Disney Becoming Blander?

[hamishspence]

Is there an actual example of a clone shown still alive by the time of the Death Star in the Legends canon?

Lots. Even post-ROTJ (a few months after), a clone called Klick is still serving - Luke Skywalker & The Shadows of Mindor .

Clones age at roughly twice the rate of humans. There were infant clones, in birthing cylinders, visible in AOTC. A clone still a newly hatched infant as of ROTS (TCW did say the Republic continued to order more clones during the war - and TCW is part of both Legends and newcanon) would be the equivalent of a 48 year old human, 24 years after ROTS - ROTS is 23 years before ROTJ.

[Friv]

What I'm kind of surprised about is that we haven't really reached the topic of black superheroes yet. (Or I missed it, either one.) Between leading man Black Panther, side character War Machine, male Black Widow (and easily the coolest Avenger) Falcon, DC's Cyborg and TV's Luke Cage and Black Lightning (I could count Blade, but that's not really an active property at this point) black people, or maybe we should say black males, are probably/likely/kind of overrepresented compared to the American census. Could be a glimpse of the future, where you wake up one day and realize that these days people from East Asian descent (yellows somehow sounds way more racist than whites or blacks, while I'm pretty sure the color-name is off on all of them) are overrepresented in sitcoms while last decade they were nowhere to be found but there were a bunch of cool transgender roles. Superheroes are kind of a nice case study because the number of movies about Iron Man, Captain America and Batman doesn't seem to suffer from the inflow of competition. If anything it helped the whole genre explode onto everywhere even harder.

This isn't a bad example for a generic breakdown. I'm just going to do MCU, and if someone else wants to take over Fox, Sony, or what not, feel free.

Current rough demographics are as follows: About 73% of Americans identify as white, 13% identify as black, 5% identify as Asian, 5% identify as "Other", 3% identify as mixed-race and 1% identify as Native American. In addition, 17% of Americans identify as Hispanic - about two-thirds of them also consider themselves white, while most of the remainder are inside the "Other" category or the mixed-race category.

By that logic, if I were to break down about 80 major characters from the MCU, a roughly even demographic would be 57 white characters, 11 black characters, 4 asian characters, 3 mixed-race characters, and 4 characters of other races. Also, about 6 of those white characters would be hispanic, as would two or three of the others.

In practice:

Spoiler: Detailed Breakdown

Show

White Men (43): Tony Stark, Obadiah Stane, Phil Coulsen, Ivan Vanko, Justin Hammer, Happy Hogan, Aldrich Killian, Harley, Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Colonel Phillips, Red Skull, Howard Stark, Dr. Erskine, Armin Zola, Rumlow, Alexander Pierce, Pietro Maximov, Vision, Helmut Zemo, Bruce Banner, Emil Blonsky, Thunderbolt Ross, Thor, Loki, Odin, Erik Selvig, Laufrey, Malekith, Volstagg, Fandral, Skurge, Clint Barton, Ultron, Peter Quill, Drax, Rocket Raccoon, Ronan, The Collector, Yondu, The Gamesmaster, Taserface, Ego, Kraglin, Stephen Strange, Kaelcius, Scott Lang, Hank Pym, Darren Cross, Peter Parker, Adrian Toomes, The Thinker

White Women (20): Pepper Potts, Natasha Romanov, Rebecca Hall, Peggy Carter, Maria Hill, Wanda Maximov, Sharon Carter, Betty Ross, Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis, Sif, Hela, Jeff Goldblum, Nebula, Irani Rael, Ayesha, The Ancient One, Christine Palmer, Hope van Dyne, May Parker

Black Men (7): James Rhodes, Nick Fury, Sam Wilson, T’Challa, Heimdall, Kurse, Korath

Black Women (4): Valkyrie, Gamora, Liz, Michelle

All Other Minorities – Men (5): The Mandarian, Hogun, Wong, Luis, Groot

All Other Minorities – Women (1): Mantis

Less detailed: There are, so far, 63 white characters in the MCU, one of whom is hispanic. That makes just under 80%. There are 11 black characters - exactly within the averages. There are only six total characters of every other ethnicity combined - well below average.

What's interesting about all of that is that the perception that we have doesn't match the reality, does it? It feels like "wow, there have been a lot of black people on screen lately", but actually... there haven't. It's still heavily white-dominated. Black people are just getting about average representation, albeit representation that leans really heavily into being the sidekick for the white lead.

[DavidSh]

Groot is a white man? Seriously? Or are you talking about actors, and not characters?
---
Even then, his voice actor, Vin Diesel, identifies as being of mixed race.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Groot is a white man? Seriously? Or are you talking about actors, and not characters?

Even if he is, Vin Diesel does not identify as white. He never met his father is, but knows he was African American.

