Netflix' Ciri will be cast by an ethnic minority

[Caldon 452]

Because of fucking course they will

I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting very tired of Hollywood's attempts to force their political pandering down everyone's throats at the cost of beloved series and characters. If this is true I'm cancelling my Netflix account.

[Fintz 4,505]

I do have a counterpoint on that, as long as it is not organic it fails but as an example it happened to watch Carmen (the opera) not being played out by a white woman and it was amazig. The whole issue is when they are forcing it too much. 

[Caldon 452]

43 minutes ago, Fintz said:

I do have a counterpoint on that, as long as it is not organic it fails but as an example it happened to watch Carmen (the opera) not being played out by a white woman and it was amazig. The whole issue is when they are forcing it too much. 

I doubt they even care about the repercussions of their decision. They'll have to change so much to the story, not to mention the entirety of Ciri's bloodline, to accomodate their SJW fantasy that they want.

If people want to cast black people, asian people, women etc that's fine, but do it in a new movie/series or introduce the characters in a way that feels natural. That way they won't alienate fans of the source material and they can have their vaunted diversity. It's a win-win. Just check out the backlash to Ghostbusters, Ocean's 8, and the play for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Similarly, check out the praise for Django Unchained, Pulp Fiction, etc.

[Chimaera 4,760]

Given that the writing staff for the Netflix Witcher was shown holding signs like "There are no borders, only people" and other virtue signalling bullshit like that, I'm not surprised at all. Just shows that California breeds stupidity. I'm with those who want the power of "running" social media taken away from people who are hell bent on pushing their identity politics onto the rest of the world. 

[Baelthor 9]

I'm ok with that  And I will watch It anyway and enjoy it for sure. If you want to watch it as It is then you can play the game, I'm pretty sure many things in the games aren't as in the books (I haven't read them) and that is what the media does, they change things for worse or better but they can do it, you can watch it and after that you can "rate" if you like or don't like it but meanwhile, who cares, you can always ignore It doesn't exist but I will wait until I finish watching it to judge.

[Basard 487]

Avoid this show like the plague then. It's ment to have an old easten europe setting for the lore perspective.

I foresee "Fantastic 4" 2.0 replay events from this.

[CyberianK 3,525]

I don't mind progressive SJW hollywood fanatics if they produce something creative, respectful to the source material and authentic like "Mad Max Fury Road" then I can forgive them.

If they give it the Disney Star Wars treatment then I am raising the pitchforks with you. If its feels forced it never works. The progressive stuff in Fury Road makes roughly sense in the world is approached in a mature and thoughtful, real way and is often subtle and not hurting the story much. It has to be natural instead of forced if its there in the first place. There have been movies with political messages in the past that didn't feel so forced and cheap like the stuff we are getting in recent years.

 

The signs I have heard regarding that Witcher production makes me very sceptical. Could become just another shitty video game/book adoption even with netflix money.

[Schatten 331]

"Certain corners of the internet are preemptively upset about the possibility of Ciri not being white, though there’s little justifiable reason for it"

 

[CyberianK 3,525]

Also I mean when Madonna did Black Jesus in the 80s it was controversial and disrespectful to the source material but also creative

and it was also commercially a wise choice because her core audience probably wasn't pious conservative catholics anyway and the scandal created wider reach.

Pissing of huge parts of your core audiences like all peoples who liked Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars or anyone who played Witcher and liked it for its authenticity just isn't a wise choice. Especially cause you will not cause as much media attention to make up for the damage media just is too dispersed these days. You mainly reach the peoples who are pissed off about it not millions of the general public who will decide to get a netflix subscription to see what all the buzz is about..

[Caldon 452]

Remember how nobody cared when they cast Morgan Freeman as God in Bruce Almighty? That's because God, in that universe, was not already established in one way or another. Sort of. Casting the man with God's voice was probably also a good idea.

Again, I'd like to stress, I do not care about black people or women or other minorities within original works. It's just that Hollywood's latest fad of just taking an established character and using them to push a political message irks me to no end.

[Juntau 1,575]

Personally, I applauded Morgan Freedman in his role as GOD since his overall vibe denotes that of wisdom, and it made sense to me. 

[CyberianK 3,525]

Sometimes twitter is funny

[Boildown 610]

Katie Sackhoff is the best Starbuck.

Anyways, if this really makes you mad, then certainly don't watch.  If people watch, they'll keep doing it.  So either these people are throwing away Hollywood's money by this casting decision, because it'll have fewer viewers and generate less income, or they're on to something and people do want to see these changes. In which case you are being left behind by society by being so concerned about it.  Or you could say, hmm, well that's a change I don't like, maybe I should judge the show on its merits regardless.

