the inevitable occurred and those same female film-goers proceeded to tear him a new asshole, even if I agreed with his

[neo_prodigy]

You make very excellent points and while I agree with you, this does beg the question of would the negative reaction have been the same (assuming there would've been a reaction at all) if Mr. Khan had been white?

While Mr. Khan could've used better judgment for his comments (to put it mildly) if this had been say Hugh Jackman or Hugh Grant stating that they didn't want to star in a violent American fantasy film but was impressed by the script, they might've gotten the occasional "Not cool to bash our genre!" but I think people in general would've been far more forgiving and written off the actor's comments as being misquoted or taken out of context. How many times have we seen that shit? And folks damn sure wouldn't wouldn't have been using this as a jumpoff to break out the white sheets.

[box_in_the_box]

You make very excellent points and while I agree with you, this does beg the question of would the negative reaction have been the same (assuming there would've been a reaction at all) if Mr. Khan had been white?

Oh, of course not. The fact that he's Muslim and not white are magnifying the hostility by about a thousandfold, but by the same token, if you don't think there would have been ANY unreasoning hostility as a result of his comments if he was white, then I'd suggest you weren't around for the period when John Malkovich was seriously being considered to play Norman Osborn, and when he ultimately decided against it, and offered MILDLY dismissive comments about the genre, there was STILL a decent-sized wave of WHO THE HELL DOES HE THINK HE IS LIKE HE'S SO MUCH BETTER THAN SPIDER-MAN SERIOUSLY WE DON'T WANT YOU IN OUR MOVIE ANYWAY IF THAT'S YOUR ATTITUDE ASSHOLE comments.

[neo_prodigy]

Very true.

[90scartoonman]

Ugh, although I'm not surprised by comments like this, it still pisses me off every time it happens.

[yaseen101]

Agreed.