GW

[Kitten Champion]

Also, Benicio Del Toro is Benicio Del Toro. You could reasonably argue none of the GotG characters other than Quill have any human ethnicity within the universe, but that would apply to Ego, Ronan, the Novas, etc.

On an unrelated note, it's weird they're doing a Sicario sequel. I never took it as a franchise-kind of movie.

[Liquor Box]

Well, the US is only 77% white if all hispanics are counted as white, and while I personally don't see why they shouldn't , that's clearly not the case for a lot of them.

I went from the Wikipedia page. On a further look I see they break the white category down into 17% hispanic and latino, and 82% non-hispanic and latino.

But that's not really my question - however you want to cut it, is it proportionate representation of Americans that you think is ideal?

But more to the point, it's not about exactly equal representation everywhere, but more about proportions and what they say about an industry. As a foreigner, I was long under the impression that the US was more than 90% white. Northern European white to be specific. I was rather surprised to learn that white people are a minority in places like LA , because I've never gotten that impression from US media, who made LA look like a less ethnically diverse version of northern Germany. Even accounting for many movies and TV shows focusing on the wealthier (and presumably whiter) parts of LA, it appears to me like there's a huge inaccuracy in how that city is portrayed And that inaccuracy seems to be a result of a pretty nasty history of racism.

That's really interesting, because I am also a foreigner and I had the opposite impression from television. I always thought that the split between whites (including hispanics) and blacks was about 50/50, and I remember being surprised to find that whites were so much more prevalent.

My favourite show when I was young was Fresh Prince of Bel Air (almost all black characters) and I also enjoyed other largely black productions like Family Matters and Eddie Murphy movies (like Beverly Hills Cop).

Can I ask where you are from? Is it possible that your own country tended to show more white media from USA because the ethnic mix of your own country is mostly white?

Since I'm always in favor of people checking their biases, I'm generally in favor of increased diversity in US media in general. As a rule, I expect most people in a story to be of the same demographic as the area where the story takes place, unless there's a reason for them not to. But of course there should be room for divergence. If the only truly qualified actors you can find to play ancient Egyptians just happen to all be white, I'd say go for it. Unfortunately, I don't think unique acting qualifications are the main reason for why this particular casting choice is made so often

Yes, but I am asking what you mean by diversity, or rather what you think would be ideal in terms of diversity? In terms of main characters (who the story is about), do you think all ethnicities should be equally represented? Or should it be in proportion to something, and if so what? Should it reflect the audience somewhat (a genre that is popular amongst a particular ethnicity, has higher representation from that ethnicity)?

Not asking to be pedantic or any such thing, but it seems to me that the answer greatly influences what we should be seeking in terms of diversity.
- If we representation should be equal, then blacks and whites (to the extent they are considered distinct ethnicities) are grossly over-represented, and less prevelent ethnicities (polynesians etc) are badly under-represented.
- If representation should be proportional, then what is proportional to would dictate which races are under-represented. It seems to me that the potential audience would be sensible (so beyond america), and if so blacks and whites are still over-represented and it is probably indians and asians who are under-represented.

[Friv]

Even if he is, Vin Diesel does not identify as white. He never met his father is, but knows he was African American.

GW

Huh, I never knew that. My apologies. I will move him in my categorization.

(And yeah, I was listing both CGI aliens and heavily-makeup'd aliens by their actors. If someone wants to pull them out, it might re-arrange things, but I suspect that it'll wind up with a pretty similar breakdown. You lose a few white people, two black people, and Vin Diesel.)

I have also listed Benicio Del Toro as white-hispanic, although I don't actually know what he identifies as. He's Spanish-Puerto Rican, so... maybe?

[Liquor Box]

In addition, 17% of Americans identify as Hispanic - about two-thirds of them also consider themselves white, while most of the remainder are inside the "Other" category or the mixed-race category.

....
Also, about 6 of those white characters would be hispanic, as would two or three of the others.

I am non American, and there are almost no Hispanic people where I am from, so I am not particularly familiar with them as an ethnicity.

My question is, would the audience be able to tell if a character were Hispanic white or non-Hispanic white, if it is not made clear? I mean there are a lot of ark complexioned non-hispanic white people - if a character is not explicit as to whether they are hispanic or non-Hispanic so if they are not clearl visually different, might it not be that a proportion of the white characters we see are also Hispanic?

Edit:
Not a question to you necessarily, but to the forum at large.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I am non American, and there are almost no Hispanic people where I am from, so I am not particularly familiar with them as an ethnicity.

