New Mutants director discusses white washing claims of Roberto

[BUtterfield 8 41,466]

io9: We’ve got to talk about the criticisms that have been leveled against the film for casting Henry Zaga to play Roberto, a character who’s Afro-Brazilian in the comics, originally read as Black, and whose origins do touch upon anti-Black racism in Brazil. I suppose my first question’s: do you get where that criticism came from? 

Boone: You won’t have any argument from me. It’s like my thing was my goal was to cast a real Brazilian and I saw 300 of myself black, brown, lighter-skinned. I saw every shade of the sun. It was the same case with Blu Hunt. It’s like we looked at 300 Native American people and people very close ties to the Native American community. My goal was to find the best actor who, because they’ve done so little work, was at least the closest to kind of what I saw in my head for the character. There was nobody who hold a candle to Henry. It’s like maybe if Henry didn’t exist, I would have found somebody who was darker skinned who exemplified what I needed. But it was never about the color of their skin for me.

io9: Did that just not fit into your vision for Roberto’s story in the film?

Boone: I didn’t care so much about the racism I’ve heard about in Brazil, about light-skinned versus dark-skinned. To me, it was I wanted to represent Brazil in a positive way and I wanted to find somebody who seems like he could look like a guy who’s had the silver spoon in his mouth, who has like a really rich dad and [Henry] just exemplified all these things. 

Henry’s such a dedicated performer and you can see it in her performance on The Stand where he’s playing someone who can neither speak nor hear, and he put so much time into learning sign language and spending time learning from deaf people was just great. He’s a beyond reproach human being, and I sort of defy anybody who wants to say that Henry’s not a good Roberto simply because he’s lighter-skinned.
 

https://io9.gizmodo.com/the-new-mutants-director-josh-boone-is-confident-its-a-1844806878

[TimisaMonster 31,073]

Yeah...white washing is such an issue in Hollywood...i honestly don't understand why they think nobody will bring this up when the original Canon of characters basically gets dismissed...

[TerrenceV2 2,001]

Just now, TimisaMonster said:

Yeah...white washing is such an issue in Hollywood...i honestly don't understand why they think nobody will bring this up when the original Canon of characters basically gets dismissed...

“I didn’t see color” after selecting a white actor with “non-white” roots.

[Doot 2]

Why were they auditioning anyone who wasn't that ethnicity in the first place? If the ethnicity and background of the character in the comics is integral to the characters story, then that's how it should be adapted for film. 

Using the "I saw hundreds of people who were POC and fit the bill, but this actor over here fit the role the best" makes zero sense. 

 

[petty 9,412]

the way this movie was supposed to be released 2.5 years ago

a continuous flop  

scrap the whole movie chile  

[Omar Vela 2,744]

It's pretty annoying every time they cast someone who doesn't even look anything closer to the comic book or cartoon counterpart. It's like the little mermaid live action casting for ariel x_x ...