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View Full Version : So I just watched a Prince of Persia movie trailer..



Skuda
Feb 8, 2010, 12:45 AM
Why is it that when actors are portraying foreign characters, they always use some crappy english accent for their voice?

:disapprove:

SabZero
Feb 8, 2010, 05:09 AM
The game characters spoke with a british accent, so that's true to the source, at least. A bigger giref is a very white man playing a persian (although it's not impossible).

That said, it looks like an entertaining movie, I'll see it for sure! :)

ShinMaruku
Feb 8, 2010, 10:48 AM
If you want to split hairs a white person playing a Persian is not too far off.

Sayara
Feb 8, 2010, 11:30 AM
Except for the part that it is.

Outrider
Feb 8, 2010, 03:22 PM
At one point, an poll had settled on an actual Persian actor for the role. Who knows if he can actually act, but listen to his qualifications:


Both international and U.S. audiences overwhelmingly favored David K. Zandi, motion picture executive, actor, champion equestrian, model, and honest to goodness Persian prince. One of the last male members of the Zand dynasty (1747 - 1779), David has also studied both fencing and Roman sword fighting in England, so the only way he could be better suited for the role is if he actually possessed control of the Sands of Time, which I am not completely ruling out at this point

(Source: Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/368276/persian-prince-favored-for-prince-of-persia-role))

astuarlen
Feb 8, 2010, 04:18 PM
A bigger giref is a very white man playing a persian (although it's not impossible).

This.


If you want to split hairs a white person playing a Persian is not too far off.Except for the part that it is.
This.

At one point, an poll had settled on an actual Persian actor for the role.
This.

You're gonna give a talented actor of color a chance to advance their career in a substantive role instead of erasing their existence and reaffirming the "default" by casting a white actor next time, right, Hollywood? Next time, right? Hint hint, nudge nudge.

Outrider
Feb 8, 2010, 05:21 PM
I can't stress enough that actor David Zandi is a literal prince of Persia who has been trained in sword fighting.

Again - I have no idea if the guy can act or not, but c'mon!

Alnet
Feb 8, 2010, 06:07 PM
At one point, an poll had settled on an actual Persian actor for the role. Who knows if he can actually act, but listen to his qualifications:

Both international and U.S. audiences overwhelmingly favored David K. Zandi, motion picture executive, actor, champion equestrian, model, and honest to goodness Persian prince. One of the last male members of the Zand dynasty (1747 - 1779), David has also studied both fencing and Roman sword fighting in England, so the only way he could be better suited for the role is if he actually possessed control of the Sands of Time, which I am not completely ruling out at this point
(Source: Kotaku (http://kotaku.com/368276/persian-prince-favored-for-prince-of-persia-role))
Good lord, he even looks like the Prince. Someone in Hollywood needs to be killed and eaten. Or rather, someone else in Hollywood.

HAYABUSA-FMW-
Feb 8, 2010, 09:33 PM
Good lord, he even looks like the Prince. Someone in Hollywood needs to be killed and eaten. Or rather, someone else in Hollywood.
Donnie Darko ending remake?

(that was on the TV also recently, seeing it for the first time)

Skuda
Feb 8, 2010, 09:58 PM
You know what, I shouldn't complain. At least they are trying to use 'some' accent in Prince of Persia, unlike Mr. Tom Cruise in Valkyrie. Primo acting there, Tom! :)

HAYABUSA-FMW-
Feb 8, 2010, 10:00 PM
*Tom Cruise motorcycle dance youtube hosted clip of BET 106 & park show, again*

Uploader comment:

"Air motorcycle? This guy is ENTERTAINMENT"

-
Tried to find the blog(!) news and notes with the pics of the Last Airbender guy who will be playing Prince Zuko who in his screentest/headshot pic was a zany looking dude, more like he should play Sokka, guess I didn't bookmark that. ;o

Alnet
Feb 8, 2010, 10:03 PM
Donnie Darko ending remake?