In the US, there is a distinction between white European, and anyone from south of their borders. Because a significant amount of immigrants from Mexico and Cuba (as well as a sprinkling from other Central and South American countries) tend to be very poor, the law of the US categorizes them in their own category as a special interest group (i.e. like with, say, gay people, they are recognised as a minority and thus can be subject to discrimination if they, e.g., don't get hired because they are Hispanic).

The category is a grab-bag, very loosely defined and with quite a lot of variation, but mostly comes down to "your family speaks Spanish, or otherwise can trace your roots to some other place South of the US" (there are endless asterisks that could be added here to clarify people from Brazil and the like - I won't go into that, because I'm no expert). Their skin tends to be slightly more brown than what would make for the ideal white anglosaxon lead character. I should note that "Hispanic" is NOT a race, though, and thus why "white" is subdivided into Hispanic and non-Hispanic for purposes of classification in the US.

Michael Peña, for example, is clearly Hispanic. Based on name alone, I would imagine that Benicio del Toro also self-identifies as Hispanic.

Grey Wolf

[Liquor Box]

In the US, there is a distinction between white European, and anyone from south of their borders. Because a significant amount of immigrants from Mexico and Cuba (as well as a sprinkling from other Central and South American countries) tend to be very poor, the law of the US categorizes them in their own category as a special interest group (i.e. like with, say, gay people, they are recognised as a minority and thus can be subject to discrimination if they, e.g., don't get hired because they are Hispanic).

The category is a grab-bag, very loosely defined and with quite a lot of variation, but mostly comes down to "your family speaks Spanish, or otherwise can trace your roots to some other place South of the US" (there are endless asterisks that could be added here to clarify people from Brazil and the like - I won't go into that, because I'm no expert). Their skin tends to be slightly more brown than what would make for the ideal white anglosaxon lead character. I should note that "Hispanic" is NOT a race, though, and thus why "white" is subdivided into Hispanic and non-Hispanic for purposes of classification in the US.

Michael Peña, for example, is clearly Hispanic. Based on name alone, I would imagine that Benicio del Toro also self-identifies as Hispanic.

Grey Wolf

Thanks.

So those hispanics that are not white would fall within another racial category - such as spanish speaking blacks?

Can most people reasonably confidently visually distinguish white Hispanics from other white people with a darker complexion (like Italians or Greeks)?

Wikipedia was less helpful on this topic than it usually is.

[Friv]

The short answer is, it depends. I mean, it depends in general, because race is sort of an arbitrary collection of ethnicities rather than anything with a scientific or categorical basis.

But the longer answer - recognizing ethnicities tends to depend on your familiarity with those ethnicities. Some people will instantly be able to tell a white Hispanic person from an Italian person from a British person. Some people will not. I personally get Italian and white Hispanic heritage confused, largely because Hispanic isn't a large ethnic group in Canada. [Case in point - I didn't realize that Benicio Del Toro wasn't pure Spanish European.]

(And yes, you can be Hispanic and black. Most Hispanic and Latino communities have a blend of white, black, and central or south american indigenous heritage, and tend to identify as either white or Latino, but it's a broad category.)

[JadedDM]

Also worth noting is that there were periods in American history where Germans, Greeks, Italians, Irish, Slavs and Spaniards were not considered 'white.' Heck, Finns were considered Asian at one point.

So what constitutes as 'white' is itself rather nebulous in this country.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Also, inhabitants of French Guiana and Suriname are considered Hispanic, while natives of Martinique and Curacao, islands practically next door, are listed as Caribbean Blacks. Ancestry in these places stems from France and Holland respectively, not Spain.

The whole thing is a mess and I wish we didn't need it.

[Darth Ultron]

That's really interesting, because I am also a foreigner and I had the opposite impression from television. I always thought that the split between whites (including hispanics) and blacks was about 50/50, and I remember being surprised to find that whites were so much more prevalent.

THIS is very much the illusion created by TV/Movies and it is very, very, very deliberate(and insidious.) Other then a couple very mixed places, the vast majority of the USA is all white.

When Hollywood makes something and you see the ''amazing mix of all different type of people'', it is always fake and forced. Someone is behind the curtain saying we MUST hire one X person!

Yes, but I am asking what you mean by diversity, or rather what you think would be ideal in terms of diversity?

I believe in the Dream of everyone is just Human.

- If we representation should be equal, then blacks and whites (to the extent they are considered distinct ethnicities) are grossly over-represented, and less prevelent ethnicities (polynesians etc) are badly under-represented.
- If representation should be proportional, then what is proportional to would dictate which races are under-represented. It seems to me that the potential audience would be sensible (so beyond america), and if so blacks and whites are still over-represented and it is probably indians and asians who are under-represented.

This is the big problem.

My question is, would the audience be able to tell if a character were Hispanic white or non-Hispanic white, if it is not made clear?