[Juntau 1,575]

Left behind by society...that's funny. I don't think it works quite that way.

[Chimaera 4,760]

4 hours ago, Boildown said:

Katie Sackhoff is the best Starbuck.

Yep, and it wasn't a problematic swap for a lot of people (myself included) because BSG was a storyline that had very little in the way of "established lore", and the character of Starbuck is easily translatable to any gender, color, etc... that it  doesn't push people to react so poorly. Ciri is a different thing altogether. Established character in a gaming and novel franchise that is over a decade old, based off of lore and oral traditions of the Slavs, and with a consistent reasoning behind her having been...you know...Slavic.
To me, casting her as anything other than a person who could be understood to be a Slav within the portrayed time-period of the fantasy and myth genre of the Witchers is much like "Merlin" (TV Show) casting Gwenevere as a black girl during Albion-era British times. It makes no sense to the story, is jarring in its representation, and doesn't provide any adequate "backstory" as to why she appears as such. You could also say the casting of a black actors as Hercules and Zeus in "Troy: Fall of a City" was similarly problematic in this regard. The amount of creative loops commentators use to "historically" justify this kind of casting is ludicrous, especially when taking into account the use of WELL ESTABLISHED characters as something other than they are portrayed within the source material. Hell, there is a "Monkey King" series out of Australia, which takes the Song-era Chinese myth, and transposes whites, blacks, and central Asians, into the series in such a way that it was just unwatchable. It's jarring, makes no sense, and is extremely poorly executed. Even my wife (who is Hong Kong-Chinese) thought that the series was unwatchable and offensive to the source material and culture. There's a fine line between creative license and completely rewriting source material just to tick a box. 

That said, I am with @CyberianK in that I am fine with changes to characters of genres or series so long as there is an understandable and "in-the-show/game" explanation for why they exist. A good example of this (for me) is the change of the Doctor from male to female in the "Doctor Who" franchise. Another is one you pointed out, with Starbuck being cast as a female. If the lore and period of a story is fluid enough for the creative license, OR there's a well-handled explanation of a certain change, then I can accept it. However, given the documented tendencies of the Netflix Witcher's staff, I highly doubt there will be any such care given to the source material or the fans of the lore. Unless you have a lore or characters within the lore that are capable of being seen in many ways (i.e. God has been a burning bush, so why be upset by a Morgan Freeman, or hell even Alanis Morissette?) then forcing changes unnatural to the lore and established character development seems less a "creative interpretation" and more "virtue signalling and forced diversity". There's been so much of this in media in the past decade or so, it's no wonder that people are getting tired of it.  As for people just "dealing" with it and seeing how it goes. That's the approach filmmakers took to Ghost in the Shell...look how well that turned out...and even in that case, Japanese largely loved the movie... lol

[Buckaroo 782]

Agreed to all the thoughts on hollywood recasting roles to please certain minorities for "just because" reasons.  I'm more interested in whether the actor or actress is a good FIT to do the acting position and could care less of their race, gender, or sexual preference.  I'm of the believe one should be hired base on their ability to act and portray the character as they should, not on the color of their skin (this really could be applied to any job, no matter what kind of job).

There are a few exceptions, obviously.  Some roles require a guy or a gal to do it justice.  Wonderwoman should be played by a woman.  James Bond should be played by a man.  Doctor Who should be a man--just kidding (I think it's interesting that the Doctor is becoming a woman and genuinely wonder where they'll take that in the next season).

All that said, I have yet to see a great, beloved game with an awesome storyline made into an equally great movie/TV series.  I always hope, but it usually doesn't end well.

[Riley Egret 406]

5 hours ago, Buckaroo said:

Agreed to all the thoughts on hollywood recasting roles to please certain minorities for "just because" reasons.  I'm more interested in whether the actor or actress is a good FIT to do the acting position and could care less of their race, gender, or sexual preference.  I'm of the believe one should be hired base on their ability to act and portray the character as they should, not on the color of their skin (this really could be applied to any job, no matter what kind of job).

There are a few exceptions, obviously.  Some roles require a guy or a gal to do it justice.  Wonderwoman should be played by a woman.  James Bond should be played by a man.  Doctor Who should be a man--just kidding (I think it's interesting that the Doctor is becoming a woman and genuinely wonder where they'll take that in the next season).

All that said, I have yet to see a great, beloved game with an awesome storyline made into an equally great movie/TV series.  I always hope, but it usually doesn't end well.

I believe this train of thought is a trap.

