I'm waiting for an all-white version of Roots.
As many people have pointed out, there is an all white version of The Wiz, it's called The Wizard of Oz.
But that sucked. Of course, The Wiz probably sucked. Or maybe I just don't like musicals.
I was rolling my eyes at white people again until I got to the part about casting Iggy as Toto and then, assuming they meant Iggy Pop, I was down with the idea.
I remember first seeing The Wiz sometime in middle school or high school. I was a total moron about racial issues, so I literally did not notice that the cast was all black. I just have a vague memory of thinking it was awesome. It was like the Wizard of Oz but with more interesting and fun music. It's a miracle that I didn't embarrass myself by asking whether our super-white school could choose The Wiz as our annual musical.
Weird someone thinks Leroy Jenkins the blackest name. That's the name of a famous white evangelist, who's been many places but who was in Columbus in the early '70s, when I was the parking lot attendant for the Ohio Theater, where he was holding services Sunday Mornings. He drove a gold El Dorado then.
3: true, which is why they went and made a second all white version called Wicked.
Although actually being upset is racist nonsense, as a pure effort in bullshitting to kill time "how would you cast an all-white version of The Wiz" is a great question.
I suppose Al Jolson is dead by now.
Its actually meant to be spelled Leeroy Jenkins.
I still think of the Wiz as one of the biggest flops ever and it's interesting that it has this much cultural staying power (I have only vague memories of it). Where are the all-black Howard the Duck, Cutthroat Island and Ishtar remakes?
This got me thinking to other movies I've enjoyed that might work well with an all-black, or race-swapped, cast. Perhaps Jurassic Park, with a lone white person playing Samuel L. Jackson's role.
I find it notable that most of the people chosen for that cast--with the exception of Bill Nye--are those whose have borrowed liberally from black musical culture. Can't tell how much self-awareness they have of their assholeness.
Really fun article on re-casting Ocean's Eleven with women of color.
It has a slightly antiquated sound to it (I'd never heard of the Wiz before). AIMHMHB there were three all-black versions of "The Mikado", The Hot Mikado, the Swing Mikado and (I think) the Calypso Mikado.
I'm waiting for an all-white version of Roots.
That would be "Exodus: Gods and Kings".
3: true, which is why they went and made a second all white version called Wicked
Truly, it's not easy being green.
I saw that movie, but it was puppets.
Somebody must make an entirely black Lost in Translation.
Can't tell how much self-awareness they have of their assholeness.
I think the detailed breakdown of why they chose who they chose is available at Standpipe's blog.
4: iggy pop has long expressed interest in the role.
I find it notable that most of the people chosen for that cast--with the exception of Bill Nye--are those whose have borrowed liberally from black musical culture. Can't tell how much self-awareness they have of their assholeness.
I thought "their" referred to the cast members who borrowed liberally from black musical culture, in which case I don't think that automatically makes you an asshole.
Nah, I meant the people putting this up. I guess I'd be pissed with whoever they picked, but it seems like an additional FU to pick those performers who are working in such styles--a "we can do it too, and better". Especially those who have courted controversy for doing so, like Iggy Azalea.
I haven't been here that long--where's Standpipe's blog? I would exhaustively go through the blogroll, but I stumbled across something NSFW last time I tried to do that.
an all White Hamilton!
an all Asian Book of Mormon
an all Black Fiddler on the Roof
I haven't been here that long--where's Standpipe's blog?
This is almost too perfect.
12.1 is me too. I was surprised that Iris' best/oldest friend is really into it. But apparently, while it's a mess, MJ and Ross really are fantastic in it.
25: Yes, suppose I walked into that. I'm not always unaware of all internet traditions, but when I am, I strive for my ignorance to be perfect.
[ignoring actual point of posting] I watched an hour and a half of this, about halfway through "No Bad News" and it was just lifeless stuff. I wish these "tv stars sing without an audience and apparently without a director who has ever been in a theater" musicals were a way to get people to think musicals/theater aren't horrible and then do ones that resemble the actual experience of going to the theater. Bave smartly gave up on it when it turned out the lead couldn't put "Ease on Down the Road" across the nonexistent footlights.
