Welcome to Fantasy Friday everyone. It’s time to Blog for a Beer! (Click here for the rules.) But, before we get to the scintillating topic, just want to remind you of the Survey we’re conducting of Fantasy readers. Just trying to collect some information that will help us make the magazine even more awesome. If you’d take a moment, we’d appreciate it.
Now, on to the fun! This week’s blog prompt comes from Randy Henderson, who obviously enjoys his puns far, far too much.
Warner Brothers is suing a Bollywood film company because the title of their film is ‘Hari Puttar: A Comedy of Terrors’ and Warner Bros. thinks that name is too much like Harry Potter.
Seriously.
Yet the film has nothing to do with wizards or magic. It is a Home Alone-style story. And according to the article, Hari is a common Indian name, and “puttar” means son.
Meanwhile, a quick search of the ethernet (purely as research for this article, I assure you) reveals that there are a number of porn movies that are actually based on the Harry Potter films:
Hairy Pooter and the Sorcerer’s Bone
Harry Potter in Hermione’s Chamber of Secrets
Etcetera. Or perhaps these are proposals for porn movies. Either way, I’m certain that Harry Potter-esque porn exists out there someplace.
Yet I have not heard anything about Warner Brothers going after them. Which made me wonder to what degree this is also because they object (consciously or unconsciously) to Bollywood applying ethnicity to their white character and English character name? Perhaps some racial prioritization process in their unconscious, kind of like the difference between people’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia (aka Russian defense of South Ossetia ) versus the ongoing genocide in Darfur ?
Well, Warner Bros. and Rowling did, in fact, go after a Russian knock-off of Harry Potter (Tanya Grotter). So arguably not. On the other hand, a book series featuring a female heroine who wears round spectacles, flies a magic musical instrument, and attends a school for young witches is one thing. Suing over a vague resemblance to a name is another.
On a side note, there’s the fact that Rowling herself “arguably” borrowed from many sources to create her series. Two notable ones are Gaiman’s ” The Books of Magic ” comic series, and the 1986 move Troll. Yet she is not being sued for plagiarism — probably because she made a lot of people a lot of money. There is, I suppose, the argument that no idea is truly original, it is just how well and cleverly you use the idea that counts. But in fact, I suspect it has more to do with how much money you make than with quality or similarity, etcetera. After all, Rowling has graciously chosen not to sue fanfic writers, as long as they don’t try to publish their work for profit.
In fact, I’m sure it really all does just come down to money, like everything else in Hollywood. That is, everything except the excellent Star Wars: Clone Wars, of course. Obviously, they released that because it was a much needed and well-done addition to the Star Wars saga, right?
Basically, Harry Potter porn movies don’t compete for the same box office money as the real Harry Potter movies, and aren’t likely to be marketed to the same audiences in competition with actual Warner Bros. movies, so no real impact to Warner Bros.’ bottom line.
And possibly some of the producers quite enjoy them.
I would apply the same argument to the counter-evidence as well. For example, Warner Bros. is releasing “Towelhead“, which I think is awesome. But again, I suspect that has less to do with support of cultural awareness and diversity and more to do with the way books about Middle-Eastern and Asian women (particularly ones who must assimilate into western culture) are selling gangbusters, and they want to cash in on that. Of course, even then, they went with a “safe” story where the characters are all Christian (even the Lebanese father) and American rather than showing a true clash of cultures.
Meanwhile, they churn out action movies featuring stereotyped Muslim terrorists, for example (in the tradition of Executive Decision), without balancing the movie with fair depictions of the average Muslims who aren’t extremists.
In response to Muslim protests to an Executive Decision screening, Warner Bros. reportedly released a statement saying that it shared the “goal of increased understanding and sensitivity in the portrayal of Arabs, Muslims and Islam to audiences around the world.” But the movie was not changed. And they continued to release more movies that played on or exaggerated stereotypes, one of the most notable and latest genre films being 300, which incited protests over its portrayal of Persians, for example.