(that was on the TV also recently, seeing it for the first time)
Oh, no, I just like killing and eating people. :wacko: But if we can make it into a movie worth watching, I'll gladly play in it.

Outrider
Feb 9, 2010, 11:28 AM
I'm somewhat less torn when an animated character with an implied ethnicity is cast using a live-action actor/actress of a different ethnicity. Oftentimes, these original characters really have no characteristics that would define them one way or the other.

The example I've always thought about was Dragonball Z - the vast majority of those characters don't look Asian or Irish or Spanish or whatever, so even though most people would say they're Japanese, I can't get too upset if they're cast as something else.

astuarlen
Feb 9, 2010, 05:09 PM
Gonna alternate between specifics and generalities/using this quote as a jumping off point, 'cause it's an interesting subject...


I'm somewhat less torn when an animated character with an implied ethnicity is cast using a live-action actor/actress of a different ethnicity. Oftentimes, these original characters really have no characteristics that would define them one way or the other.

The example I've always thought about was Dragonball Z - the vast majority of those characters don't look Asian or Irish or Spanish or whatever, so even though most people would say they're Japanese, I can't get too upset if they're cast as something else.

Hmm, I question the idea that "those characters [from the Dragonball Z cartoons or comics] don't look Asian". Leaving aside the fact that "Asian" describes people from Yemen to Bali and isn't represented by any particular physical features, I'm not sure how the artists should or would indicate this in the character designs. In my experience, many manga or anime or, indeed, western cartoons don't make use of facial features which describe some abstracted notion of one geographic population. I don't think it's so much that they "don't look Asian", but that they look like stylized humans (even though they're canonically aliens). It's only possible to say the former when we have an assumption about what the default human looks like (in "western" culture, white--and, particularly, a fairly limited notion of phenotypic whiteness) and, thus, assumptions about how certain features differ from this so-called norm.

What's problematic, I think, is that when we put such casting decisions in the context of American films featuring white people in roles explicitly written for people of color or the tendency to cast white people as the "default" in roles which aren't thus determined (particularly leading roles in mainstream films), this kind of whitewashing is not just an isolated occurrence or a coincidence without deeper implications.

A couple posts on the identity and appearance of characters in manga and anime in general:
Anime/Manga Characters =/= White (http://naamenblog.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/animemanga-characters-white/)
Why are they all white? (http://bankuei.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/why-are-they-all-white/)
And I'm sure one could find tons more on this topic.

Of course, the Avatar: the Last Airbender casting is one of the most egregious recent cases (http://www.racialicious.com/?s=airbender&searchsubmit=Find) I know of. There's a whole site known as Racebending.com (http://www.racebending.com/v3/), named for this issue.

Volcompat321
Feb 9, 2010, 05:17 PM
I don't think it really matters who plays who.
If I enjoy the movie, fine, if not, I don't.

If an actual Persian can act the same way, and play the same role, them I'm all for it.
If the producers/directors/casting people cant find a Persian that can play the part, by all means, use a white dude and give him makeup.

Does anyone really care if they used a white dude for Prince of Persia?
I probably wont go see this in the theater, but I will eventually watch it.

Outrider
Feb 9, 2010, 06:00 PM
I don't think it's so much that they "don't look Asian", but that they look like stylized humans (even though they're canonically aliens).

That was pretty much what I'm saying. They don't look like any specific ethnicity; Outside of hair/skin/whatever color, you're going to have a hard time matching up an actor to the character in some of those situations.

EDIT: And actually, just reading the first post you linked to - the author uses somebody's reference to white characters in Avatar as being demonstrably false. I'd argue that, if we're matching characters based on aesthetics in a purely fantastic world to the aesthetics of people in the real world, why is it wrong to say that some characters are caucasian? It's based on just as much information as the author arguing that they're not white.

EDIT x2: Although, on second thought - I'm looking at some Avatar information and I didn't realize quite how much it borrowed from real world cultures. I suppose that would make certain assumptions wrong, but a lack of detailed information can certainly contribute to that.