Listening to myself I feel like reciting Bill Sampson's "listen, Junior, and learn" speech about theater* to Eve in All About Eve. I guess theater is just one of those things like opera whereof I recognize that it'll go out of fashion and die like everything, but I wish it would wait fifty years.
*At some point it was explained to me that "theater" is the building and "theatre" is the art but it struck me as silly so I've always ignored it.
Ok there was an actual posting which I will now read!
Except I can't quite shut up about this yet. (This is how threads are killed.) How do you make Queen Latifah such a non-presence? Argh. Props to her, I guess, for going on camera as butch as possible still without coming out.
An all white The Wiz would be pretty hilarious. It turns out it's not source material that bears a lot of rehashing one way or another?
I recently blathered about Wicked elsewhere, so at least I can shut up about that.
I still think of the Wiz as one of the biggest flops ever and it's interesting that it has this much cultural staying power
No but I think the thing is it vanished entirely for 40 years, so staying power isn't quite the concept. It's more that these tv things are being done by people who aren't exactly theater people and someone was like "we've got [main actress, don't know her name because I'm not 14], what can we put her in?"
I'm sorry, I never talk to people about theater anymore. I physically cannot stop typing.
(Standpipe's notional blog is where jokes get explained.)
I wondered for a second why they didn't cast someone black in The Martian because there is literally not one indication of his race in the book but of course I did not really wonder.
Heh, who is posting as keikobad? King of the Spirit Realm does not exactly equal president.
Props to her, I guess, for going on camera as butch as possible still without coming out.
Per, fb, a friend's young daughter had a lot of questions about this and ended with, "Wait, so she's a drag king named Queen? Awesome!" or something similar.
31 and similar are cracking me up.
I'm slow today, and not reading carefully. Given all the trash that's been at the intersection of GoFundMe and race it seemed believable. But I am easily trolled.
Now all I can think about is the funny conversation in Six Degrees of Separation about Sydney Poitier making a film of Cats and deciding to cast humans. It suddenly strikes me as kind of a weird joke.
||
Mildly impressed with the current conference speaker being willing to admit that the qualities that made him and others like him CEOs are different from what's necessary for good stewardship.
|>
Sure there is. If Watney was black he would have experienced racism. He never does. Therefore, not black.
The Goodman actually did an all Black Proof which was an interesting idea.
I would pay good money to see an honest-to-god all-cats version of Cats. No animatronics, no CGI—just a bunch of cats on stage. Sure, they probably wouldn't be able to sing or even act, but it would be authentic.
I like cats.
A version of Cats with only black cats.
A version of Cats with only dogs.
In a darkened theater all Cats are grey.
Gah. Sorry Moby.That'll teach me to read threads backwards.
Heebie U had a symposium on football and brain trauma, and there were posters everywhere that said Gray Matters, and my brain kept thinking #graylivesmatter.
Is "gray" for the building and "grey" for the arts?
"Dammit, we have to get our man off that damned red planet!"*
"Which man?"
"What do you mean, which man? Washington!"
"Oh, yeah, him. Terrible tragedy, terribly brave. A real credit to.... So, about next year's budget..."
*I only pray the actual dialogue is this purple
An all women-of-color Muppet Show.
The clickhole is the most consistently great funny website on the internet.
Rent with middle class kids.
||
Just saw the final play of last night's football game. I love how holding is more or less like traveling in the NBA. Sure, we'll call it once or twice a game, but basically, don't sweat it.
|>
32
No but I think the thing is it vanished entirely for 40 years, so staying power isn't quite the concept.
Did it? I kind of assumed it was always part of black culture, or at least, was consistently a part of black culture as much as anything else from that era with those stars, and white people were ignorant of it until the remake.
I was, at least. First saw it a year or two ago at a neighbor's house, with several other neighbors, most of whom were black. And I got there halfway through it, so I didn't know the name of it or hear a summary before I sat down, I was just, "The female lead looks vaguely familiar but I can't place her name, it's kind of interesting how afro-centric this is, holy shit that's Richard Pryor." I'm not sure if it occurred to me that it was an all-black thing until it was over. While the race of a lot of the dancers was obvious, there were also a few people in full-body makeup, who could have been anyone.
56: Football, I wish I knew how to quit you! So terrible, and I just can't stop loving it. Any Cleveland fans around here? Mike Polk's videos are timeless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRBDMMVctu8
I assume the majority of people who like Michael Jackson or Diana Ross would not readily name it as something they were in but I have no evidence for this.