In general, no. Unless the character really goes out of the way to do a stereotype or trope, you can't tell what race type any human is.

So those hispanics that are not white would fall within another racial category - such as spanish speaking blacks?

Can most people reasonably confidently visually distinguish white Hispanics from other white people with a darker complexion (like Italians or Greeks)?

Yes.

Well, mostly no. Like anything this is something that takes skill and experience. Plenty of Americans can take a glance at a random person and reasonably confidently visually distinguish what type they are. But it's safe to say the majority of people are much more clueless.

[Vinyadan]

BTW, European nationalities are hard to tell apart, even if you are part of that nation. So I have seen the same Italian mistaken for a German by Germans, and for an Ukrainian by Ukrainians, and then for a Frenchman and a Russian by other Germans.

[ThunderCat]

That's really interesting, because I am also a foreigner and I had the opposite impression from television. I always thought that the split between whites (including hispanics) and blacks was about 50/50, and I remember being surprised to find that whites were so much more prevalent.

My favourite show when I was young was Fresh Prince of Bel Air (almost all black characters) and I also enjoyed other largely black productions like Family Matters and Eddie Murphy movies (like Beverly Hills Cop).

Can I ask where you are from? Is it possible that your own country tended to show more white media from USA because the ethnic mix of your own country is mostly white?

I watched a bit of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and some Eddie Murphy movies when I was younger, but it always seemed clear to me that black people were a minority. The black sitcoms are usually about a family, so all the major characters had to be of the same ethnicity, but when they interacted with outsiders, they're usually clearly in the minority (for instance, Will and Carlton were the only black students in their class for a while), and Eddie Murphy's whole stchik is being an outsider, usually in contrast to white people.

And even though black people seemed overrepresented in comedy compared to drama, teen shows, action (just look at the cast of the Expendables movies), sci-fi/fantasy, etc. for every Fresh Prince or Cosby Show, there's still half a dozen Friends, Frazier, Cheers, Seinfeld, Full House, Will & Grace, Home Improvement, and Fat Guy/Thin Wife style sitcoms with white people mainly interacting with other white people.

I guess I always figured there were these small pockets of blackness in the US, and that otherwise, it was more or less Northern Europe. I didn't consider that there are actually a lot more pockets of whiteness, especially in rural areas, and that the shows and movies I was watching usually took place in larger cities where white people would make up a smaller % of the population compared to the national average, not a larger one like in the media. And that's not even getting into the question of the many non-black minorities in the US, who hardly seemed to exist on my TV.

Yes, but I am asking what you mean by diversity, or rather what you think would be ideal in terms of diversity? In terms of main characters (who the story is about), do you think all ethnicities should be equally represented? Or should it be in proportion to something, and if so what? Should it reflect the audience somewhat (a genre that is popular amongst a particular ethnicity, has higher representation from that ethnicity)?

I don't think there's one clear answer, because I'm responding to a trend. It's a bit like the Bechdel Test (you know, a story passes it if it has A: 2 female characters who, B: have a conversation with each other, C: about something other than a man). It's not meant to be a tool to decide if a movie suitably feminist or not, it's just a way of illustrating how works of fiction tend portray (or often, not portray) women. If a large majority of stories don't pass that test (while they practically all pass the reverse test for men), it's illustrative of a wider problem with either society's view of women, the predominance of men getting to tell their stories compared to women, or both. But I'm not going to set quotas. There are many contexts where it makes sense for men to be overrepresented and for women's lives to be so affected by men's decisions that most of what they do is going to revolve around men, leading to an overall greater number of works passing the reverse Bechdel test than the original Bechdel test. That's not bias on part of the author, it's just a reflection of the sad reality of male oppression of women.

The important thing for me is that people be allowed to have these kinds of conversations without accusations that they're politicizing something which was previously apolitical and neutral. That people be allowed to say that representation, seeing people themselves reflected in media, is something that matters to them, without the usual crowd of white guys interrupting the conversation to talk about how they don't care about representation and that they have never given it a second thought that a vast majority of protagonists and major characters in fiction happen to be part of their demographic and how their (alleged) indifference to representation is proof of their superior white male rationality.

There are a lot of interesting issues to be addressed when it comes to representation. Personally, I think going for a slightly greater degree of diversity, overrepresenting minorities a bit, is usually a good idea because it gives more storytelling options, appeals to a wider audience, and can make a big positive difference. For instance, including an openly trans character now and then seems to mean the world to some trans people, while a complete lack of openly trans people in fiction doesn't noticeably improve my enjoyment of it as a cis person (despite being closer to my real life experience), so I see no good argument for not overrepresenting openly trans people. But again, I don't have a clear answer or an overall principle that I want all fiction to adhere to. I just think it's a shame that so much time has to be spent defending even having this kind of conversation in the first place.

