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PanAsian

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Just happened upon this article.. Much appreciate Constance Wu speaking up and being so on point! Maybe her speech is powered by pent up anger from having to fake an accent on Fresh Off the Boat all the time. As an aside if dragon slaying is indeed in the movie then it definitely bastardizes the Chinese setting as dragons are good beings in actual Chinese mythology.

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Constance Wu Slams Matt Damon’sGreat WallFilm for Perpetuating a ‘Racist Myth’
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Constance Wu isn't here for your excuses, equivocations, or apologies for Matt Damon's upcoming film,The Great Wall, in which he stars as a heroic dragon-slayer defending the Great Wall in ancient China. (No,
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.) "We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that [only a] white man can save the world," Wu writes in screenshot of her Twitter drafts. (Side thought: Is Twitter drafts
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) "Our heroes don't look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Ghandi. Mandela. Your big sister when she stood up for you to those bullies that one time."

She doesn't mince words when she says that Hollywood needs to step up and do better. Wu
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about executives who say that they "try," when she said, "Boo fucking hoo,a lot of shit is hard. Care more, make it matter." Wu isn't about to let Hollywood executives off the hook:

Rather, it's about pointing out the repeatedly implied racist notion that white people are superior to POC and that POC need salvation from our own color via white strength. When you consistently make movies like this, you ARE saying that. YOU ARE. Yes, YOU ARE. YES YOU ARE. Yes, dude, you fucking ARE. Whether you intend to or not. We don't need salvation. We like our color and our culture and our own strengths and our own stories. (If we don't, we should) We don't need you to save us from anything. And we're rrrreally starting to get sick of you telling us, explicitly or implicitly, that we do.
And yes, that goes for the "money" argument:

Money is the lamest excuse in the history of being human. So is blaming the Chinese investors. (POC's choices can be based on unconscious bias too) Remember it's not about blaming individuals, which will only lead to soothing their lame "b-but I had good intentions! but...money!" microaggressive excuses.

After all, actors of color should have the chance to make box-office bombs — just like white ones!

Think only a huge movie star can sell a movie? That that has NEVER been a total guarantee. Why not TRY to be better? If white actors are forgiven for having a box office failure once in a while, why can't a POC sometimes have one? And how COOL would it be if you were the movie that took the "risk" to make a POC as your hero, and you sold the shit out of it?!

Here's the full statement:

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Can we all at least agree that hero-bias & "but it's really hard to finance" are no longer excuses for racism? TRY
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siegecrossbow

siegecrossbow

General
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PanAsian said:
Just happened upon this article.. Much appreciate Constance Wu speaking up and being so on point! Maybe her speech is powered by pent up anger from having to fake an accent on Fresh Off the Boat all the time. As an aside if dragon slaying is indeed in the movie then it definitely bastardizes the Chinese setting as dragons are good beings in actual Chinese mythology.

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Everything is dictated by boxoffice these days. What can you say?

Back in the 90s Jackie Chan and Jet Lee were box office draws. Seems like we've been regressing since the 90s.
 
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PanAsian

Major
siegecrossbow said:
Everything is dictated by boxoffice these days. What can you say?

Back in the 90s Jackie Chan and Jet Lee were box office draws. Seems like we've been regressing since the 90s.
Click to expand...

That's a hollow excuse based on the assumption that an Asian lead in a movie cannot be a box office success.

Relatively regressing since the '90s maybe, not that the '90s were that great for Asian leads in Hollywood productions.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
If Matt Damon or another Western actor wasn't involved, the Great Wall would've never been made. You think a Chinese filmmaker would've come up with this idea? If they did they wouldn't need Hollywood to make it. Since Hollywood movies shown in China have mostly experience success, Chinese filmmakers have an idea what kind of movie to make but have all Chinese actors. Can they do that? Maybe they're as pretentious as some American filmmakers and make movies that the general audience don't want to watch but then complain why no one is watching their movies.

The problem I might see coming with the Great Wall is this just another bug hunt? Are these monsters just cannon fodder? An artsy hack and slash video game like movie might not mix well.
 
Blitzo

Blitzo

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From what I understand, this film will be completely in English, so the primary audience won't be China.

So I see it as just a standard hollywood film which takes a foreign location and locale and to spin a story around it that is palatable to their own primary audience's taste, while having actors they are familiar with and who they can relate to.

Nothing necessarily wrong with that.
 
Equation

Equation

Lieutenant General
Yesterday I've seen the movie Captain Fantastic about a parent who raised their kids in the woods and home school them to be not only book smart but nature as well. The kids are trained to be athletic and how to survive in the wilderness and living off the land ALL without modern day technology. It's a great and well written movie and all of the kids acted well. It's approach maybe a little too "liberal" or anti religion institutional for some members here, but never the less I like it.:)

 
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