Today I Learned

Haha I read that originally as "they be robots and have removable arms and legs that fit erybody else."

That's fascinating though. I must say I like Aliens much better. I rarely revisit Alien but I might do in the near future.

Expand on that

The american obsession with melanin levels is insane. Why cant they be normal and be racist to people who live over the next hill, like us enlightened europeans.

I think the point is that if it was important for the character to be Hispanic, they could have hired a Hispanic actor for it. Her being Hispanic didn’t have any meaningful impact to the story, so why not just let her character be white? If they did it to make the film more appealing to Hispanic viewers, then surely an actually Hispanic actor would have been a better fit. White actors have historically been given distinctly non-white roles just because Hollywood is afraid of melanin.

The history of it goes all the way back to old black and white films, with movies like Dragon Seed or The Teahouse of August Moon, which both had major asian roles filled by popular white actors. The unfortunate part is that they often aren’t respectful when they do it; It often ends up being a caricature of the race instead. Anyone who has seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s will know what I’m talking about. Or hell, there are even cases of outright blackface, like a white actor playing Othello in the 1965 movie. Many people have criticized Al Pacino’s accent in The Godfather as offensive, bordering on caricature.

If you want more recent examples, we could point at Jake Gyllenhaal playing a middle-eastern prince in Prince of Persia. Or Johnny Depp playing a Comanche caricature in The Lone Ranger. Another good example is Scarlett Johansson being given the role of Matoko Kusanagi, in Ghost in the Shell. The movie is based on a Japanese anime, and is based in Japan. But Hollywood refused to hire a Japanese actor to play the role, and instead gave it to the whitest white woman who has ever whited.

Its almost like the people who come up with this batty shit never actually leave the basement, so they don't understand suntans.

Well, to be fair, blackface is also a type of makeup

If an actor loses weight or works out to be more muscular, that's commitment to their craft.

If they lay out in the sun, that's cheating!

[jk]

The fact that they tanned her is not the issue. The fact that they tanned her to play an ethnicity she is not, is the problem. Especially during an era where people of that ethnicity were lucky to be typecast in something.

I know it's before this time, but Martin Sheen had to change his name to get work in Hollywood because nobody would hire someone with a Hispanic sounding name.

Correction: his foster parents are dead.

That movie is one of the best sources for quotes.

"This little girl survived ... with no weapons and no training. Right?"

"That's great! WHY DON'T WE PUT HER IN CHARGE?!?"

Just curious, is it offense that she dyed her hair reddish and has Hollywood freckles for the Irish role?