[Darth Ultron]

I guess I always figured there were these small pockets of blackness in the US, and that otherwise, it was more or less Northern Europe. I didn't consider that there are actually a lot more pockets of whiteness, especially in rural areas, and that the shows and movies I was watching usually took place in larger cities where white people would make up a smaller % of the population compared to the national average, not a larger one like in the media. And that's not even getting into the question of the many non-black minorities in the US, who hardly seemed to exist on my TV.

A lot of this is just the reality part: Do an open casting call and you will get like, for example, 100 white people show up and apply, maybe 10 black, maybe 5 Hispanic and maybe 1 or 2 of any other group. This is just how people in just about any group are spread out: in this case, specifically actors.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Thanks.

So those hispanics that are not white would fall within another racial category - such as spanish speaking blacks?

In the US census they make the distinction between a race and an ethnicity, where an ethnicity is mostly a cultural group, it's about how you were raised. Hispanics is an ethnicity.

It's a bit like North and South Korean. Koreans are a single racial group, yet by talking about TV, music and their love for military dictatorships for a while you could get a pretty good idea of to what kind of Korean you were talking. That makes them two separate (but historically related, stuff like traditional building techniques and martial arts etc is very similar) ethnic groups. And then there are people who are mixed race or of a different racial group but who grew up in either Korea, speak the language, eat the food, and in some cases are descendants of people who came to live there centuries ago. Those people are ethnically North or South Korean, yet not racially Korean.

So a black Hispanic is, at least in the system the US census uses, exactly that: a black Hispanic. While a person who grew up in Spain is typically not counted as Hispanic, no matter how much he looks like he should be one.

Of course it gets pretty hard to draw lines when considering a person with roughly 2/3 African derived ancestry, 1/3 European and just a smidge of Indonesian a few centuries back who was born in the Bronx but moved to Mexico when he was five only to move on to a "China town" area in San Francisco in his late teens. That's why everything in the census is self reported. And that ends up giving some funny results. People who are part black part white are apparently, at least according to one researcher, more likely to stop identifying as black and start identifying as white as they make more money. And that's supposed to be the racial/biological category. So ethnicities are understandably an even bigger mess.

And anything you can do with the data is in itself muddled some more. For instance: a town is split in the middle by a railway track. On the east side of the track is a suburb like neighborhood with large houses, high average incomes and mostly Asian residents. On the West side is the old town, smaller houses, mostly native American and white people and lower incomes. How should the town map their statistics on victims and perpetrators of crimes, by race, by income group, by neighborhood or by something else. That's not a question, it's a legitimate dilemma which has no right answer, just a few that might be preferable if you have a specific use for the data or want to make a certain point. But that's getting into politics...

[ThunderCat]

A lot of this is just the reality part: Do an open casting call and you will get like, for example, 100 white people show up and apply, maybe 10 black, maybe 5 Hispanic and maybe 1 or 2 of any other group. This is just how people in just about any group are spread out: in this case, specifically actors.

White non-Hispanic people in the US make up only a little over 60% of the population, or less than 2 out of 3. Why would they outnumber all other ethnicities combined nearly 10 to 1 in a casting call? Especially when most casting calls for major productions probably take place in bigger cities like L.A. or NY, where white people are outnumbered 2 to 1.

Is it a cultural thing, with white people being disproportionately interested in acting? And if so, do you know the reason?

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Other then a couple very mixed places, the vast majority of the USA is all white.

Errr... no, it is not. Far more than "a couple" of cities are minority-majority, including, if Wikipedia is to be believed, New York. In fact, going through the list, it looks like all 10 largest cities of the US are in the list.

In fact, just researching for this, I have found that the whole country is expected to become minority-majority before 2050.

While a person who grew up in Spain is typically not counted as Hispanic, no matter how much he looks like he should be one.

Yes they are. From the US census:

Hispanic origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s parents or ancestors before arriving in the United States. People who identify as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be any race.

(emphasis mine).

Where things get a bit more murky is whether Brazilians are counted as "Hispanic" for the purposes of the US census (as well as Haitians, French Guayanians, etc.). I've seen it said both ways, but I can't find a definite answer in the census pages.

I had a project once, for a multinational, where they needed to report their workforce to the US classified in the census ethnicity groups, and it was a bloody mess, because of things like that. IIRC, I think that at the instruction of the lawyers, we ended up counting everyone from South and Central America, plus everyone in the Iberian peninsula, as "Hispanic".

White non-Hispanic people in the US make up only a little over 60% of the population, or less than 2 out of 3. Why would they outnumber all other ethnicities combined nearly 10 to 1 in a casting call? Especially when most casting calls for major productions probably take place in bigger cities like L.A. or NY, where white people are outnumbered 2 to 1.

