I get this is the "woke" version but...
why did they kill off the Asian character? I get why they killed off all the whites. Does the woke crowd put Asians in the same category as whites?
shareIt's not "woke". It just as a more diverse cast than the original. It makes it more interesting.
Billy dies because he's in the bell tower with Goodnight. That's all. It works for the story.
Some live, some die, it's about the story. Don't read too much into it.
After re-watching the original, I realized that the old one is bland. It has good actors, but no anima. No character. I hate to say it, but the new one is better. I liked the original when I was a kid, but I prefer the new. A very rare thing for me.
It's not "woke". It just as a more diverse cast than the original
That's exactly what being woke means when there was no need to blackwash characters.
It makes it more interesting.
It does just the opposite, especially when the diversity contributed absolutely nothing to the story, and the characters very well still could have been white and nothing would have changed. share
You seem to be upset that "the characters very well still could have been white and nothing would have changed", but by your own admission the diversity changed nothing. So why does it upset you that some people are different races? Is it just because it feels like an unnecessary change?
Men used to play women in Shakespearean plays because women weren't allowed onstage (neither were black actors). Was it woke to let women on stage? I'm sure you have no problem with women in film today; a man from the late 1500s would.
What about blackface? Do you think it's woke that blackface is no longer acceptable? Many american's did when the practice started to decline in the 40s and 50s as the civil rights movement started gaining traction.
White actors have been playing non-white roles for ages. How can you be offended by the race swapping in this movie, but not be up in arms that John Wayne once played Genghis Khan? John Wayne being a white man didn't affect the story. If they had cast an Asian actor for the role "nothing would have changed".
The question is why were all of the characters white in the original? It was made for white audiences, that's why. Representation matters and we live in a more diverse world than 1960. It only makes sense that modern interpretations of older films will be made for modern audiences.
So why does it upset you that some people are different races? Is it just because it feels like an unnecessary change?
So if it's an unnecessary change, why change it to begin with if it adds nothing of value to the end-product?
Was it woke to let women on stage?
Nope. Women should play women.
What about blackface? Do you think it's woke that blackface is no longer acceptable? Many american's did when the practice started to decline in the 40s and 50s as the civil rights movement started gaining traction.
Justin Trudeau seemed to be fine with it, so what does that tell you?
How can you be offended by the race swapping in this movie, but not be up in arms that John Wayne once played Genghis Khan? John Wayne being a white man didn't affect the story. If they had cast an Asian actor for the role "nothing would have changed".
This is what we call pushing the goal post with a non-sequitur. I never mentioned anything about it being okay to whitewash characters, did I?
The question is why were all of the characters white in the original? It was made for white audiences, that's why.
It was also representative of the demographics in that region where the story took place, the new movie was not.
Representation matters and we live in a more diverse world than 1960. It only makes sense that modern interpretations of older films will be made for modern audiences.
No, it does not matter unless you're an actual racist. The "diversity" of today is vastly overblown.
Blacks make up 14.7% of the population, which means at most we MIGHT see 1.5 out of every 10 characters be black, unless it's a movie that takes place in the ghetto or an inner city.
Asians make up approximately 6% of the population, which means we should only be seeing about 1 out of every 20 characters represented as Asian at most. share
LEARN TO COUNT KIDDO...
BLACKS- 1.5 OUT OF 10 CHARACTERS...CHECK.
ASIANS- 1 OUT OF 20 CHARACTERS...CHECK.
THIS MOVIE PASSES YOUR AUTHENTICITY CHECK.
LOL I also said that it needs to be representative of the demographics of its time.
There weren't a bunch of Asians and blacks running around that part of the West when the story takes place, so of course it seems jarring.
ARE YOU SURE?...BECAUSE MY AMERICAN HISTORY COURSE AT SDU SAYS OTHERWISE.
shareAre you referring to the Chinese railroad workers? Well that's fine and dandy... but Lee Byung-hun is Korean.
LOL way to show your racism, bud.
[–] cyguration (1248) 9 minutes ago
LOL I also said that it needs to be representative of the demographics of its time.
There weren't a bunch of Asians and blacks running around that part of the West when the story takes place, so of course it seems jarring.
