this film is about embracing difference, and had a pro-immigration message, yet every single non white person was an extra. oh, there was a street group singing reggae and calypso, because we black folk sure have rhythm, but apparently we are not good enough to be cast in any speaking parts.
i'm sure i will now be blasted and told to "lighten up", but i will never be ok about such overt marginalisation based on race - and in a film about london of all places!
Given that the Browns live in West London and go to Portobello Road in Notting Hill it is quite surprising how few black faces there are. Notting Hill is the home of the annual carnival and it's where a lot of the first West Indian immigrants settled when they arrived in the 50s. I think they were trying to give the film a 'fifties' vibe to tie in with the era the book was set in but still needed to set it in the present. Trouble is, outside of The Browns, their house keeper, their neighbour and the old East European antique dealer (all of whom are white in the original books) the only other parts available were the pickpocket and the main villain. The OP would have been even more pissed off if the only black characters were crooks though, wouldn't he? I suppose the cab driver could have been black but would the OP have been just as outraged when the black cabbie is dumped in the Thames by Nicole Kidman?
sharewell, the film-makers could have been a bit more imaginative and reflected london as it really is. there are a lot of mixed heritage families in london and the uk. why did mr and mrs brown both have to be white? or the antique dealer, or the their neighbour? that film was a joke.
i thought the whole point was that Paddington was a brown bear being accepted by white English folks.
Peole really do complain about everything nowadays
http://napfilmcritic.blogspot.ae/
^^ which makes the fact that real black people as opposed to a cgi bear were marginalised and kept silent in a film set in LONDON, one of the most diverse on the planet, all the more ridiculous, and undermines the whole point of the film which was supposed to be being tolerant of difference.
no doubt you think the continuing protest about the lack of diversity that keeps anyone outside the white male demographic shut out from the top film roles and awards "complaining about everything" too.
I do think that, yes. Michael Bond the author of the book is a white well-standing Londoner and as such, he wrote about what he new about, which is Nothing Hill. So, no I don't see why everyone always has to add token black people just so internet moaners would be happier. Having a black person wouldn't contribute at all to this particular film and story, because they couldn't have been Brown family members, nor bears, and as someone else pointed out - if they were taxi drivers or gay flamboyant tube-goers, you people would still complain.
More importantly, this movie is doing more for diversity and acceptance by promoting it among young people, so you/and other minorities should be happy. Children everywhere are learning about immigration and tolerance and next time a neighbor from Kenya moves to London, a white English kid might have more sympathy, instead of quoting their parents by saying "great, more foreigners."
But sure, let's just ignore the bigger picture and bitch and moan for the sake of it.
p.s. Why is it that black folks complain about everything, and never Hispanic, or native american etc, or Eastern-European, etc? Those people have just as many issues with how they're represented on film. Russians are always the mafia in American film, Aboriginal people have magical powers, etc. LGBT community didn't say a word about Carol being snubbed. Or Tangerine for that matter. Yet here we are with Jada P. Smith raising hell just because her hubby wasn't nominated for an undoubtedly average movie which was Concussion.
It's all ridiculous, if you ask me. And, again, I can't believe somebody's dissing Paddington, saying it's a bad movie, just because WHITE CHARACTERS FROM A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COUNTRY WHERE THE BOOK IS SET IN A MOVIE MADE BY WHITE PEOPLE BASED ON A WHITE WRITER'S CHILDREN'S BOOK ARE, WAIT-WAIT-SHOCKING! - ALL WHITE!!! I mean, call the police.
If Paddington was Uganda's property, I'm sure the white people working in Kampala wouldn't give a damn about some casting woman trying to earn money by following the story of the original Kenyan national treasure, which is what Paddington is to the English.
http://napfilmcritic.blogspot.ae/
I do think that, yes
That's all you needed to read? Really? Fascinating. You're not even open-minded enough to read through another posters words, yet you're here to preach about inclusion.
http://napfilmcritic.blogspot.ae/