[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Livia

Luckily, you don't get to decide what is and isn't relevant.

Originally Posted by Kizzy

Right so we've transcended from children playing, to spaghetti westerns? OK
Start a thread and we'll discuss that.

To avoid thread derailment, it was suggested that there should be a new thread for this.

1) Is kids playing "Cowboys and Indians" problematic? Given the, let's face it, unarguably violent and horrendous treatment of Native Americans in the Colonial era, is this seemingly innocent childhood game actually making light of very real violence? And does that actually have any real-world implications as they go forward in life?

2) Spaghetti westerns, and even modern films, often have non-Native American actors portraying Native American characters. Obviously, this isn't just confined to that specific example... so what are your thoughts on actors crossing cultural boundaries? Is it OK to portray another race? Is it OK to portray a slightly different country? (Thinking specifically of things like British actors portraying Germans, or to go further afield, quite often South Korean [in fact usually American of SK origin] actors portray other South East Asian nationalities e.g. North K or Vietnamese).

And then where is the lower limit? As, for example, there are for some reason an absolute ****-tonne of British (English yes, and also a strangely large disproportionate number of Scottish and Irish) actors who portray American characters in movies and on TV. Is Benedactyl Cumberberry playing Dr Strange misappropriation? Should Tennant, like Capaldi, have kept his Scottish accent to play Doctor Who instead of going fake SoE?

Chris Hemsworth is an Australian actor, with English/Irish/Scottish/Dutch/German ancestry, who plays a Norse God, with an English accent. where do you start with that one. Maybe you don't have to since he technically plays an alien.


So basically, what are your views on keeping actors "culturally correct"? How important is it, assuming that the characters themselves are authentic, and not negatively stereotypical? Is that more important? (I'd suggest leaving satire out of the mix here as it's a whole different discussion really... just sticking with characters who are supposed to be realistic representations.)