Nickelodeon just keeps shooting themselves in the foot with this.
See the article Mikke linked to, in her reply... uhm, either above or below. [ETA: doh! it's the reply directly below this one.] Worthwhile reading, if inevitably teeth-gnashing. May also cause some hair-pulling and the sudden need for a stiff drink, and avoidance of firearms and other potential major weaponry, at least until the anger passes.
Which is to say: as far as Nickelodeon is concerned, they're not shooting themselves in the foot, they're certifying that the story will be a bestseller as best they can based on their understanding of bestseller -- that is to say, sticking to the formula, and the formula demands white-boy-at-center. Preferably with American accent.
A ridiculous position to take -- well, until you realize that admission of a lack of true formula for success means telling investors that their millions invested might as well get taken to Vegas for all the certainty the hollywood executives can really provide. And I can't really blame someone willing to hand over a million dollars for wanting just a little certainty of success. The problem is that with the amount of money we're talking, that "little certainty" has solidified into concrete-hard rules and deviations are anathema.
And even with my logical cap on, I still thought much of that (and the article's insight) had to be some level of exaggeration -- until I came across commentary from one of the big media outlets (I want to say Rolling Stone, but that's not right, but that level... maybe Greenwich Times? ugh, whatever) -- that Nickelodeon was "completely taken aback" and caught totally off-guard by what seemed to Nickelodeon to be an absolutely unprecedented amount of fan rage over the casting calls and decisions for the movie. They genuinely weren't expecting it, because it never occurred to them that what they were doing was wrong -- and it's that kind of fundamental privilege that makes it okay to remove the Chinese characters. They simply are pathologically incapable of even recognizing the existence of their xenophobic racism, let alone the extent of it. Utterly, completely blind.
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Date: 1 Apr 2010 06:56 pm (UTC)See the article Mikke linked to, in her reply... uhm, either above or below. [ETA: doh! it's the reply directly below this one.] Worthwhile reading, if inevitably teeth-gnashing. May also cause some hair-pulling and the sudden need for a stiff drink, and avoidance of firearms and other potential major weaponry, at least until the anger passes.
Which is to say: as far as Nickelodeon is concerned, they're not shooting themselves in the foot, they're certifying that the story will be a bestseller as best they can based on their understanding of bestseller -- that is to say, sticking to the formula, and the formula demands white-boy-at-center. Preferably with American accent.
A ridiculous position to take -- well, until you realize that admission of a lack of true formula for success means telling investors that their millions invested might as well get taken to Vegas for all the certainty the hollywood executives can really provide. And I can't really blame someone willing to hand over a million dollars for wanting just a little certainty of success. The problem is that with the amount of money we're talking, that "little certainty" has solidified into concrete-hard rules and deviations are anathema.
And even with my logical cap on, I still thought much of that (and the article's insight) had to be some level of exaggeration -- until I came across commentary from one of the big media outlets (I want to say Rolling Stone, but that's not right, but that level... maybe Greenwich Times? ugh, whatever) -- that Nickelodeon was "completely taken aback" and caught totally off-guard by what seemed to Nickelodeon to be an absolutely unprecedented amount of fan rage over the casting calls and decisions for the movie. They genuinely weren't expecting it, because it never occurred to them that what they were doing was wrong -- and it's that kind of fundamental privilege that makes it okay to remove the Chinese characters. They simply are pathologically incapable of even recognizing the existence of their xenophobic racism, let alone the extent of it. Utterly, completely blind.