USA Today movie review: "no lead actors of color"

[Zymologist]

USA Today gives Dunkirk a positive review.

The last paragraph tempers the praise, somewhat:

Source: usatoday

The trio of timelines can be jarring as you figure out how they all fit, and the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way. Still, Nolan’s feat is undeniable: He’s made an immersive war movie that celebrates the good of mankind while also making it clear that no victory is without sacrifice.

© Copyright Original Source

Whitewashing, indeed. Will Hollywood never learn?

[Adrift]

USA Today gives Dunkirk a positive review.

The last paragraph tempers the praise, somewhat:

Source: usatoday

The trio of timelines can be jarring as you figure out how they all fit, and the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way. Still, Nolan’s feat is undeniable: He’s made an immersive war movie that celebrates the good of mankind while also making it clear that no victory is without sacrifice.

© Copyright Original Source

Whitewashing, indeed. Will Hollywood never learn?

I really wish these movie critics would spend more time haranguing folks like Chan-wook Park for casting primarily Asians in his Korean films. He seems to get away with that sort of thing scot-free all the time. And the one time he directed a Hollywood film, the entire cast was white. Tsk.

[Sea of red]

Seeing a WWII movie and expecting to see women and people of color in lead roles is like watching a movie about Rolling Stones, and expecting to see people of Jamaican ancestry playing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

It's just ridiclous to actually expect something other than people that look like the people in that time period being represented in an historic movie.

[Starlight]

Seeing a WWII movie and expecting to see women and people of color in lead roles is like watching a movie about Rolling Stones, and expecting to see people of Jamaican ancestry playing Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

It's just ridiclous to actually expect something other than people that look like the people in that time period being represented in an historic movie.

I agree with not altering historical events to change the race of the actors for the sake of it. Of course this means that Jesus can't be white, contra Fox News. However, it's worth noting that plenty of people of color fought in WWII. The way black and white troops were successfully integrated during WWII actually inspired a lot of research into race relations and social integration.

[Tassman]

USA Today gives Dunkirk a positive review.

The last paragraph tempers the praise, somewhat:

Source: usatoday

The trio of timelines can be jarring as you figure out how they all fit, and the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way. Still, Nolan’s feat is undeniable: He’s made an immersive war movie that celebrates the good of mankind while also making it clear that no victory is without sacrifice.

© Copyright Original Source

Whitewashing, indeed. Will Hollywood never learn?

It's an excellent review of what appears to be an excellent movie. Although his comment that "there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color etc" is gratuitous nonsense. Of course there wouldn't be in a movie striving for authenticity in the depiction of the UK 70+ years ago.

[seer]

USA Today gives Dunkirk a positive review.

The last paragraph tempers the praise, somewhat:

Source: usatoday

The trio of timelines can be jarring as you figure out how they all fit, and the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way. Still, Nolan’s feat is undeniable: He’s made an immersive war movie that celebrates the good of mankind while also making it clear that no victory is without sacrifice.

© Copyright Original Source

Whitewashing, indeed. Will Hollywood never learn?

Can't wait - going to see it Saturday! Did they also forget transgender characters? Bigots!

[Sparko]

Can't wait - going to see it Saturday! Did they also forget transgender characters? Bigots!

No. all of the lead characters are men who are playing women who secretly had sex changes into men. Very convoluted. And Christopher Nolan is self-identifying as a black man for the purposes of this film in order to allow a person of color to have a lead role without spoiling the historical accuracy of the film. It's all good.

[Leonhard]

I might see it, after I catch some of the last showings of Wonder Woman over here. I agree you shouldn't artificially create characters of certain ethnicities for the sake of balance.

If anyone is interested in a movie featuring black women who were ignored historically who did great work for the agency that eventually became NASA, go watch Hidden Figures. These women did all the calculations, and were called 'computers' in the days before actual electronic computers. They did all the calculations for John Glenn's flight, and he refused to go into orbit until 'the ladies had checked the calculations'.

[Bill the Cat]

I might see it, after I catch some of the last showings of Wonder Woman over here. I agree you shouldn't artificially create characters of certain ethnicities for the sake of balance.

