The Top Seven Most Ridiculous Controversies of 2010
In the yesteryears, a controversy had to really work up a head of steam to make the papers and the magazines, slowly gathering strength until it erupted into a full-bore gossip hurricane. But nowadays, all it takes is an errant tweet and every Blog, Dick and Harry is up in arms. Sometimes the outrage is merited, as in the case of Mel Gibson's (alleged!) vile phone calls. But other times, it's simply a lot of sound and fury ultimately signifying nothing. Join us for the Top Seven Most Ridiculous Controversies 2010
7. Glee Star Uses Botox
Sure, it's a little weird that 18-year-old Charice got Botox before her big American TV debut, but lord knows there are plenty of young ladies here in Hollywood who've injected themselves smooth and have kept it under their hats. But what makes the controversy extra lame is that she's only been on one episode this season thus far.
6. Blue Valentine's Brush With NC-17
Sometimes it feels like we're all pawns in Harvey Weinstein's game of chess. When his Blue Valentine got slapped with an NC-17 for seemingly no good reason, folks whipped themselves up into a lathered outrage. But now it's rated R, didn't have to lose a single frame, and hey, how about that! All that press increased awareness of its existence. Well played, Harv.
5. John Travolta and Kevin Spacey Live in the Smallest, Most Transparent Closet in the World
I had no idea that on the eve of 2011, it would cause such a kerfuffle to call two gay men gay. It's not 1954, and you're not Rock Hudson and Monty Clift, boys. Breathe a little.
4. Bristol Palin's Run on Dancing with the Stars
Sure, she was absolute crap and didn't deserve to get as far as she did. But hell, neither did Danny Gokey on American Idol and no one accused him of being part of an Illuminati plot.
3. Liam Neeson Accidentally Reveals Existence of Wise Religious Figures Other Than Jesus
Yes, Aslan is meant to be a Christ figure. Yes, Narnia is an overtly Christian tale. But, blessed shoes of the fisherman, an actor is allowed to take inspiration from more than source! I really do think that the moment someone says "Islam" or "Muhammad" a good chunk of the populace immediately thinks "durka durka Muhammad jihad."
2. Mike and Molly No Longer Jolly, Just Touchy
Essentially, you can base a whole program around the joke "hey, get a load of how fat these people are!" but the moment someone points how dangerous and unappealing it is to be grotesquely, morbidly obese, well then, that's the moment to fly into a collective buttery apoplexy.
1. The Last Airbender's Race-Bending Casting
When M. Night Shymalan cast some white kids in the roles of the (proto)Asian-seeming protagonists of Airbender, you would think that he had called for a purge of Saipan or something. Besides, all this sturm and drang of who had the proper racial background to play whom obscured the most important fact of all -- this was a terrible movie. Protest that!
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You forgot...
Adam Lambert shocking SHOCKING display of overt homosexuality during the AMA's (won't someone PLEASE think of the children???!)
Paris' latest drug related arrest
The trainwreck that continues to be Lindsay Lohan
Miley taking a hit from a bong (the horror!)
. . . then there was the outrage from the dentition-free homosexuals who felt slighted by the film "Tooth Fairy".
Oh, right, we don't need a show portraying the body types of people who remotely resemble the average American; what we need are more vapid, shallow, "sexy" dramas with actresses who are made of a bag of bones and botox and actors who are one swipe of blush from being actresses themselves. Please, skinniness does not necessarily equal healthiness (Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan, Calista Flockhart), so get of your high horse, idiot.
America...Fuck YEAH
Sorry, I hadn't heard of some of these "controversies."
I actually don't think the controversy over the Last Airbender was that ridiculous. Hollywood as a history of whitewashing characters and unfortunately it is something it continues to do. One of Neil Gaiman's books was never turned into a movie because all of the people who wanted to make it into a film wanted to make the main characters, who were black, white. Plus I've seen the pictures of some of the main characters and they clearly aren't WASPs.
is it Hollyweird that whitewashed those characters or the source material? Sometimes they have that anime style with the huge eyes and blonde hair, but they are still Asian?