Is it a cultural thing, with white people being disproportionately interested in acting? And if so, do you know the reason?

They have significant better chances of becoming an actor if they are white: most main characters are white, as are most secondaries, and extras. Because of what is being discussed in this thread. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, yes, but it is also a cycle that would be easy to break, were it not for the Kyberwulfs of the world.

Grey Wolf

[zimmerwald1915]

They have significant better chances of becoming an actor if they are white: most main characters are white, as are most secondaries, and extras. Because of what is being discussed in this thread. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, yes, but it is also a cycle that would be easy to break, were it not for the Kyberwulfs of the world.

Grey Wolf

There remains an open question of whether this disparity can even be solved before automation makes actors obsolete.

[ThunderCat]

They have significant better chances of becoming an actor if they are white: most main characters are white, as are most secondaries, and extras. Because of what is being discussed in this thread. It is a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, yes, but it is also a cycle that would be easy to break, were it not for the Kyberwulfs of the world.

So is Darth Ultron referring to a self-fulfilling prophecy that ethnic minorities in the US don't bother showing up because they think they don't stand a chance anyway, resulting in far more white actors being hired, resulting in more minorities figuring they don't have a chance? Because it sounded like he was saying that if you took a random 116-17 Americans, 100 of them would be white.

[zimmerwald1915]

So is Darth Ultron referring to a self-fulfilling prophecy that ethnic minorities in the US don't bother showing up because they think they don't stand a chance anyway, resulting in far more white actors being hired, resulting in more minorities figuring they don't have a chance? Because it sounded like he was saying that if you took a random 116-17 Americans, 100 of them would be white.

It doesn't help that the various labor protections in the entertainment industry (as in all industries) operate to protect established industry people and to exclude potential competitors from the labor market.

If you want more minority actors, you basically need to make acting a worse, lower-paying, more precarious career.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

So is Darth Ultron referring to a self-fulfilling prophecy that ethnic minorities in the US don't bother showing up because they think they don't stand a chance anyway, resulting in far more white actors being hired, resulting in more minorities figuring they don't have a chance? Because it sounded like he was saying that if you took a random 116-17 Americans, 100 of them would be white.

That's a question for Darth Ultron, not for me. I can tell you that statistically, if you grabbed 117 people living in the US, they would break down as follows:

• 84 would self-describe as white, (of which 15 would also self-describe as Hispanic)
• 19 would self-describe as Hispanic (including the 15 above)
• 14 would self-describe as black
• 5 would self-describe as Asian
• And the rest will self-describe as native or mixed race.

But if you did the same in Los Angeles, were auditions actually happen, those 117 would actually be:

• 61 would self-describe as white
• 55 would self-describe as Hispanic (including some of the above)
• 10 would self-describe as black
• 16 would self-describe as Asian
• And the rest will self-describe as native or mixed race.

Grey Wolf

[2D8HP]

....Other then a couple very mixed places, the vast majority of the USA is all white. ....

Errr... no, it is not. Far more than "a couple" of cities are minority-majority, including, if Wikipedia is to be believed, New York. In fact, going through the list, it looks like all 10 largest cities of the US are in the list....

It depends on your definition of "places".

If you define "places" as most major cities in the U.S.A., "whites" are just the largest minority, but most of the land area of the U.S.A. is sparsely populated (relative to densely populated urban areas), and what population there is are overwhelmingly "white", but that also changes depending on where, i.e. rural California has a much higher percentage of "Hispanics" than most of the U.S.A. and parts of rural Maryland (where my brother lived for a time) is majority "black", wheras rural California has a very sparse percentage of "blacks".

And (to belabor a point), one's eyes may deceive you, in San Francisco (where I work), if you look at at the crowd going for lunch at Noon on Wednesday you'd think that San Francisco has a "white" majority (it doesn't), and if you look at who's out and about at 8AM on Sunday morning you'd think that San Francisco has an "Asian" majority (it doesn't).

And different jobs have different demographics as well, the San Francisco Police Department is much more "white" and a bit more "black" than the City's population as a whole is, and the Public Works Department Cement Masons have a much higher percentage of blacks than the City as a whole does, Public Works Painters are more Hispanic, and Asians are underrepresented in most Public Works "shops" except for the Gardeners (at least a few years ago when I worked at the Public Works Department).

Different age groups have different demographics as well, and most blanket statements (likely including some I've just made) aren't fully true.

[Xyril]

If you want more minority actors, you basically need to make acting a worse, lower-paying, more precarious career.