Once again, long memory does its work: I remembered it from the 70s, including some of the songs, and who was in it. Half-expected it to be back sooner or later, and now it is.
Other examples: plot lines and characters from the 60s Marvel universe; the return of Paint Your Wagon.
At least references to it.
Simpsons episode, and the Amazon commercial shown during the MLB playoffs, with a dog in a cast and Lee Marvin singing "I was born under a wand'rn sky"
Oh, well, the Simpsons episode is pretty old by now.
Dark+moody neo-noir reboot of the Paint Your Wagonverse. I like what I'm hearing, get a full treatment in by Monday and we'll see what we can do.
Seven Bearded Baristas for Seven Pigtailed Picklemakers.
Definitely all white cast. Yes Portland I'm looking at you.
I'd forgotten just how insane the plot of Paint Your Wagon is. Wife buying, organized town prostitution, alcoholism and domestic violence, MMF threesomes, aa finale where a whole town is swallowed up by the earth in a giant sinkhole. How was that not a better movie?
Like my father before me, I find attempting an impression of "I was born..." irresistible, although the throat damage is only equaled by a Buck Turgidson impression.
I know I saw Marvin perform it on Ed Sullivan. There might be a utube.
Is there a Bollywood version of Paint Your Wagon? That seems like it might get closer to something worthwhile.
Hey, also, you know how the photoshop in pieces of video into other pieces of video now? Like Bad Lip Reading sometimes does? Is there a verb for that analogous to how we say "photoshop in" for still images so edited?
I started watching Pal Joey because it's newly on Netflix. Two of the three stars (Kim Novak and a tired-looking Rita Hayworth) are dubbed. Jeez, it's not like there was no one who could sing in 1957.
I had to watch The Wiz multiple times in the Oakland Public Schools in the 80s and 90s.
So, the Oakland Unified School District is kind of like the Irish monastery of The Wiz.
75: that's one weird movie, but I love the references to Fresno as the capitol of been-there-done-that, and there are some great location shots of the gigantic pile around the corner from our apartment, nowadays nearly completely obscured by SF's most massive hedge.
DQ, it may amuse you to know I've been listening to the ancient Boult recording of Sinfonia Antarctica this afternoon, with Gielgud reading from Scott's Journal.
I've mentioned before that I was raised to British patriotism, which sticks. We sang God Save The Queen, not O Canada, and the flag out the window was the Union Jack, not the Canadian Ensign.
You mean actual shrubbery or "I support more affordable housing but not in my neighborhood"?
The only thing I really know about The Wiz is that nobody beats him.
82: If Joe Jackson's lawyer was any good, Shoeless Joe would be in the Hall of Fame instead of haunting some cornfield in Iowa.
Although I love my erstwhile neighbor best when she's insulting SF: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1386054/Romance-queen-Danielle-Steel-sparks-anger-hometown.html
warning - daily mail link. But worth it, just this once!
||
So this article about James Deen being accused by several women he's worked with of sexual assault.
Melissa Gira Grant wants to say that, if there's a systemic problem with this in the industry, it's because of precarious labor:
"Those critics looking for something to blame in the porn industry for a culture of silence around rape will need to look past the porn. When performers are fearful or hesitant to discuss sexual assault, porn performer and director Tobi Hill-Meyer said, "I'd say the big dynamics fuelling that are that porn performers are contractors," like other workers in many fields, living gig to gig. For porn performers, Hill-Meyer said, "your payment is not based the work you do, but how well you monetise the work you do, and being able to sell yourself means public perception is super-important. Anyone working in the industry is going to be very aware of that."
That seems like, maybe, only part of the story.
||>
86: I'm tempted to ask what industries are set up so you improve your status and job security by being open about sexual assault by a coworker, but that may be the sort of thing that brings MRAs out of the woodwork. (Straw feminists too, I suppose, but who doesn't want to go to the moon?)
87: right, I wouldn't think the porn industry is unique in being a place where women don't feel comfortable going public with accusations of sexual assault. What I would guess is that it's got a lot more males working in it than other industries who are or become rapists, but that just doesn't seem to be a possibility that fits into Melissa Gira Grant's worldview.