Rooney Mara to play Tiger Lily in Pan — Page 2

Besty, thanks - I don't think I've ever heard that before. I guess that makes me a PONC = Person of Non-Color. I don't really think in those terms. I just think of people and persons.

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The problem or difference with acting and playing roles is "where do you draw the line" as far as being true to a character? This is a world of make believe.

Acting is (or should be) the illusion of truth. If the illusion doesn't work well enough, that's one thing. If it works well enough, that's another.

You could start with the race argument and say, "Only Asians should play Asian roles, only Native Americans should play Native American roles," because that's true to the character. Then you could add, if the character is 25 years old, that nobody younger or older than the character should play the part. No 35-year-olds or 20-year-olds, because that would be a lie. Then, if the character is also Jewish, you could say, "No Catholics or Muslims need apply." If the character is also an alcoholic, you can add, "Nobody who hasn't suffered through the disease of alcoholism should be considered for this part, because they would be lying about who they are." Now suppose the character was also a serial killer with five children. Do actors need to have previous experience in those areas to be true to the part?

If you start down the road, where do you stop and say, "I can live with the illusion of truth, rather than the truth itself?"

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I don't agree with you, best12bars. I don't think it's too much to ask that roles not be whitewashed for movies and TV. Minorities have a tough enough time, we don't need white people arguing that not casting minorities in minority roles is just part of the "illusion of truth" of acting. Would it really have been so hard for them to cast a Native American as Tiger Lily? Nepotism Mara isn't a big name star, she's not Angelina Jolie. No one is going to suddenly rush to see this movie because Nepotism Mara is in it. So they could have, and should have, given the role to a Native American actress.

larrystyles--so now your backpedalling on your comment that anybody other than whitey will do?

You were fine with "any POC" as long as it's not a white person a minute ago.

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I'm not backpedaling? I still think that any minority in a minority role is better than a white person. I don't think that a black girl would be appropriate for Tiger Lily either but it'd be better than a white girl.

Oh, okay. You're still a racist then. I was just checking.

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Besty, don't try to use logic and reason with this schmuck.

"I still think that any minority in a minority role is better than a white person. I mean, I don't think that a black girl would be appropriate for Tiger Lily either but it'd be better than a white girl."

Yeah, forget their qualifications as an actor, it's just about color. You're not smart enough to understand that this approach of not caring about whether they have any talent as long as their color is "correct" does as much harm to the casting of minorities as anything else.

"FishermanBob-you're wrong. White people have never suffered from institutional racism. Ever. Your post reeks of white privilege- next you're going to be asking why there isn't a White History Month."

White privilege? I grew up in Washington Heights where if you didn't speak Spanish, you were a minority. For years, I refereed Summer League Basketball in Harlem and in Roxbury (Boston) where I was just about the only white face for 10 blocks in any direction. I have more street cred than you do. You're just an ignorant hater and a racist who tries to justify it with the "well all white people are racists too" routine. Real people of stature in the minority community detest people like you cause you do more harm to the cause of racial equality than any 10 prejudiced whites put together.

Updated On: 3/14/14 at 01:29 PM

I hope she's not as awful in this as she was in Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I didn't like anything about her. But that might have to do with my dislike of the film as a whole. Thought it was the worst film of that year.

Did my research. I'm not a sports fan, so I had no idea who the Mara family was. Is there proof that her name got her the part?

And OMG I just realized who her sister is. I love Kata Mara!!

Her sister, Kate, is a big player in the Ryan Murphy world, but I don't see how that has anything to do with Fincher.

(I'm surprised Kate has never been on GLEE, but I digress.)

No one could play Lisbeth better than Noomi. She was pretty much perfection. Rooney just ddnt come anywhere near the depth of what I saw in the books.

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This thread went from on-topic to racism to nepotism. Seems about par for the course around here.

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best12bars, I'm sure that when Spielberg remakes West Side Story and doesn't cast Puerto Ricans as the Sharks that people will raise hell.

And they'll probably insist on PR actors, too, no other Hispanics. I remember when Nuyorican J.Lo was cast as Chicana Selena Quintanilla-Perez. There was an uproar from the Mexican-American community who felt that the part should've gone to Mexican star Salma Hayek even though Hayek was 5 years older than the real Selena and has a thick Spanish accent. Selena was born and bred in Texas and had a bit of a twang; in fact, she didn't learn to speak Spanish until she was in her late teens. Before that, she learned all her songs phonetically.

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Updated On: 3/15/14 at 02:50 AM