True fact: racist or not, a black actress in a movie headline with a white suprehero ain't gonna bring much money from overseas or in the good ol' USA.
Tip for the day: Prefacing a statement with "true fact" is not enough to make it true. You support -- or refute -- a claim with actual evidence. Like this:
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-successful-actors-at-the-box-office.php
Of the ten most successful feature film actors of all time, measured by total box-office grosses of the films they've appeared in, four are black -- with Samuel L. Jackson taking the number one spot. It seems quite counterfactual to assert that having a black performer in a leading role would make a film unprofitable.
I also find it funny that a non-white literary character can be changed to white and the uproar can deafen you, but a black actress for a white literary character is absolutely fine. Strange, that!
That's very disingenuous. For centuries, Western society has given special privileges to whites and denied other ethnic groups the right to compete fairly. Even today, despite the proven success of certain black or Asian actors, it's difficult for performers of color to get an equal chance to succeed. You yourself assert that racial prejudice is still prevalent, so to turn around and say this in the very next sentence is a gross contradiction.
Your mistake is in defining it in terms of the characters. The uproar isn't about the characters -- it's about the
real live human beings seeking gainful employment as actors. It's about wanting fair opportunities for everyone. Minority roles are still outnumbered by white roles, so casting whites as characters who were originally minorities is denying scarce opportunities to actors of other ethnicities. It's a matter of job discrimination, and there's nothing funny about that.
You do realize both of Zoe Saldana's movies after Avatar (Losers, Takers) were insta-flops, yes? And in Avatar she wasn't even in her true form? You can call Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller and Robert Di Niro as well-known actors. Zoe saldana ain't that.
So? She was also in several successful movies before that, including
Center Stage, the first
Pirates of the Caribbean, and a little thing called
Star Trek. No actor is successful in 100 percent of their films.