Speaking of Persians, have you heard that Walt Disney studios is making a movie version of the “Prince of Persia” video game? Could be cool. But it stars Jake Gyllenhaal — a Californian of Swedish and Jewish descent — in what I can only assume is a bad wig. The female lead is played by a Brit named Gemma Arterton, with supporting roles by Ben “I’ll star in any bad video game movie” Kingsley, and Alfred Molina (a Brit Spanish-Italian). Seriously, you are telling me they couldn’t find anyone of Persian descent to star in the Prince of Persia? Okay, yes, technically the area of Israel fell under the umbrella of the Persian Empire. But really, you couldn’t find any Iranian, Iraqi, or Syrian actors? I guess the video game does sorta depict him as a slightly tanned white dude with blue eyes, but come on …
On a related note, however, I wonder where you draw the line at bowing to the sensitivity of others. Obviously, you are not going to make everyone happy all the time. And equally as obvious, something you do may (unintentionally or not) offend an entire culture, and rightly should be addressed. But is there a gray area between? Take Towelhead, for example. The term itself is offensive to Arabs and Muslims, and many Arab and Muslim groups are expressing their unhappiness that the movie retained the book’s title. Yet the movie is not a movie promoting racist views, it is attempting to do the exact opposite.
So the title is arguably meant to A.) draw in some who don’t understand the irony of the title and might benefit from a bit of enlightenment, and B.) intended as a one-word commentary on racism. So is it offensive in context? Or does that not matter? What if there was a movie that is positively addressing the issue of racism against African Americans, and the title was N!@@3R (you know the word). Does the question become academic, regardless of the intent behind the use of the word because, bottom line, if the affected group feels it is offensive then it is offensive? And what constitutes valid offense? If a particular organization protests? If several organizations protest? I’m sure, as with most things, such questions must be answered on a case by case basis, with variables like who wrote and who directed the film, the actual content of the film, the overall intent and clarity of the message, the efforts made to solicit and respect feedback, etcetera.
Anyway, it’s just a shame movie studios can’t do a better job of pursuing profit AND racial and cultural diversity, fairness and sensitivity in their films (and perhaps come off a bit less hypocritical in the process).
I’m just hoping they don’t come after me for my forthcoming, “Brahman Begins: The Dharma Knight.”
Share your thoughts on the Warner Bros. lawsuit, or on Bollywood, or the degree to which movie studios should attempt to be culturally sensitive (either beyond or because of a concern for their bottom line), or the hypocrisy (or lack thereof) of Rowling’s plagiarism charges, or the awesome casting of Prince of Persia. Or get creative and offer some clever pornification of Warner Bros. movie titles.
If anyone needs help with the Warner Bros. films, here’s a list from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Warner_Bros._films
On a related note, here’s an article on Boing Boing (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/09/05/mad-about-star-wars.html) about a MAD Magazine Star Wars anthology.
One of the anecdotes it mentions is:
“…The Lucasfilm legal department sent a threatening letter to MAD about one of their parodies; the same parody generated a personal fan-letter from George Lucas — MAD simply sent copies of each letter to the other sender and the problem went away.”
Shows how sometimes the greed of the corporate machine gets ahead of the intent and desire of even the artists they represent.
I feel it necessary to point out that the site about everyone Rowling ripped off is completely wrong about Neil Gaiman. They have no source for their claim that he initially “did throw up his arms and yell plagiarism”. The claim he has been bought out or silenced is ludicrous.
That’s not to say that the general idea put across is wrong. Rowling did take a lot of ideas, consciously or not, and authors who have tried taking ideas from her have been treated unfairly. What ever happened to “immitation is the sincerest form of flattery”? I think for the most part it is the publishers and studios who go after derivative works, though the whole “lexicon” debacle is a different story (and I’m personally on Rowling’s side there).
However, the more I think about it, the more I feel that this Hari Puttar issue isn’t about ideas, ownership, race, etc. It’s about a culture of litigiousness that has people filing lawsuits before getting all the facts. I think it’s giving WB too much credit to assume they have an agenda instead of a cage full of pitbull lawyers.
And now, Porner Bros. Films presents:
The Sisterhood of Getting in Her Pants 2
The F***ed It List
License to Bed
Ocean’s Sixty-Nine
H***y P****r and the Order of the Penis
Sex and the City (oh, never mind)
All right, I admit, I’m not all that good at coming up with porn titles. But trust me, if you say Bow-chikka-bow-wow after each one it’s MUCH funnier.
Michael – thanks for the clarification on the Rowling site. Yeah, it obviously is not the most authoritative or up-to-date site on the subject, but I thought it nicely summarized some of the similarities, and had shiny pictures too!
Rowling may have been “inspired” by Gaiman, but Gaiman apparently didn’t mind. Which makes him the cooler artist in my mind.