If a director comes up with an amazing idea about Ciri or the Doc, Zeus or whatever he deserves at least to have people judge the result fairly.

If he takes a character that is inspired to slavic culture ( will the Emperor become something else too, since he's the father?), characterised by white hair, snow white skin, emerald eyes (get a hint already) and switches it around with the only purpose to check a box in his "woke guy" list he's either a man with no intellectual honesty or a pushing his ideology.

Anyway, we all know the drill after all this time, I'll skip it for my part.

Btw, I think that Bond should stick to Fleming's character and yet I'd have enjoyed immensely Elba doing it,

[Gremlich 3,320]

17 hours ago, Chimaera said:

Ghost in the Shell

If you look at the source material, Shirow Masamune draws most of his women as stylized European white girls, The Major in particular. The only Asian rage I heard was from white Americans. The Japanese didn't care.

9 hours ago, Riley Egret said:

Btw, I think that Bond should stick to Fleming's character and yet I'd have enjoyed immensely Elba doing it,

Elba could easily have filled another "00" role, same with a woman actor. Just leave 007 alone.

[Chimaera 4,760]

@Gremlichi know. The point I was making was that the controversy tanked the movie’s prospects because of identity politics. Reread what I wrote.

[Caldon 452]

UPDATE : Slavic is apperantly an ethnic minority. Rumours and reports suggest that they are specifically looking for actresses of Polish descent.

My brother sent this to me.

Maybe they will actually do this right! And if they are, I may just owe the producers an apology.

[Fintz 4,505]

1 hour ago, Caldon said:

UPDATE : Slavic is apperantly an ethnic minority. Rumours and reports suggest that they are specifically looking for actresses of Polish descent.

My brother sent this to me.

Maybe they will actually do this right! And if they are, I may just owe the producers an apology.

Almost all the non native English speakers  considered ethnic minorities (figures in the identity steamrolling melting pot that is US )

[LowZone 133]

9 hours ago, Caldon said:

UPDATE : Slavic is apperantly an ethnic minority. Rumours and reports suggest that they are specifically looking for actresses of Polish descent.

My brother sent this to me.

Maybe they will actually do this right! And if they are, I may just owe the producers an apology.

Wait, does that mean that because someone, somewhere misinterpreted an "ethnic minority", that this entire thread is rendered null and void?

And it was just starting to get interesting too! I await the next mountain-made-out-of-a-molehill with breathless anticipation.

[Chimaera 4,760]

19 hours ago, LowZone said:

Wait, does that mean that because someone, somewhere misinterpreted an "ethnic minority", that this entire thread is rendered null and void?

Not really, the reported casting call was for a 15-16 year old BAME female. BAME = Black, Asian, Non-White Ethinic Minority. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/bame
The reported casting call, following the photo they took, found here, 

 got people up in arms about virtue signalling, SJW, etc... It also broke open the wider conversation about how people/fans who want entertainment to remain closer to SOURCE MATERIAL are being called sexist, racists, etc... simply because of that. The latest rumors of Michael B. Jordan being tapped to play Superman, and the SEVERE reaction from a lot of fans, is yet another example. The wider conversation that should be being had is this: "Why does Hollywood, et al feel the need to take source material that has (specifically) white/caucasian roots, and transpose actors/actresses that aren't true to the source material?" If you do that to ANYTHING that's considered "minority-based" then people freak out... but whites/caucasians are just supposed to shut up and think it's all good? The excuses for past white-washing aren't really valid since the practice was standard for the TIME. We can look at the past, decry it as tasteless (John Wayne as Genghis Khan comes to mind), and say we'll do better, but doing better isn't achieved by "washing out" white actors/actresses for roles where the source material says they were a specific way. Additionally, instead of helping create more organic and diverse stories and characters, you're literally "rewriting" things to fit a particular narrative. That was wrong in the past, and it's wrong now...unless it happens to whites (it seems). 
 

That's the broader conversation, and why so many people are beginning to get sick of Hollywood and other media rewriting narratives based off of current-day socio-political ideologies that aren't shared by a large number of people. 
 

[macgivre 211]

What is coming up of all your messages is that hollywood is color/gender washing the same old stories again and again ... 

In the end the root cause seems that they are simply unable to write new original stories themselve .... 

[Caldon 452]

28 minutes ago, macgivre said:

What is coming up of all your messages is that hollywood is color/gender washing the same old stories again and again ... 

In the end the root cause seems that they are simply unable to write new original stories themselve .... 

Pretty much, yes. In fact most opponents of what Hollywood is doing with, for instance, black Superman or an all-female Ocean's 11 are calling out for them to write something original instead with the cast they want.