The blogosphere is dead.
Truly.
I’m lazy when it comes to finding new blogs to read. I like to pick out a few comfortable places to settle down with, then ride ‘em out till the end. Unfortunately, it seems most of these wonderful blogs have slowly but surely lapsed into stagnation.
I have to wonder though, what is the average lifetime of a blog? From experience, it seems to be under 2 years. Blogs with their own domain — indicative of perhaps more dedication by its owner — seem to last a little longer, but not much.
My two gal pals have deserted me; enter Melodrama. Hot Coffee Girl has posted a few rubbish entries (yes, you heard me, woman — absolute rubbish!), and Rhys has more or left me for dead. Probably for her burgeoning webcam fetish business.
Anyways, when the women leave you, I suppose all that’s left to do is to turn to your best mates.
So to produce some friendly interblog sparring, I’ve decided to turn to Dave with the following proposal:
Some of us may have heard of 21, a newly released film adaptation of the non-fiction book Bringing Down the House. The movie chronicles the exploits of a group of MIT card players in the 90s, who made a lucrative amount of money playing blackjack at Vegas casinos.
Now what you may not have heard is that the real-life counterparts of the Hollywood actors were Asian American MIT students. Of course, Hollywood, being Hollywood, promptly swapped them for white actors (with a token Korean played by Aaron Yoo).
This, of course, produced a flurry of outrage from the not-usually-so-vocal Asian communities.
So, the question is, is this just the ‘real world’ and we should thus accept it as such? Would this ever have happened if the real-life counterparts were, for example, African American? Clearly, this was in an effort to improve the marketability of the film, but do you agree with the decision?
NYCWD says,
While I don’t necessarily agree with the decision for the fictionalization of real life… it is how the movie industry works. In all things.
How to fight the system? Besides voicing displeasure… express it with your wallets… boycott it.
Nishant says,
If they made a movie about a bunch of Asians cheaters talented at math they might have had other issues.
Nicky says,
I think Nishant raises the same point that occurred to me — that they feared that people, not knowing it is “based on” a true story, would get up in arms about a movie that portrayed Asians as malevolent math-using cheaters. Sad, but I can picture the focus group meeting already.
Jonathan Weatherhead says,
mmm I dunno about you guys but I would say that a bunch of Asian math-whizzes is a helluva lot more convincing than a bunch of white people. Not saying that white men are any less intelligent but you know the stereotype:P
Jonathan Weatherhead says,
Random thought – Ocean’s 21 anyone?
Phil says,
…they feared that people, not knowing it is “based on” a true story, would get up in arms about a movie that portrayed Asians as malevolent math-using cheaters.
Actually, Nicky, the writer of the book stated that the reason Asians were recruited by the team (in real life) was because casinos were more suspicious of Caucasians betting wads of cash.
Rich, clueless, foreigners are less likely suspects for card counters.
Jonathan above mentioned Ocean’s [11]. Remember how many times the Casino owner [Andy Garcia] greeted a rich Saudi Arabian man or Japanese tycoon, surrounded by body guards and looking to spend millions at his casino.
Dave says,
I dunno, in all honesty I wasn’t surprised at all when I heard this news; maybe that’s why I don’t really have any strong feelings for this.
http://dave-ho.blogspot.com/2008/04/azn.html
Just for you Phil.
Nicky says,
Phil, I have no doubt that what you say the writer of the book said was the case. However, Hollywood is a whole other ball of wax, and I guess my point is that a lot of times those changes are made without regard for what is actually true; instead, a movie is cobbled together based on what studios perceive people want to see, and what studios perceive will or won’t get them sued or boycotted. So it may be that, regardless of what actually happened in the real life story, they would be fearful of getting an earful from advocacy groups who aren’t familiar with the true story. The irony, of course, being, that now the studio will get an earful for dropping the Asian main characters.
Also, “fearful of getting an earful” might be my new favorite rhyming phrase.
hot coffee girl says,
Even if you are right…
Bite me.
Rhys says,
Oh dearest Phil, I have never left you, or even blogging…I just left myself for a while. Working on getting back.
I think about you a bunch and hope you’re doing great. You rock and I miss you.
I’m actually preparing to get back into regular posting and am trying to decide to move to wordpress or just stay with the simplicity of Blogger…any advice appreciated.
The womenz will never leave ya!
jali says,
My thoughts went immediately to the album covers of the 60s when African American groups couldn’t be shown on the album cover for fear that White America wouldn’t buy the album. See how that all worked out…
I’d be very unhappy if I had to be Americanized for my story to be told.
jali says,
I used phony html “sarcasm – end sarcasm” around the word “americanized”. I suppose the Bush administration filtered it out somehow.
Phil’s Proof » Phil to Watchdog: What’s up NYC? says,
[...] as you can probably tell, I’ve been trying to revive some semblance of inter-blog [...]