Yes, because I did read in this column that people with known eating disorders are considered healthy! And what are the most beloved sitcoms on the air right now? The Office. 30 Rock. Community. Two and a Half Men. Modern Family. Cougar Town. Big Bang Theory. How many of these comedies have "actresses who are made of a bag of bones and botox and actors who are one swipe of blush from being actresses themselves"? All but one have at least one overweight character and most of the others aren't exactly gym bunnies. In fact, there are probably a total of three bags of bones on those shows and two of them are guys on Big Bang Theory! And yet none of the shows rely on fat jokes. So who's the idiot now?
It's one thing to put larger people who may still be healthy on the air and then make fun of their weight. The thing Hollywood has done over the years to realistic healthy women is ridiculous. Still, it's another thing entirely to put someone who is morbidly obese on the air and have cutesy-poo jokes about it and pretend they aren't going to die years before they should. Look at the picture up there. THAT DUDE IS NOT HEALTHY! NOBODY more than 100 pounds overweight is healthy! That is not debatable.
The controversies surrounding the Mike and Molly Marie Claire piece and Airbender's whitewashing involved heavy issues having to do with intolerance and prejudice (among other things), which are NOT at all ridiculous, but quite topical and relevant.
I don't see how you could dismiss that.
The creators of the show stated that the characters are _not_ supposed to be Caucasian. It's based in Asian mythology and, while it's a fantasy world so there's no Asia there, it was an attempt to break from white European-type characters and mythology. That's why the movie casting was criticized. It's kind of like casting white people to be in a traditional Kung Fu movie.
To say that casting three leading roles in a movie that was based on a cartoon that was created with the intent of making an East Asian/Inuit world with all white actors is ridiculous then I would like to know why you don't think it's a problem. Yes it's a horrid movie, but that's not the point. Name the last major Hollywood film that had an Asian American lead. Tell me why the leading men in recent and upcoming films aren't Asian American, but foreign mega-stars. No good Japanese American actors could play Kato?
Regardless if the movie was bad, calling for white actors (which they did in their casting calls) to be characters who are most certainly not white (there is no way that Katara and Sokka in the cartoon can be mistaken for white) shows an institutionally racist mindset in Hollywood. Unless you're making a "black movie" or you're one of a few favored few like Will Smith, minorities never get a chance to carry a film in the US.
Yeah, invoke white privilege a little more. A guy with the name Dixon Gaines wouldn't think that race and casting have some bread to break, I guess. It was more important to get real-life clothes right in The Social Network than it was to have "Divya" played by an Indian guy? See, the harm in that, is that when the only portryal of South or East Asians is based on minstrel show, it makes us harder to be taken seriously in American society.
Dude, with a name like yours, you should be writing actual movies, not wasting your life blogging about other people's achievements. Way to take being born in America as part of the majority, and flush it down the toilet. I'm sure your parents are proud.
Congratulations to the idiot who wrote this article. You've scored at Racefail Bingo (see bottom right corner): http://tinyurl.com/4qlkfsz
Yes, the act of willfully prohibiting Asians to play Asians on screen IS ridiculous. The angry reaction to it is most certainly not. One other thing that is ridiculous is the fact that ethnocentric dillholes, such as Dixon Gaines, are going out of their way to sweep it under the rug. They find a cause that they are apathetic towards--one that is a reaction to systemic racism, and they try their best to slap the dissenting voices down through ridicule and outright dismissal.
This just goes to show that no matter how persistent the problem, there will always be an overly-privileged douchebag there to casually dismiss it. For any number of disenfranchised Asian-Americans there will always be some A-hole there to tell them to "get over it". Think about the level of arrogance required to demand a group of people, who have been wronged, to "get over" it.
Dixon obviously doesn't care whether Asians are fairly represented in this country or not. So, what could be his motive in meddling in affairs that don't concern him? Think about it. You don't just write two articles on a subject for no good reason. Ambivalence toward the issue is one thing. The fact that he has persisted begins to reveal something terribly ugly.