Dumb, Yes, But Fashionable
From the world of cinema and pretentious agonising:
The world is big and different people will be interested in different things, but this seems like a really stupid thing to think about for more than two seconds https://t.co/qWAKhVNMKG
— wanye (@wanyeburkett) June 20, 2025
The implications of Mr Boyle’s modish piety, presumably unintended yet implied nonetheless, are explored quite pithily in the replies.
Among which, the implication that white writers and directors should only concern themselves with suitably pale-skinned characters, carefully excluding non-white characters, and non-white actors, lest they appropriate or colonise something or other.
Likewise, the implication that a white person couldn’t possibly comprehend the inner life of a brown person – these magical, put-upon beings – which itself rather implies that white audiences needn’t turn up to films in which non-white people appear prominently. Due to their alleged incomprehensibility.
Strange basis for a global film industry, if you ask me. But there we are.
Update, via the comments:
Previously in the world of pretentious agonising:
Do follow the link for the inevitable twist and colossal hypocrisy.
And from the comments following which, this:
But no, we must all become twitchy and neurotic. That’s bound to go well.
It’s like they don’t hear themselves.
It’s so bizarre. What happened to the idea of our common humanity? They really seem to think that people are fundamentally different depending on their race and that we all need to segregate ourselves. As ever, “anti-racism” is breathtakingly racist.
Isn’t it rather arrogant assumption to think that a white European man couldn’t possibly do as good a job as a native Indian man simply by virtue of his skin colour ? It’s like reverse colonialism
And as noted in the replies, the Indian film industry does not appear to be rendered tearful by appropriation or riffing on products from other cultures.
This came to mind:
But no, we must all become twitchy and neurotic. That’s bound to go well.
cultural appropriation
Some culture is not worth appropriating, much less existing.
[ Post updated. ]
That.
They do tend to apply a double standard under which “brown people” are entitled to appropriate anything that white people create.
Walkabout,60000 years of Aboriginal culture was told in a couple of scenes let alone the whole film.
Heh.
Speaking of twitchy and neurotic, I was reminded of this:
Also considered traumatising for audiences, the onstage popping of balloons, “expressions of Christian faith,” and depictions of bad weather.
In – wait for it – The Tempest.
And yet liberals constantly talk about Nazis. It’s their favorite
accusationslur.I’m still processing the idea that significant numbers of theatre-goers would turn up to see The Sound of Music with no idea, no inkling, that the story features Nazis.
The proponents of multi-culturalism seem oddly obsessed with isolating cultures from each other.
“I’d be looking for a young Indian filmmaker to shoot it.”
As an aficionado of Bollywood, I am not sure the addition of over the top action scenes would have helped “Slumdog Millionaire”.
If only there’d been some clue…
Yes, quite.
Can’t believe you’ve got me here toiling at the weekend.
I would wager they also freak out if the peas touch their mashed potatoes.
These things rarely survive even minimal scrutiny as arguments about reality. They seem instead to exist as poses, affectations, or signs of insufferable neuroticism.