Speaking as someone who knows a few actors from before they were actors, I'm not sure this is true. Pretty much everyone seriously considering acting already knows that it's generally a low-paying, precarious career. Even if they're not even considering the slight possibility of becoming a highly paid, famous star, they realized that it was from certain that they would achieve "success" even in the sense of becoming a working actor with fairly regular jobs, making probably less money than they would have going into consulting or one of the myriad other options available.

One reason minority actors are more reluctant to enter the field is because (they perceive that) for them, the long odds are even longer in terms of achieving either level of success. Even if you're an actor with talent on the level of Sir Ian McKellen, the chances of you becoming as famous and as sought after as Sir Ian are what, on the order of 1% at best? Now imagine that you're a minority actor, and you feel pretty confident that even if you were to become the minority Ian McKellen that 90% of major roles would be, if not completely off limits to you, at the very least highly biased by the fact that they didn't envision someone with "your look" for the role. Or more realistically, imagine being a struggling actor, keeping yourself afloat by playing roles such as "murder victim's spouse" on CSI, and after a while you start to get the impression that outside the special Chinatown or black-community/police relations episode, casting seems to strongly favor white actors.

It takes a lot of passion and faith (or a complete lack of the mental faculties to weigh likelihoods and expected values) to get into acting, and everyone has a different threshold for how long they'll keep at it. If you then add on "by the way, even if you jump every other hurdle, most doors will still be closed to you," that'll push a lot of folks past the breaking point who other wise might have kept at it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that disparity in wealth between minorities and whites likely plays a factor. Everyone I knew who tried to be an actor--even the failed ones--had a family safety net of some sort. They weren't all trust fund kids, but at the very least they all knew that if they put 100% into trying to establish an acting career for a few years, and fail miserably, their parents could prevent them from starving without having to make huge personal sacrifices to do so.

[Xyril]

THIS is very much the illusion created by TV/Movies and it is very, very, very deliberate(and insidious.) Other then a couple very mixed places, the vast majority of the USA is all white.

Wow, just one sentence in and Darth Ultron is already talking about the insidious minorities infiltrating "his" country. Swell.

First, and this isn't a rhetorical question... have you actually watched a lot of movies or TV recently, and if so, which ones? I ask because when I think about all the movies and TV I've seen in which the "insidious minorities" were stealing roles from hardworking "real American" white actors, they've all been set in one of those "couple very mixed places." New York, Los Angeles, DC, and Boston are such common settings that they deserve their own genre label. The Law and Orders and CSIs--New York, Miami, Los Vegas... all places with large minority populations. Numerous political thrillers are set in Washington DC, which is not only largely black in make up, but hosts a particularly diverse and international crowd in the more political settings. Fifty Shades is set in Seattle. 15:17 to Paris--set on a train pointed towards one of the most international cities in the world. Not only does Paris have a substantial immigrant population from Africa and the Middle East, France in general has a major native born black population because it was far more accepting of blacks back when the U.S. was, well, not. The Greatest Showman, . The Post is.... obvious. Wincester is set in the (San Francisco) Bay area. Den of Thieves is set in L.A. Lady Bird is also in California. The Shape of Water is in Baltimore.

Pitch Perfect--and pretty much other

Hopefully you'll appreciate the irony of this--the movie Insidious is set in New Mexico and California.

Jumanji is set in a fictionalized version of Keene, New Hampshire, which is 95% white, so I suppose it's understandable why you're so angry about the one black guy being in there. I'll bet 12 Strong and Hawaii 5-0 both make you pretty happy though--both feature overrepresentation of whites in leading roles, correcting the "insidious" reality in which whites are actually a minority in Hawaii and Afghanistan.

I believe in the Dream of everyone is just Human.

Personally, I believe in the dream in which people matter, and not acreage. People like Darth Ultron believe in the artificial constructs of geography and political units. To people like him, "fairness" requires that 35 acres in Manhattan have the same representation--whether in media or in politics--as 35 acres in rural Montana. "Fairness" requires that the cities of Billings Montana or Normal Illinois have the same influence as the city of Boston or the city of Houston.

For the sake of giving Darth Ultron the benefit of the doubt, I will assume that he has some irrational fixation with the importance of places over the people who reside in them, because the only alternative explanation for his reasoning is that he does in fact value people, but he simply doesn't regard the people who live in Chigago, or New York, or Boston, as people in the same way that people in Anchorage or Keene or Bozeman are people.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

France in general has a major native born black population because it was far more accepting of blacks back when the U.S. was, well, not.

I agree with your post, but I do want to note that while this is probably true, it is only because the bar was set very low, and still France managed to trip over it.

The Haitian revolution exposed just how racist the French governments could be. It was in large part because they didn't know how else to make fortunes from sugar than by feeding humans into the grinder, and they chose to feed the African rather than the European, but saying that they were racist due to their own overwhelming greed doesn't make them look any better than "they were racist because they believed the white race to be superior".