I am, however, now going to have to sue you for questioning the perfection of my blog article.
Countersuit:
Your blog has caused me significant monetary damages (in time missed from work) and physical trauma (from falling on the floor), not to mention extreme emotional distress. You will be hearing from my lawyers shortly.
Actually, there is a film about racism against blacks. It’s called ‘The N Word’, a documentary hosted by the baddest badass of them all, Samuel L Jackson. Highly recommended if you’d like a little ‘inside insight’ on said N-word and black people’s views towards it. (And since no two views are the same, it makes watching the film all the more interesting.)
Jonathon — good call. I heard a rumor they were going to make a follow up, “The LN-Word” about the life of gay black women, but the Republican National Committee made the case that too many of their members would have brain aneurysms from watching, and the studio just didn’t want to deal with the lawsuits.
Interesting that the title is “The N Word” rather than, well, the actual N Word.
I myself was sued because I was doing some potting (begonias, mostly) here in the South and I happen to be hairy.
John O – so YOU are the one that started the resurgence of the big foot craze!
http://quantumage.livejournal.com/4821.html
Although I thought everyone knew Bigfoots were allergic to begonias (and, sadly enough, flea collars), so I’m surprised at the confusion. I think you have definite grounds for a counter-suit.
Seriously, you are telling me they couldn’t find anyone of Persian descent to star in the Prince of Persia?
Especially when, just last season on Heroes, Adrian Pasdar grew a beard and looked like the graven image of Asurbanipal? (I gather he is, in fact, at least fractionally Persian, but with a beard it is like, hand that man some drapery and a chariot, and he’ll go make war on the Hittites.)
Not that heavy-duty beards are usually allowed in Hollywood (which has ramifications for a couple of religions I can think of), and in fact Gyllenhaal appears to be taking the “Don Johnson stubble totally counts as a beard” approach to the personal grooming standards of the 5th C. BCE. Whereas, anybody who’s spent time in an art museum lately could tell you that most of the Classical Persian images include men with beards down to their bellybuttons.
Veejane –
Hollywood actually supports plenty of Persian actors in full beards. They have diverse roles like, “Terrorist 1,” and “Terrorist 2,” and “Terrorist 3,” …
Although sometimes they do have “Translator (secretly working for terrorists) 1.”
The exceptions that portray Arabs and Muslims positively are rare – and even more rare is when the positive depictions actually involve Arab actors with beards or keffiyehs. “Kingdom of Heaven” was one.
But Antonio Banderas in “13th Warrior“? Perhaps they should have had an Iranian play Zorro.
Or Morgan Freeman as a Saracen in “Robin Hood”? Perhaps they should have cast an Arab Muslim actor as God in “Bruce Almighty” and its sequel.
Oh yeah, that would have gone over REAL well. Especially with the folks who then go on to pay money for Larry the Cable Guy movies, boycott The Teletubbies for being too gay, and made the first crappy Narnia movie a blockbuster while avoiding Golden Compass’ intelligent coolness. Yeah, I would have loved to see the hypocritical crap storm over THAT choice.
On a side note, both Troy and 300 depicted Greeks and Trojans with beards. I think beards are way cool [he says, scratching beard].
And I guess I shouldn’t exaggerate and make it sound like all Arabians in Hollywood movies are depicted as terrorists. Sometimes they are thieves. And of course, let’s not forget the belly dancers. Hubba hubba! So exotic.
Gotta love hollywood’s feeling of a racial double standard. Being the enemies in 300, Persians come in various shades of brown while being led by a white boy in brownface. A character of colour instead as hero, Prince of Persia cast not just one but two white actors to play the lead protagonist while the roles of villain, mentor that’ll bestow power unto the white actor will be played by actual people of colour.
*sarcastic “YAY!”*
“Not that heavy-duty beards are usually allowed in Hollywood (which has ramifications for a couple of religions I can think of), and in fact Gyllenhaal appears to be taking the “Don Johnson stubble totally counts as a beard” approach to the personal grooming standards of the 5th C. BCE. Whereas, anybody who’s spent time in an art museum lately could tell you that most of the Classical Persian images include men with beards down to their bellybuttons.”
