Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof should not Return.

You're not listening: it's NOT an ethnicity.

 

“It's a me, Khan!“

 

Good thing I have a princess in every castle, then. Some are even "ethnic Sikh". I recognize them because they wear a fake tan.

My part would be played by Alan Rickman. Oh no, he's British! Canon violation!!!

Actually, you would just get a few puzzled looks in Italy. The only times "hispanic" is used in Italian, is when talking about the ancient Roman province of Hispania.

 

Again, if you don't have to be a follower of the Sikh religion to be considered a Sikh, then it's not just a religion. So come up with a different collection of letters to describe this phenomenon, if the term "ethnic" is unacceptable to you ( though it's accepted by at least some Sikhs ).

 

Cumberbatch's facial features are actually pretty wildly different. His hair isn't really black either, he's just a pasty ginger.

But none of that really matters. They changed the character in both looks and personality and people should just accept that.

Only if the race is actually important to the character. As written in STID, it was not (even being Khan wasn't really important). That said, I still don't like the implications of that.

 

Whether or not Sikhs are an ethnic group is actually a complicated and even legal question. Britain's Race Relations Act of 1976 sets various criteria necessary for a group to meet in order to be considered an ethnic group and Sikhs meet most of them. They are considered an "ethno-religious" group. Some Sikhs from the Punjab consider themselves first Indian or Pakistani, while others say they are Punjabi. Here's an interesting link, from which I got the above information.

http://www.sikhsocs.com/opinion-pieces/the-national-census-2011-what-is-your-identity

 

Anyone else completely Sikh of this conversation?

 

I, for one, simply Khan't stand it anymore.

 

This whole tangent was minor enough that I would normally let this go, but that there is a truly spectacular rhetorical dodge, Pasi, and I think it deserves recognition in and of itself for style, flair and form.

Really this is three rhetorical dodges in one, as you're

a) Distorting your interlocutor's point into a claim that Sikhs are "an ethnic group" (that it is possible to be an "ethnic Sikh" does not make Sikhs a single ethnic group or amount to a claim they are so, a distinction I doubt genuinely needs explaining to you, but that's okay, artistic license and all),

b) Attempting in incredibly ballsy and some might even say hugely arrogant -- but I'm going to go with "Pacino-esque" -- fashion to dismiss commonplace Indian usage of a commonplace term as "misuse" because you're not willing to admit a simple error,

and then c):

Projecting your sins onto your interlocutor and hoping nobody notices.

That is an absolute masterclass in rhetorical silly-buggers in the space of just two sentences, my friend. I salute you. Arguably your time might have been better spent simply admitting you didn't know "ethnic Sikh" was a commonplace term in India for people born but not practising as Sikhs... but instead you gave us poetry, ballet and opera in one. So I respect your decision.

 

Well, of course that's a perfectly reasonable summation... * grumble grumble Vulcans and their logic grumble *

 

Yes, we should agree to Spock it, right now.

 

^ I dunno, I still find it rather eav'oqative.

 

Is Khan's race important to either the character or the plot of the story?

To put it another way: Would James T. Kirk still be the same person if the character was written the same way but played by an African-American actor?


And we've still not accounted for the possibility that the studio (that was already, according to JJ, interfering on the issue of Khan) was a little jittery by the ideal of casting someone of Middle Eastern/having the appearance of Middle Eastern descent in the role of a building bombing terrorist that is threatened with drone attacks. The 9/11, Hunt For Bin Laden, and War On Terror/Drone Warfare allegories was painted on pretty thick in STID.

 

Not STID, but I already said that. They could've made him any race and it wouldn't matter. They could've changed lots of things about him, which signifies how generic of a character he is, and how they were able to rewrite him as Khan. Not much defines him, least of all his race.

Is it important to Space Seed? Yes, a little. Wrath of Khan? No.

Maybe, although it might depend on the story. There would likely be some differences that would creep in.

It's been discussed several times before. I think if they're too afraid to use what the character is supposed to be, then they just shouldn't bother. And that's not really just about race. I think his race is probably the least of concerns in that regard.

About studio jitters, it's likely that they'd be more concerned about casting an intelligent villain as non-white than poorly depicting them stereotypically. It's sad, but that's the case for a lot of movies.

 

Could you cite some examples?

 

It's not exactly anything new that executives worry about the casting of non-white people.

An example that execs are afraid of black casts: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/10/george-lucas-hollywood-di_n_1197227.html

By extension, most roles (especially leading roles) are going towards white males: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/8710

This stuff is all too frequent, and we see movies like The Lone Ranger or Prince of Persia, that show they can't be too worried about offending sensibilities.


For STID, I don't think they were worried about stereotypes because they were never looking to hire actors from that region in the first place, but rather someone who looked like Montalban. The role only went to a white person when they were unsatisfied with all of the Latino auditions, which is kinda weird in itself.

 

How about if James T. Kirk was written completely differently and played by a British actor? Which of course was what happened with Khan, right?

(Of course Kirk's character was actually written quite differently in Abrams' movies...)

 

Fine, but you specifically referred to the casting of intelligent villains, and I was wondering if you had examples of intelligent villain roles disproportionately going to whites.

I mean, what about Kingpin in Daredevil? I remember a brouhaha about casting Duncan, but I thought it worked brilliantly. Samuel Jackson surely worked as the philosophy-spouting hit man in Pulp Fiction, and Ving Rhames worked well too in that film, thought that's not exactly recent any more.

 

Not offhand really. I'd read somewhere that heroes are typically portrayed as light-skinned vs. villains being dark-skinned unless there was an element of the audience needing to identify with the villain. It's an extension of the same reason that execs probably won't cast as many minorities which is because a large portion of their audience is in fact white. They probably guess that white people won't be able to identify with Katniss in Hunger Games if she isn't white, so they explicitly put on the casting call that it's for whites only. Khan was meant to be a villain that you sympathize with in the beginning of the story, so he certainly fits the bill.