Tag Archives: race

Shame Day: Johnny Depp and The Lone Ranger

Posted on July 2, 2013 by | 16 comments

I feel like I shouldn’t have to say too much about this. Really, this feels, to me anyway, like it hardly warrants an explanation.

Johnny Depp, a white actor, playing Tonto, a character traditionally portrayed as being of the Potawatomi tribe, in Disney’s upcoming The Lone Ranger is really dumb. “Dumb” is but one of the many four-letter words I could be using to describe it.

shamejohnny

Really, though, I should let Mr. Depp speak for himself. He’s an actor a lot of people greatly respect given his extensive acting career, and I think that he should be given the opportunity to explain (1) why he took on the role, and (2) why his character appears the way he does. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in film, media, race, Shame Day

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World War Z Doesn’t Take Place In A World I Live In

Posted on June 24, 2013 by | 3 comments

Newer readers may not know this, but this is actually the third post about World War Z on this blog. I first wrote about the way the film was to deviate from the book back in 2011, while former CWR writer [who I dearly miss] Elisa briefly explored their prevalence in pop culture the year after.

So two days ago I saw the movie, and I’m not going to write the logical continuation of my first post, complaining about how the movie could have been “so much better if only. . .”

What I’m going to write about how I wasn’t in the movie.

I drew this over two years ago for an all-comics weekly publication I used to run.

And no, I don’t mean why wasn’t there a zombified version of me in the movie, because seriously if you guys didn’t know I am deathly terrified of any sort of biting reanimated corpse. What I mean is why, when I watched this movie, weren’t there any dang Asians.

Spoilers follow. Kind mild, kinda not. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Asia, film, literature, race, writing, zombies

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The “One Size Fits All” Approach To Casting

Posted on May 24, 2013 by | 5 comments

Meet Mark Dacascos. As of this writing he is 49 years old, and a reasonably successful actor/martial artist. He has also portrayed more ethnicities than you can find in the average neighbourhood in small-town Western New York.

markymark Continue reading →

5 Comments

Posted in bizarreness, film, media, race, television

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Evan and Gordon Talk: The N-Word

Posted on May 15, 2013 by | 2 comments

EVAN: Readers of every gender, young and old, today Gordon and I shall be discussing a somewhat more sensitive topic of our own choosing due to there being no comments on our last post.

Our subject of conversation for the day is, and I cleared my throat before typing this, the word “nigger.”

GORDON: I’d like to talk about just that right off the bat-

Do we have to abbreviate it? I mean, I can’t think of any other word in the English language that we won’t even say. Surely we can all agree, regardless of where we stand on the word itself, that calling it the “n-word” is on par with superstition.

Evan, am I crazy here? Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in America, Evan and Gordon Talk, language, literature, media, race

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“Asian-Americans,” Admission, and Assimilation

Posted on May 3, 2013 by | 4 comments

As some of you know, I review the CBS sitcom 2 Broke Girls every Monday night. I do so mostly because The A.V. Club has dropped it from its reviewed shows, and partly because it brings in the hits. This past episode featured the following exchange between Korean diner owner [he’s Korean, the diner is not] Han Lee, played by Matthew Moy, and casting director Tom, played by Eddie Shin:

Before you ask, yes, I put the video together myself.

The reason this struck me is that it highlights a humorous turn of events that I’ve observed more than once. As I mentioned in my review, Shin’s character’s response echoes, almost word for word, that of Howling Commando Jim Morita, played by Kenneth Choi in Captain America: The First Avenger:

Yes, I put that clip together as well. Sorry for the out-of-sync sound. Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in America, Asia, film, race, television

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Black Panther, Batwing, and African Superheroes

Posted on April 12, 2013 by | 3 comments

Four days ago actor Morris Chestnut, who will appear in the upcoming Kick-Ass 2, posted the following on both his Twitter feed and Facebook page:

It’s time to get familiar with the Black Panther character.

This prompted the usual onslaught of internet speculation, and both have since been taken down. The next day he wrote a tweet to quell the masses who were clamouring to hear more about an upcoming Black Panther film.

I, for one, was personally grateful to hear this news.

“Why?” you might be asking, “Evan, I thought you were all about introducing the Wakandan super-king into the Marvel cinematic universe.” You would not be wrong in your assessment, and let me explain why, exactly, I felt this way. Continue reading →

3 Comments

Posted in Africa, America, bizarreness, comics, film, race

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