It’s one of those patterns in cinema, if not just American entertainment as a whole. The profile of the standard main character is usually white, male, brown hair, length being shaven to no longer than necklength but nothing longer, face being anywhere from clean shaven to no more than a short beard or ‘yeah I’ll shave when I get home because I’ve been putting it off for too long’ stubble, eyes colour tend to be any but brown.
So yeah, I’m not surprised about that pathetic excuse for a beard.
Juan – yeah, the standard profile is wearing pretty thin. I mean, at this point, they are really scraping the bottom of the barrel to fit the profile you describe.
Come on folks, say it with me, “Shia LaBeouf.”
Well, I expected the Prince of Persia to be a lighter coloured dude. But what about Goku? He’s also played by a white dude. I thought Goku might be played by someone who looked like a young Keanu Reeves, but whatever.
On the flipside, when the new I Am Legend came out I heard a lot of people complaining about having the hero be “black” instead of white. People seemed to be outraged about that one!
”Come on folks, say it with me, “Shia LaBeouf.””
*horror movie shriek*
Silvia,
Yeah, that’s a long time constant it seems. More people are far more offended when it’s a person of colour taking a white actor’s role or role presumably reserved for someone white (e.g. God played by Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty and Evan Almighty).
There are still people pissed about Mos Def playing Ford Prefect in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy movie but the same people see no problem whatsoever with a white woman playing Trillian in the same movie.
Silvia – Me, personally, when comparing I Am Legend to the Omega Man version, I was disappointed to see them get rid of the awesome 8-track player old Chuck Heston was jammin’ to in, and I quote the black zombie man from the film, his “Honky paradise, brother.”
But I can see why they would be upset. Saviors of humanity are white. Everyone knows that. I mean, Jesus was a blue-eyed white dude with blonde flowing hair, right?
Juan – Mos Def did awesome. The naysayers need to be strapped down and forced to listen to Vogon poetry.
One of my “favorite” cross-race castings was with Joel Grey. As a little memory jog, Joel Grey is the somewhat creepy looking white guy who played the mostly-human looking demon in Buffy that cuts Dawn up on the scaffold, and also played Sloan’s doppelganger in Alias. Yeah, that guy. Well, Mr. Grey, in lots of makeup and a horrible accent, played an elder Korean martial arts master in the (thankfully) over-optimistically titled Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins.
I still wonder how much more I could have achieved in life if I had not lost so many IQ points watching that film. Sigh.
Hmmm. I wonder if Kenneth Branagh gets the same kind of flack for his casting choices in his Shakespeare movies? Denzel Washington, David Oyelowo, are these quite excellent choices deemed bold and accepted based on the talent of the actors because it is Shakespeare, and Shakespeare is art, or equally frowned upon by the purists? Personally, Branaghs only casting choice I still cringe at was Keanu Reeves, and woah, it, like, has nothing to do with Keanu’s ethnicity dude, I assure you.
But I digress.
“Gotta love hollywood’s feeling of a racial double standard. Being the enemies in 300, Persians come in various shades of brown…as hero, Prince of Persia cast not just one but two white actors to play the lead protagonist while the roles of villain, mentor that’ll bestow power unto the white actor will be played by actual people of colour.”
This is also known as the Disney Aladdin* effect:
The hero will be unbearded and white-looking, perhaps with a tan, ditto the love interest.
They will talk Americuhn.
The bad guy (and possibly the mentor/father) will be brown, have a big nose, facial hair, and an accent (either Ay-rab-ian or effete English if he’s the nefarious educated kind of evil Arab).
To my mind, JG is also too dopey and tall to be the Prince. They need somebody small-ish who can move cool and fluid and pull himself up from ledges awesomely. There’s a couple of actors I might have been willing to extend a Middle Eastern brownface pass to on this one. Douglas Fairbanks is dead, though…maybe Ben Foster?
*Interestingly, in the original 1001 Nights story, Aladdin actually takes place in what is now China!
Saladin – Hey! How can you complain? EVERYONE in The 7th Voyage of Sinbad was white, even the lead bad guys. So the PoC as Bad Guy model is actually progress, you see? What more do you want? Geez.
Actually, wait. I think the Cyclops was brown skinned. Of course, he was a Ray Harryhausen stop motion creature. So still, progress. Now, you can see real LIVE persons of color in movies as bad guys. How exciting! How exotic! It’s like driving out of the suburbs into the city and seeing them right there, outside your car window or something! But, you know, without the danger.
