Slumdog star says Hollywood is racist

[BishopM 114]

Plus, there aren't very many good slurs for Indian/Pakistani people. "Paki" never caught on outside the UK and "dothead" sounds like a goddamn cartoon character.

A 'Paki' is the slang term for liquor store around the city of Boston....

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Plus, there aren't very many good slurs for Indian/Pakistani people. "Paki" never caught on outside the UK and "dothead" sounds like a goddamn cartoon character.

Well "Paki" has been used to refer to anyone from the subcontinent or who looks like they are from that region - Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sikhs (and even middle-easterners).

[Gemmie 142]

I'd like British actors to be cast in Hollywood that aren't playing the evil baddie.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

That's a cliche too. In Hollywood war movies its nearly always British actors who play Nazis

[slim 1,514]

Actually, I like to call everybody east of the Urals and as south as colombo, "chinamen".

My wife is from the Far East and she's white with big round hazel eyes and large "attributes."

"Chinaman" wouldn't really apply to her, would it? We do sometimes tell people she's Asian but we get funny looks.

I honestly don't know what the accepted ethnic label for a person of chinese or japanese ancestry would be. Asian seems to be the common term that is used in the US to cover anyone from India to Japan.

You got it. Asian is the acceptable term.

"Oriental" was used a lot in the colonial days.

Oriental is not acceptable for people. Oriental is for rugs and other products. People are Asian. Things are Oriental.

Sometimes you'll hear people break it down, into "Eastern Asian." "SouthEastern Asian." "SouthWestern Asian" (Which could include folks all the way west like Jordanians and Turkish folks too.) "Asian from the Indian Subcontinent."

Yeah, it's really important to get those labels right, especially considering not too many of those people like each other.

Well "Paki" has been used to refer to anyone from the subcontinent or who looks like they are from that region - Indians, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Sikhs (and even middle-easterners).

Most of the hillbillies and OG gangstas around here call anyone "non-Mexican" and brown all the same thing - terrorist.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

My wife is from the Far East and she's white with big round hazel eyes and large "attributes."

"Chinaman" wouldn't really apply to her, would it? We do sometimes tell people she's Asian but we get funny looks.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[slim 1,514]

Thanks for clearing that up.

It's still not cleared up because I honestly don't know what to call her. She's not from Europe but then again, she's not really Asian either. I guess she could be called either, or both!

Hopefully soon she'll have a new title. "American."

[Ban Hammer 12,921]

It's still not cleared up because I honestly don't know what to call her. She's not from Europe but then again, she's not really Asian either. I guess she could be called either, or both!

Hopefully soon she'll have a new title. "American."

in the RUBber we call her "boss o' slim"

[slim 1,514]

in the RUBber we call her "boss o' slim"

Yeah, I've never heard that one either.

I did make the mistake of calling her princess once. "No. I am queen."

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

My wife is from the Far East and she's white with big round hazel eyes and large "attributes."

"Chinaman" wouldn't really apply to her, would it? We do sometimes tell people she's Asian but we get funny looks.

You got it. Asian is the acceptable term.

Oriental is not acceptable for people. Oriental is for rugs and other products. People are Asian. Things are Oriental.

Sometimes you'll hear people break it down, into "Eastern Asian." "SouthEastern Asian." "SouthWestern Asian" (Which could include folks all the way west like Jordanians and Turkish folks too.) "Asian from the Indian Subcontinent."

Yeah, it's really important to get those labels right, especially considering not too many of those people like each other.

Most of the hillbillies and OG gangstas around here call anyone "non-Mexican" and brown all the same thing - terrorist.

Asian is a catchall - like African American. As stated earlier - these are convenient labels more than anything, but are not necessarily accurate. Hence everyone from India to Japan is referred to as "Asian" despite massive ethnic and cultural differences, and blacks are labelled African American, even when the come from the caribbean.

[mawilson 2,133]

Oriental is not acceptable for people. Oriental is for rugs and other products. People are Asian. Things are Oriental.

What about Oriental Rug Salesmen?

[Trompe le Monde 1,107]

Agreed. I think the emphasis in this thread has been wrong. It's not specifically about casting decisions as it is about Asian actors getting into the Hollywood big leagues and why the current pantheon of big name actors includes so few Asians.

I think the person most responsible for Dev Patel not getting the right roles is his agent.

A lot of black Britons (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Idris Elba, etc) claim they had to come to the US to get decent roles, as there aren't any back home. MJB got nominated for an Oscar and everything for Secrets and Lies, but did not get another good role in Britain.

Of course Michael Caine claims pretty much the same thing and he's white.

[slim 1,514]

Asian is a catchall - like African American. As stated earlier - these are convenient labels more than anything, but are not necessarily accurate. Hence everyone from India to Japan is referred to as "Asian" despite massive ethnic and cultural differences, and blacks are labelled African American, even when the come from the caribbean.

The govt. made them up.

What about Oriental Rug Salesmen?

It depends on the manufacture of the rug.

Rugs from Asia = Oriental Rug Salesmen without regard to race.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I think the person most responsible for Dev Patel not getting the right roles is his agent.

A lot of black Britons (Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Idris Elba, etc) claim they had to come to the US to get decent roles, as there aren't any back home. MJB got nominated for an Oscar and everything for Secrets and Lies, but did not get another good role in Britain.

Of course Michael Caine claims pretty much the same thing and he's white.

In Patel's case, that's more than likely true. As I said, I don't really buy his reasoning and as an actor he hasn't really been around long enough to make that sort of criticism. However, it is something that's

And you don't have to go very far back into Hollywood history to see that virtually no ethnic characters were played by ethnic actors. It was commonplace to use Native Americans as extras to fall off horses in John Wayne films but whenever there was a Native American character that required a speaking part, that part was invariably played by a white man in a wig with his face blacked up with boot polish.

Obviously things have moved on a bit since then - as the wider world has become more sensitive to the idea of ethnic diversity. However, it is odd (to me) that the US being the ethnically diverse country that it is, that the only big name actors Hollywood has from an "Asian" ethnicity tend to be people brought in from foreign film markets (like Jackie Chan, like Jet Li, like Chow Yun Fat, like Tony Jaa etc. etc.) whose careers were firmly established outside of Hollywood. As I say, either this means that there are very few Asian actors, that they aren't very good at it (or have bad agents) OR that (for whatever reason) there is a very limited demand for Asian actors to star in lead roles in major films.

Clearly if that is indeed the case (as I believe it is) then it's reasonable to ask why. I don't think there are any quick or easy answers to that, we can cite marketing and sales as a reason why audiences might not want to see Asians in lead roles (though I'd imagine such research would be dubious at best), but I don't rule it out. It might be, for example, that Hollywood merely reflects the biases of filmgoing audiences (though again I don't really think its as simple as that).

Saying that - from my own experience: I used to work for a marketing company that operated a number of genre related book club brands. On one of those brands, which dealt with crime and mystery fiction we actually found that it was very hard to sell books to our audience that were written by black authors. So Walter Moseley, who is a NYT bestselling author just didn't sell to our audience of 55-65 year old women. So obviously what happens is that once your realise this, and are driven purely by sales to get the most money out of that demographic, you fewer of those books from the publisher (or in some cases not buy them at all) because you know that they won't be successful. In other words - the audience itself is racist, and the company, driven by a need to sell to a targeted demographic, caters to it and in doing so enables those attitudes.

Edited August 11, 2010 by Its a MADHOUSE

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Of course Michael Caine claims pretty much the same thing and he's white.

If I recall correctly, Michael Caine also claimed to be very good at mimicking different accents. No Michael, you really aren't.