this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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Today I Learned

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[–] [email protected] 92 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I knew I made this for a reason

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

Most people are assuming that her default skin tone is that of the foster mother. Pretty sure with enough makeup and studio lighting you canake a naturally tanned person look pretty pale.

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Brown face? That's just a tan

[–] Texas_Hangover 4 points 19 hours ago

Its almost like the people who come up with this batty shit never actually leave the basement, so they don't understand suntans.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The american obsession with melanin levels is insane. Why cant they be normal and be racist to people who live over the next hill, like us enlightened europeans.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

That’s offensive. Those over the hill have bushier eyebrows. They are totally different and meant to be hated.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I think the point is that if it was important for the character to be Hispanic, they could have hired a Hispanic actor for it. Her being Hispanic didn’t have any meaningful impact to the story, so why not just let her character be white? If they did it to make the film more appealing to Hispanic viewers, then surely an actually Hispanic actor would have been a better fit. White actors have historically been given distinctly non-white roles just because Hollywood is afraid of melanin.

The history of it goes all the way back to old black and white films, with movies like Dragon Seed or The Teahouse of August Moon, which both had major asian roles filled by popular white actors. The unfortunate part is that they often aren’t respectful when they do it; It often ends up being a caricature of the race instead. Anyone who has seen Breakfast at Tiffany’s will know what I’m talking about. Or hell, there are even cases of outright blackface, like a white actor playing Othello in the 1965 movie. Many people have criticized Al Pacino’s accent in The Godfather as offensive, bordering on caricature.

If you want more recent examples, we could point at Jake Gyllenhaal playing a middle-eastern prince in Prince of Persia. Or Johnny Depp playing a Comanche caricature in The Lone Ranger. Another good example is Scarlett Johansson being given the role of Matoko Kusanagi, in Ghost in the Shell. The movie is based on a Japanese anime, and is based in Japan. But Hollywood refused to hire a Japanese actor to play the role, and instead gave it to the whitest white woman who has ever whited.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 16 hours ago

Her being Hispanic didn’t have any meaningful impact to the story, so why not just let her character be white? If they did it to make the film more appealing to Hispanic viewers, then surely an actually Hispanic actor would have been a better fit. White actors have historically been given distinctly non-white roles just because Hollywood is afraid of melanin.

That's the modern version of Lady Acting is Illegal | Upstart Crow | BBC Comedy Greats

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

To Be Fair

Johnny Depp's character was considered insane by the other native americans in the film, who were played by actual native americans like Saginaw Grant. It's not much better but the film still doesn't pretend he represents them.

Didn't Gods of Egypt have an all white cast and 1 black guy playing as... the gods of egypt...?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

To Be Fair

I mean...

::: spoiler In case the link doesn't work -

fair [4]: of a light hue; not dark:
fair skin.
Synonyms: blond, pale

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

Thanks for pointing out that there's always more than one lens to look at the world through.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Masamune Shirow himself confirmed that Kusanagi was a mass production model on the outside to blend in and not have her harvested for parts, like a custom body would be.

Also the whole fucking theme of the franchise is “what is a soul (ghost)”. Kusanagi has canonically swapped “shells” multiple times, is it a ship of Theseus thing or is she still the same person?

But this is an argument I can’t win, so I’ll leave this here and disappear 🫠

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[–] [email protected] 169 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I think the groundbreaking part was Dan O'Bannon’s note in the Alien script that gave us more amazing characters in Aliens.

“At the start of Dan O'Bannon’s script for Alien, there’s a note that few other screenplays contain: “The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women.” It’s a line that fundamentally altered the nature of the film, affecting everything from the presentation of its characters to the way Ridley Scott and his team approached casting, and it was certainly for the best.”

source here

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Haha I read that originally as "they be robots and have removable arms and legs that fit erybody else."

That's fascinating though. I must say I like Aliens much better. I rarely revisit Alien but I might do in the near future.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Imho, they are different genres altogether.

Alien is a real horror-movie, while Aliens leans more towards the action-movie genre, of course retaining horror elements, but it doesn't quite play on the body-horror and fear of the unknown as much as the first part does.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

So you're saying that one's a bug-hunt, and the other's a stand-up fight?

[–] lagoon8622 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Alien is art. Aliens is a schlocky action movie (nothing wrong with schlocky action movies, but it's just a completely different thing)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I've watched Alien in the background dozens of times, had forgotten how it really went. My wife had never seen it, no clue.

She sat like this, edge of the couch, glued to the screen the whole time. And I came away with my view of the movie totally refreshed. A work of art indeed!

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[–] jaemo 48 points 1 day ago

I wrote an article about how Jim Carrey used greenface (very offensively too) during the filming of "The Mask", but hardly anyone cared.

He's not even an amphibian!

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)
  • Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?

  • No, have you?

She was bad ass

[–] [email protected] 5 points 23 hours ago

That movie is one of the best sources for quotes.

"This little girl survived ... with no weapons and no training. Right?"

"That's great! WHY DON'T WE PUT HER IN CHARGE?!?"

[–] [email protected] 123 points 2 days ago (26 children)

It might not seem like it now but Vasquez was a groundbreaking character at the time.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I see from the comments that apparently it was makeup. I wonder to what extent this is makeup, since after all, ALL actors on set wear make up. I have a similar skin complexion and if I sunbathe for a week I'll look like Vasquez too.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

Well, to be fair, blackface is also a type of makeup

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

The fact that they tanned her is not the issue. The fact that they tanned her to play an ethnicity she is not, is the problem. Especially during an era where people of that ethnicity were lucky to be typecast in something.

I know it's before this time, but Martin Sheen had to change his name to get work in Hollywood because nobody would hire someone with a Hispanic sounding name.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago

James Roday Rodriguez did the same before he got his role in Psych.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago

If an actor loses weight or works out to be more muscular, that's commitment to their craft.

If they lay out in the sun, that's cheating!

[jk]

[–] [email protected] 75 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Small correction: she was John Connor's foster mother in Terminator 2 not step mother

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Correction: his foster parents are dead.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago

I think shes got a company now that is making extra comfy bras.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (8 children)

She's also in Titanic, but in a very small role as an Irish mother.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Im pretty sure thats just a tan, but its interesting that her imdb page says "Jenette Goldstein is a true chameleon"

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