Will Smith "not black enough for movie role"

I don't know. I don't really look like anybody famous. Probably the closest you could get to me in a "name" actor would be someone like Jack Black, though I'm a lot taller than he is. Maybe John Candy if he were still alive (and about the same age as when he died) and a bit thinner.

But if Will Smith wants the job...

Actually...you're right. He's kinda close, though I have more hair.

But unlike him, you can occasionally be funny.

And we both j**k off to Sarah Silverman.

Except she's actually around when he does it.

Too lazy to look for it now, but a few years back someone posted a thread to the effect of "If you were the opposite sex, who would play you in a movie version?"

I discovered that Ed Harris and I could be twins (except, yeah, I've got more hair).

How many obese, autistic, moronic actors are there, or can play an obese, autistic, moronic character?

Yeah, I can sorta see it in the shapes of your faces.

I was in high school not long after the Friendship 7 flight. The nuns in my school went absolutely gaga every time the Old Man showed up for a school event.

"Oooooh, Mr. Wander! You look exactly like that astronaut fellow!"

Which, of course, made Mommie Dearest livid, which was part of the fun.

And who played Glenn in The Right Stuff? Yep, this guy:



Square jaw, blue eyes, pale eyebrows, reddish hair and freckles, born several weeks apart (though I was a preemie, so even that works). Only difference is, my nose is a little smaller, but that's a girl vs guy thing, I suppose.

I eagerly await snide comments from @Soma, @Ten Lubak, and the other morons...

speaking of "all over the "map" with sibling skin tone The Cosby Show had it nailed!

Why would you insult someones father? You're not @Tererun.

back or ear hair?

I meant you.

No one was talking about an actor playing me.

Uh, oh! You can't remind them of their previous positions or their flip flops without being called racist.

Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. You are actually going to lie and pretend that shit never happened? Talk about selective memory unless you spent the last decade under a rock or something here at Wordforge.

I'm not lying, I'm just saying that the phrase "any actor can play any role" which Lanzman often brings up has only ever really been used by him.

I'm aware of plenty of times where people had felt that an actors race was irrelevant to their ability to play a role, but I am not aware off the top of my head of anyone explicitly arguing along the lines that Lanz presents.

If you have any examples of this being argued I would love to see them.

@Dinner will now pull something out of his ass to "prove" his allegation...

I don't care where he pulls them from if the examples actually exist, I'd rather see something that proves me wrong and then know that than unknowingly be wrong uncorrected.

Like I said, please remind us (since you said "them" it implies you also think it was specifically people who have posted in this thread who expressed that sentiment).

It was mostly in the media forum and it has been several threads over the years.

Whatever happened to this?

Since neither you or Lanzman seem able to actually bring up examples (which is weird, you'd think Lanz would be able to see well from up there on his cross) I did some digging myself for threads where discussion on these lines had occured:

https://wordforge.net/index.php?thr...-for-new-spiderman-movie.110535/#post-2872074

In this thread you have a discussion about race of actors playing roles. In it K. and Shirogayne argue that context matters, and provide counter-examples specifically saying that not all actors could play all roles. They even both agree that they wouldn't have cast a black actor to play Heimdall.

Zor Prime argues that in the context of many superheroes their race is irrelevant to the character, but also provides some specific examples (such as the Black Panther and Red Skull) where the race of the character is a pretty important part of their identity and so couldn't be played by any actor.

The first use of the word racist in that thread comes when Lanzman puts it into K's mouth, despite K. having not implied any such thing up to that point:

14th Doc had made a couple of implications up to that point, but K. had said nothing along those lines.

The remaining few pages of that thread turn into a mess with The Flashlight and other trolls, but Lanzman had left it at that point so it doesn't seem relevant to this discussion.

There is also this thread that spends a few pages discussing race as a factor in casting, but other than Lanzman again pulling out his "any actor can play any role" response, no-one seems to suggest any such thing: https://wordforge.net/index.php?thr...-movie-blasted-for-lack-of-asian-cast.112749/

There's also this thread that was started as a troll by Federal Farmer but has some good discussion in it: https://wordforge.net/index.php?thr...ith-white-actors-for-film-adaptations.110539/ - unfortunately I again wasn't able to find anyone making a claim along the lines of "any actor can play any role".

The search continues though, if you can find an example that would be great.

@Dayton3 ?

Yeah, what @Bailey said. I don't think any actor can play any role. I do think there are many roles that do not require a specific "race".

Of course, fictional roles can be changed. It's not that you can't make a good Thor movie with a black Heimdall, they did so at least twice. But doing so massively changes the character and in this case the world building. That doesn't have to be a bad thing, but it isn't the same thing as a faithful adaptation in that respect. In the original, the appearance of Asgardians was supposed to have been the historical model for the ideal worshipped by white supremacists. That doesn't work if the first face you meet in Asgard is a gorgeous black man.

For MJ, I saw no reason and still see no reason in the story for her having to be white. In that discussion, it also struck me as specifically racist that the ONLY aspect in which an actress was supposed to match up to the original was "race". MJ in the comics is famously a redhead: having her played by a blonde changes the character in relevant ways, because this relates to established stereotypes that MJ embraces. If you'll accept a blond but not a black woman for the part, your concern is not with story and not with faithful adaptation, but with race instead.

Similarly, in the OP case, if you believe actors should look like the original versions of the character, then Smith isn't a good fit. If you think any black man but only a black man can play this person, then your concern is not that the actor should look the part, but rather your concern is about race, because that is the one line you're drawing.

Finally, with far too few minority roles in Hollywood (and elsewhere), having a white person play an originally black part is not morally equivalent to having a black person play an originally white part. That false equivalency has been discussed many times. You don't "heal" after a bank robbery by letting the robber keep the cash "because making them give it back would just be reverse robbery".

I guess Andy Dick could probably bulk up and gain 70 pounds

Man, those are some great receipts!
I love message boards.

The Johnny Storm case is a great example of this.

There is nothing about the character that relies on his whiteness, other than the fact that of course he was white because it was the 1930's and the idea of ever sending a black man into space would have been absurd (note it took until 1983 before the first African-American astronaut went into space).

To say that character needs to be white simply because he was portrayed as white is to disrespect the character in my opinion by making future stories hold onto 1930's racism.

Absolutely.

Having said that, making him a different *race" from his supposed sister is a bit thornier. And the movie was rubbish for a host of completely unrelated reasons.