Yes, the French did pass a number of equal right laws in the process, which yes did put them ahead of the US (most famously, Dumas' dad was a military officer, and also Haitian, and also half-black). But lets not kid ourselves: the laws were carefully written to ensure that the blacks would remain slaves in all but name, by and large.

Grey Wolf

[Joran]

A lot of this is just the reality part: Do an open casting call and you will get like, for example, 100 white people show up and apply, maybe 10 black, maybe 5 Hispanic and maybe 1 or 2 of any other group. This is just how people in just about any group are spread out: in this case, specifically actors.

Yeah, this isn't the case at all. Most roles will have a description of the character being sought: age, gender, ethnicity/race. A majority of casting breakdowns have a ethnicity assigned to it (54%); for those that specify no ethnicity, a lot of people in the industry think that implies Caucasian. Some casting directors and showrunners will specify "PLEASE SUBMIT ALL ETHNICITIES", but that's in the minority.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/c...g_notices.html

Also, names can have an effect. Chloe Bennet from Agents of SHIELD said that she started getting many more roles and offers when she changed her name from her given name of Chloe Wang. As always, in a lot of hiring decisions, there's a distinct effect from implicit (and sometimes explicit) bias.

Edit:

THIS is very much the illusion created by TV/Movies and it is very, very, very deliberate(and insidious.) Other then a couple very mixed places, the vast majority of the USA is all white.

When Hollywood makes something and you see the ''amazing mix of all different type of people'', it is always fake and forced. Someone is behind the curtain saying we MUST hire one X person!

Most TV shows and movies don't take place in rural white America. Cities are very diverse places, so casting a racially diverse cast mirrors reality. Likewise, Millennial and the post millennials are also much more diverse than the older population (55% of Millennials are Caucasian, 51% of the post-millennials). Also, multiracial marriages are rising, with multiracial marriages comprising 15% of all new marriages.

So, it's actually the all white cast in Brooklyn that's the outlier and fake and forced.

For a show like Fargo, as best I can tell, they cast a completely Caucasian cast.

In the US census they make the distinction between a race and an ethnicity, where an ethnicity is mostly a cultural group, it's about how you were raised. Hispanics is an ethnicity.

It's a bit like North and South Korean. Koreans are a single racial group, yet by talking about TV, music and their love for military dictatorships for a while you could get a pretty good idea of to what kind of Korean you were talking. That makes them two separate (but historically related, stuff like traditional building techniques and martial arts etc is very similar) ethnic groups. And then there are people who are mixed race or of a different racial group but who grew up in either Korea, speak the language, eat the food, and in some cases are descendants of people who came to live there centuries ago. Those people are ethnically North or South Korean, yet not racially Korean.

This is weird to me. To me, there's 3 categories: race, ethnicity, nationality. So, I'm Asian (East Asian to be specific), but I'm ethnically Chinese (Han). However, I was born in America and am an American.

So, the Korean example: Koreans are Asian, ethnically Korean, but are divided by nationality North and South.

[Xyril]

This is weird to me. To me, there's 3 categories: race, ethnicity, nationality. So, I'm Asian (East Asian to be specific), but I'm ethnically Chinese (Han). However, I was born in America and am an American.

So, the Korean example: Koreans are Asian, ethnically Korean, but are divided by nationality North and South.

Well, it's a bit like speciation--it can be sometimes hard, particularly while it's happening, to really define the moment in which a culture or an ethnic group splits off and becomes distinct.

It is particularly difficult because some people disagree as to relative importance of blood vs. culture in determining ethnicity. Now that genetic testing is relatively cheap and popular, people tend to use ethnicity as a shorthand for ancestral groups--your DNA can tell you that you're ethnically part Korean or ethnically part Celtic without you ever knowing before the test or having existing social connection to those cultures. However, the previous definition of ethnicity focuses more on the state of belonging to a group that has a shared national or cultural heritage. This is one reason why ethnic and cultural organizations on college campuses are relatively uncontroversial among guys not titled Darth-something--the focus is on shared interest in a culture and history, not on blood purity of any sort. When I was in school, we had among other organizations a Scandinavian group, a French group, a German group, a Celtic dance group, and a pan-European international students club, whereas it probably would have taken quite a bit of finesse and explaining to make "White America Club" fly.

In the strictest sense, a white kid adopted and raised by a Chinese family in China would be more ethnically Chinese than a second or third generation Chinese-American with only superficial cultural ties. However, I'm pretty sure that if somebody asks you about your ethnicity, they mean it in the sense of "Why do you look the way you do?" and not "What kind of food did your parents cook for you?"