insightful comment about Land from GAR in Friday's paper...

[SymphonicX]

Question: You're known for gore in your films - is there anything controversial that a studio hasn't allowed you to do?


ROMERO: Apparently the idea of using an african american in a lead role was controversial when I did Land of the Dead. I had done it in all my previous films but the studio just said "not a chance". I said "ok, I'll make the lead zombie a black guy" They had no problem with that.


CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!

[MinionZombie]

That is muffed up, for sure. :eek:

And the old stereotype of 'kill off the black guy' ... kinda both ways in Land.

The lead black guy was already dead - a zombie - but the zombie survived the movie, so...

Still f*cked up though. *smacks studio on nose with rolled up paper* NO! BAD STUDIO! BAD!

[mista_mo]

Wow,

Never would have saw that one coming. Why would it be taboo or what have you, to have a black dude as the lead of the film?

[Craig]

Whoa, what the hell?

[3pidemiC]

Shocking.

[jim102016]

Question: You're known for gore in your films - is there anything controversial that a studio hasn't allowed you to do?


ROMERO: Apparently the idea of using an african american in a lead role was controversial when I did Land of the Dead. I had done it in all my previous films but the studio just said "not a chance". I said "ok, I'll make the lead zombie a black guy" They had no problem with that.


CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!

That doesn't make a lot of sense, what's the big deal about someone born in Africa? He became a U.S. citizen in the hopes of making more out of his life and the studio won't even let him be the lead in a zombie movie! Pretty f*cked up!

[DubiousComforts]

ROMERO: Apparently the idea of using an african american in a lead role was controversial when I did Land of the Dead. I had done it in all my previous films but the studio just said "not a chance". I said "ok, I'll make the lead zombie a black guy" They had no problem with that.
Jesus Christ! I had forgotten that the lead character in the Dead Reckoning script was a black man.

[Legion2213]

Chill out folks, it's not about "taboo" it's about market forces....more white people in the west than ethnic people, therefore, the whites are generally the target audience...try making a chinese blockbuster or Kenyan blockbuster with a lead white guy and see how fast it falls on it's ass.

Nothing ****ed up, racist or shocking about it IMO.

[MinionZombie]

But that doesn't make sense. The black male lead would most likely be WESTERN, and if the audience is mainly western, who gives a crap except racists? And we shouldn't pander to racists to sell a few tickets and DVDs.

I think it's pathetic that the studio didn't want a black male lead specifically. Who cares about the colour of the male lead, as long as the lead is good - who cares otherwise?

[bassman]

They didn't want a black lead....but for awhile they pushed to have "Night of the Living Dead" in the title? A film that had a black lead?:rockbrow:


I had forgotten that he was black in the script. My memory may be off, but wasn't Big Daddy a one-armed mexican?

[AcesandEights]

Chill out folks, it's not about "taboo" it's about market forces....more white people in the west than ethnic people, therefore, the whites are generally the target audience...try making a chinese blockbuster or Kenyan blockbuster with a lead white guy and see how fast it falls on it's ass.

Nothing ****ed up, racist or shocking about it IMO.

Yup. I agree. The more some things may change, like the supposed opening of the film industry to independents, the more things stay the same. One example, is that big business and Hollywood in particular have fairly hard numbers on what their target market wants.

Boring, uninspired and a practice that leads to staid and ultimately formulaic cookie-cutter films? Probably, but that's why things like this happen.

[jim102016]

Who gives a ****? Is anyone really surprised? Hollywood pretends to be this liberal, politically correct role model to the world, when most are uneducated bigots hiding behind their money!

How are they better than anyone else? I don't understand the shock factor here, its not like anyone of them is a hero for pretending to be other people.

What should be a shock is that the world kisses their asses and continues to be fascinated with their every move.

[DjfunkmasterG]

Question: You're known for gore in your films - is there anything controversial that a studio hasn't allowed you to do?


ROMERO: Apparently the idea of using an african american in a lead role was controversial when I did Land of the Dead. I had done it in all my previous films but the studio just said "not a chance". I said "ok, I'll make the lead zombie a black guy" They had no problem with that.


CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!

And we see where that got him. I think it is a shame he couldn't have casted whom he wanted to play the lead. Simon Baker just didn't fit the part that well, and it goes to show you even 400 years later racism and separatism are still in full force.

One of the biggest mistakes in Land was Big Daddy, although I don't blame it because the actor was a black man, I blame it because he was a ****ty actor. Of all the talented african american males who act today, he chose that bozo. SHEESH

[SymphonicX]

And we see where that got him. I think it is a shame he couldn't have casted whom he wanted to play the lead. Simon Baker just didn't fit the part that well, and it goes to show you even 400 years later racism and separatism are still in full force.

One of the biggest mistakes in Land was Big Daddy, although I don't blame it because the actor was a black man, I blame it because he was a ****ty actor. Of all the talented african american males who act today, he chose that bozo. SHEESH

You'd think someone paid to literally groan and shuffle along, occassionally using a drill or machine gun aggressively, would be fairly cut and dry....