I was watching Conan the Barbarian the other night. One of the best characters was Subotai the Archer (Gerry Lopez). He was a nice foil to Arnold’s Conan. Plus, there was James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom. Yes, the black guy was the bad guy, but he was such an _excellent_ bad guy. Also, Mako as the wizard.
The cool thing about that world is the characters are based on races of people that no longer (never did) exist. The Vanir, Hykanians, Cimmerians, Stygians, etc.
Conan is a stark contrast to Ridley Scott’s “vision” of Legend, where the only people of color were the green goblins and Darkness, the big red dude. However, little people were given a lot of work, playing what they always get typecast as: elves and dwarves.
I tried to post a link earlier that listed a whole bunch of Persian actors. It never came through. It was interesting to see that many actors we see every day (the female lead in Jag for example) are Persian. It’s kind of a bummer that the western ideal of what Persian should be is essentially Indian actors or Egyptians. It’s about as accurate as John Wayne starring as Genghis Khan or Sir Lawrence Olivier as Othello. Naveen Andrews isn’t Iraqi. The Rock isn’t Egyptian. But, we can still enjoy their movies. It’s all pretend anyway.
Clint – good points. As for it all being pretend anyway, I agree. I have nothing against a role going to the most talented actor regardless of race or ethnicity, within certain limits where it really doesn’t work, such as casting a white man as Malcolm X, or a black man as Leif Erickson, for example (assuming the film is going for a sense of realism and not artistic storytelling).
The problem is that for creative casting choices to be “exceptions” to a norm, for the Rock playing an Egyptian in a cheesy action film to be cool, or for the one Chinese actor to play Korean and Japanese and Vietnamese and Native American and Eskimo characters, etcetera, the norm must first actually be practiced.
Instead of white actors with tans and bad wigs playing heroes of all ethnicities, and the same handful of talented Hispanic, Black, and Asian actors continually playing supporting roles of many diverse ethnicities and nationalities, we need to see movies about Persians star Iranians and Iraqis and Syrians, movies about Mexicans star Mexicans, movies about eastern Indians star eastern Indians. And in movies where the race or ethnicity is not mandated by the historical and geographical context of the film, the heroes should be women and men from a wider gene pool than the rather shallow Cruise-Damon pool.
Once Hollywood starts to actually cast hero and lead roles with actors who reflect the real diversity of our world and the real needs of the role, and not rely on a tired “safe” Caucasian profiles and handful of “stars,” once they start to show a balance of real cultural differences, good and bad, rather than unevenly depicting and perpetuating harmful stereotypes and caricatures, THEN they can make bold and creative choices in their casting on the argument that it is, after all, pretend, and the actors are simply acting the role, taking on not only an accent, and motivation, but the responsibility and challenge of fairly and accurately representing a race, ethnicity or culture other than their own.
Until then, such casting choices are just insult on top of injury. It is just further exclusion of non-white actors from leading roles (or, in cases like the Rock playing an Egyptian, of assuming all brown or yellow-skinned ethnicities and cultures are interchangeable depending on shade of brown and shape of the eyes) when it actually makes MORE sense to have someone from the actual race or ethnicity being depicted to play the role. And it is often seen as disregard for the very culture they are depicting.
Doesn’t make Scorpion King any less cool. The script and the acting did that.
And stuff.
I rather loathe the Conan universe. You can tell there’s no good will likely come from it with anyone who isn’t white the moment you notice a small country titled “The Black Kingdoms.” And it indeed it just goes downhill from there.
”assuming all brown or yellow-skinned ethnicities and cultures are interchangeable depending on shade of brown and shape of the eyes”
That and the faulty history made even my father want to sneak into another movie, even though he was the one that wanted to see Scorpion King. And there’s even a sequel, which is actually a prequel, which looks like it stars a white boy.
Yeah, the Conan mythos, like its close cousin the Cthulu mythos, makes Middle Earth look like a Diversity Celebration.
Well, I will make a promise right now that when my (as yet largely unwritten) novel series is optioned for a movie deal, I will stipulate that all major characters must retain their ethnicities and be played by someone who at least looks like they could plausibly belong to that gene pool. Of course, it helps that the series is set in modern New York and not prehistoric Cimmeria, but still.
Why not just chock one up to ignorance? Perhaps some new exec just seeks to make a name for himself by helping the corporation fight this travesty of justice and blatant plagiarism. I’m sure many people can relate to working for someone just as foolish.