Comment by anticodon | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anticodon | Hacker News Reader

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Meh. Let me guess: you live in USA. You're obliged to justify all this out of the fear of being "canceled": fired from your job, removed from social networks for saying politically incorrect stuff or supporting wrong political party or saying that there're less or more genders that is proclaimed by some powerful minority organization with the right to cancel.

From other places this is experienced as craziness. What is "equal and ethical" about black women playing King of Sweden from IX century (this is a contrived example as I haven't even attempted to watch any of the contemporary historical movies from USA)? He wasn't black, he wasn't woman, why violate the history?

Especially, considering that most of the world has nothing to do with the slave trade in the US, or with genocide of Indians in the US, or any consequences of it. So why we should suffer raping of the history just so that Americans could "restore the balance"?.. Besides, I don't even think that it restores the balance. It's a superficial measure that is very cheap compared to restoring the equality indeed.

I live in Brazil, I am Brazilian. Why did you feel such strong rejection of a black woman playing a white king? I have no idea which movie are you talking about, but I am pretty sure their intention was not to trick, mislead, or miseducated viewers that the Swedish king was not a white male. You continue to sound silly to me.

It's not a strong rejection. It's two things:

1) I'm annoyed that US tries to impose its cultural norms on all other countries in the world, like they have monopoly on some absolute truth. Some of their cultural norms are weird and repulsive.

2) They include huge fragments dedicated to the ideology in all the movies and all the books, like it is obligatory by law. E.g. when I open almost any recent Sci Fi book of US author, it would be filled with graphic descriptions of various sexual deviations. Or something even less relevant, e.g. that "half of the country is filled with dumb bigots supporting Republican party". I didn't buy the book to read about US politics, I don't care. I want my Sci Fi, not read about gender 33 and gender 45 group sex orgy every second page.

I just made a conclusion that it's simply not worth the time to watch recent US movies and read US books.

It has almost nothing to do with equal rights, etc, etc. Besides, like I said in the other comment, including this in the movies doesn't make people equal. People at Amazon will work for measly pay, while Bezos will continue to get richer. Black people will be put in jails instead of giving them education and jobs - including them in the movies doesn't change that a single bit.

> He wasn't black, he wasn't woman, why violate the history?

Because it's acting. Maybe women are just trying to have some fun playing men, given that historically in the West, women were always played by men (or boys). Cross-gender and cross-race acting is nothing new. Have you ever seen a play? Are you upset whenever Othello is played by a white person?

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