littlem:
It wasn’t ‘Atonement’, it was ‘Across the Universe’, and the actor is Jim Sturgess, not James McAvoy, but your point still stands.

UGH.

I can’t believe I forgot to address the #4 bullet in Amp’s original post. There was a big dust-up about the “21 Movie” or whatever it’s called — the one about the MIT students counting cards to the tune of millions in Vegas — and there were a lot of upset people in the Asian community, as apparently the students on which the book (from which the movie was optioned) was based were almost all Asian, and the principal protagonist in the movie was Caucasian.

The protagonist is supposed to be some up and coming star (James something?) who was sufficiently well known from “Atonement” (or something) that he’d draw a major audience, but not so expensive that they couldn’t afford to make the movie.

The fact that box office draw would be used to rationalize such a decision — in the face of the fact that I’d lay Vegas odds that the target demo for “Atonement” and “21 the Movie” are SO NOT the same …

*throws up on Hollywood’s Gucci shoes*

Even my hyper-racially-unaware Buffy-fan friend, when she was setting up the Buffy households in her Sims 2 game, said, “Hey, all my characters are white,” and I said, “Well, that’s Buffy all right.”

Whedon is progressive for Hollywood, which makes some of the standards in his shows come off completely screwed up vs. real life.

And yet Hollywood sets a lot of the standards that end up applying to people’s perceptions of each other in real life.

“Acceptably Asian” really struck a note for me, as I’m currently in China and the range of features here is vastly more diverse than, well, the range of features you see on TV here, and the range of features you see on TV here is similarly vastly more diverse than what you see on American TV, to the point of where the Chinese you see in American TV/film media look like a tenth of a percent of actual Chinese people look. And I’m talking ethnicity, not weight, as everyone here is really thin.

In the meantime, though, I’m not sure what we should do.

/oblique nepotism references

And you would be surprised how many scripts, even in plays, describe the characters–and how often “thin” and “beautiful” are pre-requisites, even when they’re not essential to the character at all. And how many directors take these words as gospel.

Sciencegrrl, the cynic in me says that, in part, that’s because these directors, as men, aren’t willing to see any other type of women in their own little personal universes, so there’s no way they’re going to stand for seeing that on the film/TV screens of the “realization of their artistic visions”.

*rolleyes*

Also, I’m sure there’s a lot of pressure from studios et al along the “sex sells” lines. So even if you have a director with some vision and daring, if they’re being distributed by a major (or, like, Harvey Weinstein, and we’re not going to get into the hypocrisy of that right now), they’re going to face pressure from the studio.

Remember Margaret Cho and her bleeding kidneys as a result of her producer threatening her to lose 30 pounds in 2 weeks or lose her series? Remember when they adapted Jen Weiner’s “In Her Shoes” and they cast Toni Collette — and had her gain weight for the part — instead of casting, oh, let’s say, Camryn Manheim?

Plus, in the face of insanity like this

http://gawker.com/381582/emily-brill-ex+fattie-i-do-feel-like-a-cancer-survivor

flowing through the current cultural zeitgeist, well …

Were my perceptions accurate?

I second the SIP mention. I love that series so much.

And thank GOD that others have similar problems with Whedon. I’ve always felt ambivalent about him. I love Buffy and Firefly, but there is so much shit underneath the surface that I feel gets ignored sometimes. There are some great points to what he does (such as Maia’s assessment of the female-female relationships in Buffy), but there are a whole lot of problems, too.

“And if you want a heavy actress then just forget about it, because there don’t seem to be any in Hollywood.”

And that, Mr. Whedon, is complete bullshit. I live in the SoCal area, and I know heavy actresses. I am one. If directors who say they want heavier actresses really mean it, they need to put their money where their mouths are and actually cast some. And not, you know, encourage any actress who is even remotely large to lose as much weight as possible. Which is the other problem, even when heavier actresses do get cast, they get so much pressure to lose weight (Margaret Cho, for example).

I’m in love with Francine, true enough. She’s the most normal comic character I’ve ever seen.

Case in point: Strangers In Paradise.

The only barriers to including more diverse body types in the Buffy comic is what the creators want, and how important it is to them that they be commercial.

Perfect, meet Good, and do get along.

[snerk] Now that you mention this, I’m reminded of what a brother malcontent once said about Dennis Kucinich: He’s the best for what he is, which is a shame;Because that means he’s still not up to scratch.

Wheedon strikes me as essentially American TV’s Kucinich. :p

The comic books are comic books. According to people who know more about comics than I do, they’re better than your average comic book. But the art-work of existing characters drives me crazy, and all the new characters look the same (except one who has a punk haircut and is evil). I think it’s interesting that we’ve never seen the large woman from the trailer in the comic books, or indeed anyone who looked anything like her. And by interesting I mean ‘I hate comic books’

Sciencegrrl - I think ‘womanly’ was the word he used to describe Amber Benson, which is all sorts of problematic. I was like ‘how are you going to find someone who looks ‘bird-like’ next to Buffy and Willow - you’re going ot need an actual bird.

Chalequin - While I have problems with the way Buffy portrays teenage sexuality, I’m not sure about what you mean by the sex=death trope. As in I don’t know what you’re referring to as the original trope, and I don’t know what events in Buffy you are referring to.

For the Buffy and feminism sceptics - The strong female characters thing always bugs me - it’s as limited view of what makes good feminist fiction, as looking for a female president is of what makes good feminist politics . To me what makes Buffy feminist is that it values relationships between women, that it’s premise that growing up female is an epic battle and htat women’s lives are worth fighting for, it depicts sexism and misogyny and how they affect women’s lives and that it suggests women work together to fight this oppression.

But I started watching Buffy when I was 19. Each bit of feminism, each bit of politics worth a damn, came as a revelation to me, because I was just watching a TV show and suddenly it was awesome, rather than escapist.

it’s just hanging out there with the assumption that it’s somehow “okay” as long as there are strong female and/or POC roles in the show

Well, I don’t know very much about Whedon, besides being the occasional watcher of Buffy back in the day, but I think even having that last part would set any casting director apart. Perfect, meet Good, and do get along.