YOU SAID ASIAN...KOREAN AND CHINESE ARE BOTH ASIAN...YOU'RE REALLY STRETCHING FOR THAT ONE...BUT YOU KNOW...BEING WRONG DOES WEIRD SHIT TO PEOPLE LIKE YOU.
DEMOGRAPHICS OF THE TIME.
https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1880/vol-01-population/1880_v1-13.pdf share
You can read all the history books ever written and you will not find ONE Asian gunslinger in the entire history of the 19th century American West. Plenty of railroad workers, some cooks and laundry workers in the mining towns, but not one hardbitten gunslinger like the guy in this movie. But of course, maybe it's been "suppressed" and there was actually a two-gun Asian who could outdraw Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid and Jesse James, but the evil white patriarchal historians didn't want us to know, man! LOL!
sharePLENTY OF ASIANS AT THE TIME...IT ISN'T BELIEVABLE THAT ONE LEARNED TO SHOOT?...YOU'RE BEING DIFFICULT FOR NO REASON OTHER THAN BEING RIGHT EVEN WHEN YOU'RE WRONG.
shareThanks for proving my point?
Out west there around 75,000 Chinese in the California region, and less than 90 Japanese. I'm assuming about 0 Koreans.
They made up less than 0.25% of the population at the time, so yeah... thanks for proving my point that there likely wouldn't have been any Asians around that area at the time.
YOU JUST TYPED HOW MANY ASIANS THERE WERE AT THAT TIME...PLENTY FOR THE AMOUNT IN THE FILM...YOUR MATH AND MIND ARE FLAWED.
shareUh, no. There were only 226 Chinese in the San Diego area, mostly concentrated in the urban sprawls. They were not looming around in the deserts or rural areas.
226 during that time would equate to about a neighborhood block's worth of Chinese. Meaning only a small concentration of them were located in a region that spans 372.4 square miles. The average city block is less than 350 feet, or about 17 blocks per mile, which breaks down to San Diego being able to fit up to 6,330 blocks within its city limits, which means that there's less than a 0.03% chance you would ever encounter a block full of Chinese people if you were randomly wandering across San Diego in the late 19th century.
Furthermore, what you wouldn't see are random Asians sporadically across frontier towns. The numbers were too small.
Plus, there were no Koreans in that area, which even furthers my point: even IF the one Asian character was Chinese he wouldn't have been anywhere near there. And two, since the Asian character was Korean, it makes the diversity case even worse because there were no known Koreans in that region, in that city, or even in the state at the time.
even IF the one Asian character was Chinese he wouldn't have been anywhere near there.
WHAT THE FUCK?...HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE AND WHEN ONE MAN WAS?...YOU SOUND INSANE.
Why would a guy who couldn't speak English, wasn't a farmer, wasn't a herder, wasn't a rancher, and wasn't a panhandler be out in the middle of the desert near frontier towns?
Seriously?
That's like a random Nigerian being in Anchorage, Alaska, during the early 19th century for absolutely no reason. Do you not see how ridiculous that sounds?
PLAUSIBLE AND POSSIBLE...DO YOU NOT SEE HOW RIDICULOUS YOU SOUND?
shareEverything in life changes. In regards to the movie, if everything stayed the same there'd be no point of making a new one. I do not think that the costumes, action, dialog, music, or direction can change but characters' races are off limits.
Women not being allowed on stage and the use of blackface are examples of societal norms of the past that are unacceptable today. I'd argue that a lack of diversity is just another example of that.
I wasn't trying to use a non-sequitur. Maybe you are offended by John Wayne's portrayal or Genghis Khan. I was under the impression that your issue was with characters being race-swapped in film. John Wayne was a white actor who was cast as a Asian character. You clearly take issue with the diversity in Magnificent Seven because it wasn't in the original. They aren't even the same characters as the 1960 film (inspired by the first of course, but it's a re-imagining).
The demographics of the time that the movie is set in is an interesting point. If historical accuracy is important to you, maybe it doesn't work (but Kowalski buries that argument). There were examples of such inaccuracies in the both films outside of race though (e.g. levi jeans and references to 10 story buildings). I don't understand why it is important to be historically accurate in regards to race (which you already admitted has no change to the story), but not costume or dialog.
It is not at all racist to say that representation matters. The term is not at all exclusive to race. I've lived all over the U.S. and racial diversity is vastly different throughout the country. You may live in an area that reflects those percentages. Many of the places I have lived has not.
