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Comment by Bakary | Hacker News Reader

Racism certainly plays a big part in the frequency of such complaints, but it nonetheless raises some important questions.

Ultimately, nobody really, genuinely holds the opinion that an actor can be of any appearance for any role. There will always be exceptions that will break their immersion, because unlike with theatre there is the expectation that the movie is WYSIWYG.

To give an extreme example, would you be completely undisturbed if the main character in 12 years a Slave was portrayed by John Malkovich? Or if a Jewish camp inmate in Schindler's list was portrayed as a black person? I don't think either example would sit well with the vast majority of people, no matter how racist or not racist they might be.

That's why pointing out that black people did exist in Italy is correct but beaide the point. The real debate is around the acceptability of certain expectations, and what determines the criteria for this acceptability.

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> [would you be completely undisturbed] if a Jewish camp inmate in Schindler's list was portrayed as a black person?

Why would you be disturbed in the slightest? Hitler hated blacks, and yes, some WERE actually in concentration camps:

"Although no exact figures exist, it is known that a significant number of black people were detained in concentration camps and forced labour camps during the Nazi reign, and that many were murdered. Nonetheless, there seems to be little interest in Hitler’s black victims. Their plight is not talked about enough. This is partly because unlike Jews, Roma and Sinti, black people were not marked for destruction. But they were denied their human rights, sterilised, persecuted, experimented upon and murdered in camps."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/27/black-...

I am aware of this historical reality, but note that I specifically mentioned a Jewish camp inmate. Now, you might say that it's entirely possible that an Ethiopian Jew, somewhere somehow, was caught in the Holocaust's net and shot by Amon Göth, but let's be honest, we would be verging on bad faith argumentation at this point.

Taking the example even further, what about a specific Jewish inmate whose appearance is solidly documented an in the popular imagination, such as Anne Frank?

Ultimately, some expectations are seen as socially acceptable, others are not. But there are always expectations.

I was surprised to learn (about myself at least) that this isn't really true, when I saw the musical Hamilton. Of course, the characters also break out into song, etc.

Well that is to be expected, because much like theatre musicals don't have that WISYWIG immersion expectation at all.

To test your belief, it would make more sense to picture a "serious" historical movie where the actors portraying the founding fathers don't look much at all like the faces on the dollar bills.

Not quite that level, but plenty of people seem fine with Bridgerton swapping the race of its characters, which I believe is otherwise a standard period drama.

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