But you're right...Eugene Clark messed it up big time. Annoying, stupid zombie without a bit of personality or flare. Totally miscast. Painful.

But I really dig Simon Baker...I thought he did an excellent job of playing the balanced character in the movie...he got all the good lines too.

[triste realtà]

I had done it in all my previous films

Why is he casting based on race and not acting ability? Oh well, it worked for Dawn and Day, but Night, I don't think it worked so well. On the other hand, I'm not sure how the original character as written would have played out. Maybe not so good cause Cooper would have been beaten and shot earlier, by the trucker, I think.

Well, it could be he's making a statement about racism, but what? I'm hoping it's not the idiotic mindset "Racism is wrong". That takes zero thought. I want a statement about cause. Actually, I don't think he ever says anything about anything but just uses these movies to reflect the state of society at the time. Also, I think Night didn't work well cause it wasn't written the way it was cast.

[Yojimbo]

Why is he casting based on race and not acting ability?

I don't know if that is an entirely fair way of looking at what Romero was doing. He wrote a character which in his mind was an African American, and therefore wanted to cast an African American. I assume that he would cast the actor for the African American role based on acting ability. For Night, as you know, he did in fact cast Duane as the lead based on acting ability and the part had been written race neutral.

[triste realtà]

He wrote a character which in his mind was an African American, and therefore wanted to cast an African American.

But why? Was Billy-boy written as Irish? That would mean just broader spectrum of characters maybe.

Well, thanks to the boards copious input, I figured out what the movies are saying about society. It's fragile, and if the **** hits the fan, this is what happens for each decade. Remembered that from the Dawn commentary.:D

[Yojimbo]

But why? Was Billy-boy written as Irish? That would mean just broader spectrum of characters maybe.


It's been quite a while since I read the original DAY script, so I do not recall if Billy was written as Irish, however your question as to why Romero wrote the lead of LAND as an African American is an interesting one, albeit one that I have no real answer for. Perhaps it was a way of furthering the idea that the folks in the tower along with Kaufman were not only elitists but racists as well. Mind you, this is merely speculative. I guess this is one of those answers that can only come from GAR himself.

[SymphonicX]

I think GAR just likes to bring minorities to the forefront and show them as human....I mean we're living in times where people are demonised for their religion or colour of their skin and Romero seems to like making movies where you end up rooting for that minority, and by the end have cast away prejudice without realising it. I think its another one of his ways of going against the grain, and doing what he thinks will work.

[Mike70]

- checks calendar- confirms year as 2008 not 1948-

just when you think that we might be moving past some of this idiocy about black people you hear something like this.

pretty sad.

[jim102016]

- checks calendar- confirms year as 2008 not 1948-

just when you think that we might be moving past some of this idiocy about black people you hear something like this.

pretty sad.

No, watch the news, it's has just transformed and gone under cover. Efforts to fix the problem have made it worse in some ways.

[SRP76]

I notice how this is a wonderful, one-side story, without any kind of a) proof, and b) chance for the studio to explain things. Trials should be held exactly this way; much more efficient.

But other than that, just what would having a black lead character have done? Nothing. It would still be the same movie.

[SymphonicX]

I notice how this is a wonderful, one-side story, without any kind of a) proof, and b) chance for the studio to explain things. Trials should be held exactly this way; much more efficient.

But other than that, just what would having a black lead character have done? Nothing. It would still be the same movie.

SRP76 - that's my point, it would've been the same either way, so why refuse to let Romero cast an african american in the lead?

Also - this excerpt was taken from an interview with Romero - so you're either calling him a liar or me...? Why do you need proof? I doubt Romero would open his world up to a libel case...

[Mutineer]

I Am Legend ?

Blade ?

Dawn 08 (Ving and Mekhi) (spell?)

I'm not buying it.

[MinionZombie]

Will Smith, Wesley Snipes, Ving Rhames, that Mekhi guy off of ER - I guess they're all marketable, perhaps they thought GAR would choose some black guy nobody had heard of.

Even with Simon Baker, he's not done much, I don't really remember him in much else...he had a bit-part in LA Confidential, and was he in the American version of The Ring?

Meh, I duno...if the studio said that, it's proper lame.

[Griff]

Yeah, I guess the Suits figured that a black guy had to have a killer rep to make them a financially viable lead and they couldn't afford one. Much cheaper to go with the no-rep whiteboy for the same return...

Its stupid but that's Hollywood.

[Redman6565]

Maybe the black guy wasn't good enough. I don't buy this one bit. There are black leads all over in movies. I think Romero may push a little to hard to make the leads black. Maybe it should come down to the best actor no matter what color their skin is. I will say the roles played by black actors in his past movies were very well done. I don't carel about their skin color as long as the role they play comes across well in the movie which makes me wonder what he was thinking with Diary. By the way isn't it funny that one of the main characters was a hispanic or does that minority not count. Who's being racist now I ask with a :)