I think for something that’s clearly not meant to be very historically accurate race swapping is fine. If we always have strict racial rules then vaguely historical movies are always going to be contributing to role inequalities for non-white people.
The first movie was historical fiction (if anything they toned down Commodus and his brutality in the movie) but once you do something like make the Emperor black, now it’s complete fiction. And it does matter, otherwise we wouldn’t have issues with white actors playing roles that should go to people of color.
It’s too jarring to my historian heart I think. Like a white as fuck John Wayne playing Genghis Khan
It doesn’t work in the reverse direction because it’s an issue of equity in role availability. we have a cultural bias for movies with white characters, especially historical movies, so white actors don’t need to be taking what few roles there are for racial minorities.
on the other hand i think it’s fine for racial minorities to be taking roles in a fictional film that would otherwise be 100% white people.
I think for something that’s clearly not meant to be very historically accurate race swapping is fine. If we always have strict racial rules then vaguely historical movies are always going to be contributing to role inequalities for non-white people.
The first movie was historical fiction (if anything they toned down Commodus and his brutality in the movie) but once you do something like make the Emperor black, now it’s complete fiction. And it does matter, otherwise we wouldn’t have issues with white actors playing roles that should go to people of color.
It’s too jarring to my historian heart I think. Like a white as fuck John Wayne playing Genghis Khan
It doesn’t work in the reverse direction because it’s an issue of equity in role availability. we have a cultural bias for movies with white characters, especially historical movies, so white actors don’t need to be taking what few roles there are for racial minorities.
on the other hand i think it’s fine for racial minorities to be taking roles in a fictional film that would otherwise be 100% white people.