I enjoyed both the original and the remake and can appreciate them both for what they are.
I'd argue that a lack of diversity is just another example of that.
Except that has no bearing on the legitimacy of its pertinence. For instance, women playing women makes sense. Not purposefully going out of the way to denigrate another race makes sense. Throwing in unrelated races for no logical reason makes zero sense.
If historical accuracy is important to you, maybe it doesn't work (but Kowalski buries that argument).
How? By showing that less than 106,000 Asians were in America during the late 19th century? Or that only 75,000 of them presided in California at the time and less than 100 of them were Japanese? What's more is that less than 226 of them were in San Diego, which means even fewer were in the Rose Creek area.
That actually works more in favor of my argument than yours or his, given that during that period they accounted for LESS than 0.25% of the population in the U.S., at the time, so you shouldn't have seen any Asians around there unless you went to one of their communities.
I don't understand why it is important to be historically accurate in regards to race (which you already admitted has no change to the story), but not costume or dialog.
Because jeans were actually around in the late 19th century, which makes sense, and there were a few buildings during that time that were taller than 10 stories. But seeing races run around anachronistically when they wouldn't even have been around in those parts at the time doesn't bother you?
You may live in an area that reflects those percentages. Many of the places I have lived has not.
Which is why I said "diversity" in films should be reflective of the area it takes place in, and it was HIGHLY jarring seeing the pseudo-"diversity" in the Magnificent Seven reboot.
share
I'd add another impossibility. It's not only about percentages, it's about distribution too.
Perhaps one director wants to tell the story of a Chinese family in California in the XXth century. Chances are most characters would be Chinese, since family and community had an essential role and they had little relation outside of it.
But that's not the case in the "diversity" movies. They just represent the same repetitive template of characters, often with the same personalities applied as a function of race/gender: the badass white chick, the educated and charming black dude, the self-sacrificed Hispanic, the feeble insecure white male cuck, etcetera. It's not a representation of piece of past. It's just the same racial template applied no matter it's set in the current day, in the XXth century or in the King Arthur mythic age.
I'd add another impossibility. It's not only about percentages, it's about distribution too.
I knew exactly where you were going with this before I finished reading the rest of your post...
Perhaps one director wants to tell the story of a Chinese family in California in the XXth century. Chances are most characters would be Chinese, since family and community had an essential role and they had little relation outside of it.
And there it is. 1000% agreed.
My comment was cut off so I couldn't finish it, but demographic distribution is a HUGE factor at play in storytelling about "diversity" as well, and you hit the nail on the head. Most Chinese back then -- and even today -- mostly stick to their own in communities. Their numbers were so small back during that epoch that you wouldn't find scattered Asians around and about due to language and culture barriers being a prominent issue.
Some stray Korean wandering about in the West makes zero sense. Most Asians back then weren't cattle herders, no were they scavengers or farmers, because they weren't acclimated to that kind of lifestyle, and were mostly used for physical labor related to industrial tasks.
It's not a representation of piece of past. It's just the same racial template applied no matter it's set in the current day, in the XXth century or in the King Arthur mythic age.
Precisely. That's a well-articulated way of explaining it; SJWs simply love the racial elision as a template for "diversity" even when it makes zero sense, oftentimes resulting in blatant anachronisms. share
There were plenty of blacks out West and most cowboy slang is derived from Spanish. In fact there were notable black gunfighters such as Bass Reeves and Willie Kinnard and the Mexican American Elfego Baca was one of the toughest customers of his era. Where wokeness comes in is that while there were plenty of Asian immigrants out there they were mostly miners and railroad workers with Tong members in the big cities. None were gunfighters as we understand the term. And a Native American gunfighter was likely to be from modern day Oklahoma...a Comanche warrior would have been shot on sight even by the black and Latino members of this particular Magnificent Seven.
shareThanks for the added info.
I think that's part of what takes audience members out of a movie, when they can very easily see the anachronisms and know that it's a misrepresentation of the era.
I think that "blackface" is a stupid concept.
So, as an example, for halloween a white guy cannot dress up and "play" the Black Panther character or Blade?
How is that even offensive?
I rule Not Woke on this one.
They weren't "blackwashing." They were "casting Denzel." It's a different thing.