Ben Kingsley to play Mandarin in Iron Man 3, Whitewashed?

[crazymongomofo]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/apr/10/ben-kingsley-iron-man-villain

http://www.metro.co.uk/film/900807-ben-kingsleys-character-in-iron-man-3-revealed-as-the-mandarin

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ben-kingsley-iron-man-3-robert-downey-jr-jon-favreau-309693

It looks like the upcoming Iron Man movie seems to have gotten a little more

Comments

[crazymongomofo]

Good Lord, thanks for that. To be honest, I don't remember Firepower too much but if that is so, then what the heck is the deal...? This is almost like the John Stewart controversy and the white nerd rage over not having him portrayed as Green Lantern in the GL movie

[noybusiness]

"Leave it to Hollyweird to spin this and said "but we have got a black guy for War Machine already..." "

But... ...what kind of argument is that? It's not like there's a quota on black characters, or that having one is automatically enough. I mean... who could think that way? Don't they realize that black people are a large and diverse group?

[hoyvinglavin64]

What confuses me most about this is that Iron Man 3 is a Chinese co-production, so you'd think they'd have Chinese actors. Or maybe the Chinese government didn't want the villain of the movie to be Chinese? I know they censored Chow Yun Fat out of Pirates 3 for the Chinese release for a similar reason.

[crazymongomofo]

Thank you for that too, hoyvinglavin64. I wasn't aware of that info prior (that it was a Chinese co-production), but that already was in the back of my mind that having a stereotyped villain like Mandarin would be problematic in itself and perhaps you are right that that was the most likely case where the Chinese government didn't want that kind of clout over the movie production.

Doesn't excuse the whitewashing going on though and it would be absolutely ludicrous ala TLA, having a antagonist/character from China with a story based in China where he is portrayed as anything but Chinese!

[roflmaozedong]

China is actually starting to voice a dislike for stuff like that. There's calls from the gov't to include more involvement from Chinese actors/stuntmen/workers/etc in future Hollywood films that want to be filmed in China.

[noybusiness]

Funny. We hadn't had a post here in a while and just the other day I was thinking about Racebending, specifically that if a movie or series was made of the Circle of Magic books then someone would probably have to point out strenuously during casting that the characters Briar and Lark have golden-brown skin.

[imnotasquirrel]

Clearly that means that they are white people with tans.