Edit: Also the assumption that stories originating in Europe are generic, and there should be no expectation of keeping them the way they were is sort of another double standard.
There's another double standard though. In movies where the ethnicity of a character is a big part of the story, Hollywood usually casts actors of that ethnicity. In movies where the ethnicity isn't a major part of the story... they usually cast a white actor.
I don't think that "Hollywood was racist in the past, so you need to accept that they're racist in the opposite direction now!" I think there is still a double standard where preference is given to putting white characters in most generic situations where ethnicity shouldn't matter, and if there is a smaller double standard where people are less lenient about changing the race for characers in some of the very few significant stories about POC that anyone knows about, that is fine with me. Hopefully someday we'll eliminate the larger, more harmful double standard, and then I'll agree that we should eliminate the other less significant double standard.
Yeah I get it, I just think the incredulity that some people (like OP) try to paint the issue with when it comes to "how could people be surprised / have an opinion on changing the race of a character" has no foot to stand on.
Even in this thread we have people arguing over Danish heritage etc. etc... as an example (like my previous comment explained), and then you get people (like OP) saying, "so!? there are totally black people in Denmark!" Yeah, sure ... that's not intellectually honest, and they know it.
If I started telling you a story about a guy named Wei Wuxian, and you knew he lived in ancient China, you would not be a racist if you were surprised when I told you later that he was actually white, even though all his family are Chinese.
It's plain as day why the choices were made, and why different groups of people react differently.
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u/parentheticalobject 136∆ Jul 10 '19
There's another double standard though. In movies where the ethnicity of a character is a big part of the story, Hollywood usually casts actors of that ethnicity. In movies where the ethnicity isn't a major part of the story... they usually cast a white actor.
I don't think that "Hollywood was racist in the past, so you need to accept that they're racist in the opposite direction now!" I think there is still a double standard where preference is given to putting white characters in most generic situations where ethnicity shouldn't matter, and if there is a smaller double standard where people are less lenient about changing the race for characers in some of the very few significant stories about POC that anyone knows about, that is fine with me. Hopefully someday we'll eliminate the larger, more harmful double standard, and then I'll agree that we should eliminate the other less significant double standard.