If anyone is interested in a movie featuring black women who were ignored historically who did great work for the agency that eventually became NASA, go watch Hidden Figures. These women did all the calculations, and were called 'computers' in the days before actual electronic computers. They did all the calculations for John Glenn's flight, and he refused to go into orbit until 'the ladies had checked the calculations'.

My youngest got to meet one of the ladies from NASA that the film was about at her college last year. I believe it was Katherine Johnson...

[Bill the Cat]

I found an interesting blog post :

Source: http://ancestralenergies.blogspot.com/2010/05/where-were-black-people-at-dunkirk.html

Where Were the Black People at Dunkirk?



The UK is currently commemorating the 70th anniversary of Dunkirk. There will be a celebration in Dunkirk later this week.

In case you are not sure what this refers to, in 1940, during the early days of the Second World War, Britain and France suffered defeat at the hands of Germany, and their troops were stranded on the French beaches at Dunkirk.

More than 900 little ships came from Britain, evacuated the British and French forces and ferried them across the Channel to safety. They were able to rescue thousands of troops over the course of several days. This is often reported as an example of wartime British bravery and comradeship.

What is rarely talked about is the fact that many troops in the French Army were from Africa, and the little ships refused to take the Black soldiers. They left them on the beaches for the Germans to capture, and many ended up in Auschwitz. Senegalese director Sembene Ousmane mentions this in his film Camp Thioroye, which is based on the true story of a massacre of African soldiers by the French Army during the war.

© Copyright Original Source

True? I don't know. The link to the Hidden Histories article is dead. Just thought it was interesting.

[Cow Poke]

Of course this means that Jesus can't be white...

Jesus is white, blue eyes, blond hair, and speaks King James English with a British accent. Everybody knows that.

[Cow Poke]

I might see it, after I catch some of the last showings of Wonder Woman over here. I agree you shouldn't artificially create characters of certain ethnicities for the sake of balance.

If anyone is interested in a movie featuring black women who were ignored historically who did great work for the agency that eventually became NASA, go watch Hidden Figures. These women did all the calculations, and were called 'computers' in the days before actual electronic computers. They did all the calculations for John Glenn's flight, and he refused to go into orbit until 'the ladies had checked the calculations'.

That was an enjoyable movie.

[Adrift]

I agree with not altering historical events to change the race of the actors for the sake of it. Of course this means that Jesus can't be white, contra Fox News.

Fox News declared that Jesus was white? That's a really strange thing for them to say. I can't even imagine the context that something like that would come up in.

I'm an absolute snob for historical accuracy in film. One of the things I loved about The Passion of the Christ was Gibson's insistence on using Aramaic and Latin, and while the cast was not quite as Semitic or Mediterranean looking as I would've liked, at least we didn't get a blue eyed blond-haired Jesus. The Italian film The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Pasolini has a pretty Mediterranean looking cast, which helped sell the film for me. I was with the critics who castigated Ridley Scott for miscasting Exodus: Gods and Kings. That sort of cast would have been fine for 50s/60s Hollywood, but we've come a long way in attention to detail in film to go from Charlton Heston playing Moses to casting Christian Bale in the same role 60 years later.

[Bill the Cat]

Fox News declared that Jesus was white? That's a really strange thing for them to say. I can't even imagine the context that something like that would come up in.

I'm an absolute snob for historical accuracy in film. One of the things I loved about The Passion of the Christ was Gibson's insistence on using Aramaic and Latin, and while the cast was not quite as Semitic or Mediterranean looking as I would've liked, at least we didn't get a blue eyed blond-haired Jesus. The Italian film The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Pasolini has a pretty Mediterranean looking cast, which helped sell the film for me. I was with the critics who castigated Ridley Scott for miscasting Exodus: Gods and Kings. That sort of cast would have been fine for 50s/60s Hollywood, but we've come a long way in attention to detail in film to go from Charlton Heston playing Moses to casting Christian Bale in the same role 60 years later.

Natalie Grant's video "Alive" I though portrayed Jesus most closely to what a Jew of that time period probably looked like.

[Adrift]

Natalie Grant's video "Alive" I though portrayed Jesus most closely to what a Jew of that time period probably looked like.

Not familiar with it. I'll have to check that out.