What is it with all the racism???

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I just saw the movie. First of all, the medium of this illustration is film. Producers and and other involved in this kind of art have to consider the mode and the way characters are able to portray the story, not just the material. I suppose the most accurate method for delivering the story would have been to have the original family star in the film. Race certainly wouldn't have been a factor in this case, would it?

When viewing art, yes you consider the artist and where he came from, his own personal story. But how far do you take this idea that 'race' should be as much a part of this story as the family and what happened to them? Should the director also be of this 'race'? Should they all meditate around the ideas that race might play? Remember, film is a form of art. One with limitations, such as time. And art also has certain rules. In filmd, like a ballet, you're dealing with a medium that uses time in a very different way than traditional art. Time is depicted, not in a linear fashion, but as a moment in and of itself. A ballet isn't made up of each formal move and the stories of the dancers themselves. Movement in this way is meant to capture all of these pieces as interpretive experience which can say something quite true in 2 hours about something that took a lifetime to construct: the struggle between grace and nature for example. Art in this way moves our soul, not our logic or our understanding of the progression of things in the 'real' world.

I'm sure casting is a tough job, but Naomi Watts and Ewan McGreggor both have incredible resumes and were very qualified to play these roles. These are creative decisions, not social ones. There was no 'social' argument here. A japanese family could have played these roles just as well if the actors were decided to embrace and commit the direction of this creative work. Yes it was a true story, and because of that the creative process demands certain considerations. But as far as critiquing western culture, your argument lacks premise. The family the film was based on is Spanish. And if my geography is correct, Spain IS a western country.

Culturally speaking, like every country in Europe, they have their own way of life yes, but they're still largely western in their thinking, their play, their political ideology. But once again, this film isn't about 'Spanish" culture. It's about a family. Yes they were Spanish, but as such a family they have their own familial nuances and particular way of life that I'm sure is different enough from other families in Spain to make them personal. Did it matter that the actors in the film didn't speak Spanish? They were on vacation. They played soccer. Celebrated Christmas. Played ping pong. Drank soda. And they enjoyed the amenities provided for people who are accustomed to western culture. So the fact that the cultural experience of the family in the film seemed to be British (Ewan McGregor's character was obviously Scottish) isn't in any way a distraction from what actually happened to the Belon family. I agree casting for Lucas might have yielded better results, but the outcome of the experience portrayed is unchanged.

So the premise that this film somehow falls short of a narrative accurately depicting some 'racial' truth about Maria and Henry Belon and their children is just completely absurd. The film is a narrative about deep suffering, courage, love, ... a family's desperate struggle to find each other. The husbands undying devotion to his wife. The wife's bleeding heart to help others in need. To demonstrate that character for her son. To overcome her own internal fears. And somewhat about how they perceived this new devastated world they found themselves in. How to relate to others. How to cross a language barrier. How to let strangers take care of them. These ideas in fact aren't 'western' at all. They're Universal. If you can't see that, you should spend a little more time studying these disciplines, art, culture, psychology. Before you try to impose something as controversial as race into a conversation that obviously affected the readers in a very personal way. The gentleman you were responding to actually went THROUGH this disaster, like the Belon family. Maybe you missed that. But then again it sounds like you missed a lot more than that.

I don't find it at all troubling that this movie is about a Western family. Why should anybody find that troubling? If you want a movie about a non-Western family make it and watch it.

It is set around a "western family" because it is a movie from the western world. Go to the east if you want to see a movie about the tsunami that features a Thai or other eastern/Asian family... there are plenty

eh wrong!

I wonder if ReddressSally24 would go to see the movie if it wasn't a European cast.

Which Thai actors/actresses would you have cast that would have been able to earn Academy Award nominations?

Its not the first representation of this event.
It was the subject of a TV movie "Tsunami: The Aftermath", and a subplot in "Hereafter" with Matt Damon.

And that is off the top of my head.

Yes, these also focused on "western" characters, but that is not racism in any meaningful sense of the word. Western film companies that make movies for western audiences naturally tell stories with western characters with stories they can identify with.

Not always.
In fact, I will bet that there are a more diverse characters and settings in Western films than in say, Chinese.



I was born in the house my father built

...troubled by the fact that the first dramatic representation of this natural disaster that many people will see, was centered on a Western family...

I feel very sorry for you if that's what you took from this movie.

I think it's more racist that people would be "troubled" or question this movie being made because the story happens to belong to a white family.

-Dad, who's that?
-Oh, that? One of my patients. He's...sick.
-Will he live?
-It's looking grim.

Thye film is Spanish, and a portrayal of a Spanish family and in particular María Belón. Why can't Asian film makers make their own portrayals of this disaster? Why is it up to westerners to do it for non-westerners?

The fact that no one can name one African American in this film does make it appear racist. Perhaps someday it can be remade with more African American roles.

Also shouldn't this film make a point about climate change, hydraulic fracking, the Tea Party and Yahoo videos causing tsunamis. These root causes are hardly mentioned in this film.

why are you troubled by that fact? how does that fact in any way impose racism? by that logic, any movie that cast white characters as main characters is racist simply because they are white.

the movie was centered around a family of spannish origins living in Japan (and they went back to living in Japan afterwards in real life). The family this movie is built on was factually "White". how is it racist to factually depict what happened?

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Applied Science? All science is applied. Eventually.

I don't think the film was racist. Just myopic.

Btw, people who NEVER see racism unless it's directed at Caucasians are just as tiresome as those who see racism in everything.

It's playing the denial card, and folks were doing it even when racism was blatant in the U. S.


But it's just easier for some people to always deny.

That is exactly the "inconvenient truth" that these whiners do not want to hear. Thanks for spelling it out, Burnt Orange.

Agree with everything you said. I felt the film cheapened the story - the story of a country that suffered tragedy both during and after the Tsunami hit. We got to see a very short part of that story, one that I felt was less significant as it focused too directly on the family. It started to grate me how self-absorbed it all became, annoyingly so.

It started when he left his kids, instantly passing responsibility to someone he doesn't know, like she was their nanny and it was his right to tell her to watch his kids. The list goes on, like the many people they encounter who do good deeds for the family without gratitude, they are entirely focused on themselves. I know Lucas does some nice things but the majority of it is very self-absorbing and obnoxious.

Khaki,

I'm quite amazed that you found it hard to feel relieved that the family in this story were airlifted to safety just because there were others suffering more.

You need to learn that this was just a story about one family in particular and this is how it ended for them.

We all know they were incredibly lucky compared to many many other families and individuals who lost loved ones and had their homes and livelihoods ruined.

Your post is extremely patronising, we know there are many who were effected worse than the family in this story.

It's ridiculous that you're saying you don't feel any relief for this family BECAUSE there were worse effected. That is like saying you don't feel relief for someone who lost a limb in a war but made it back alive, because others died in a war so you struggle to be pleased he/she made it back.

Wow your post is annoyingly stupid.

The race did not bother me in the film, it was more the focus on the western family. I just found it hard to feel relieved that they were all safe and being whisked off in a plane for first class medical treatment when there were thousands of people who lost entire families, homes and livelihoods.

The native people are the ones for who the tragedy would have an ever lasting effect. They will be homeless it would take them years to reestablish there old lives, for the economy to return. We are talking about a country with a poor population, that is why I find it hard to find solace in rich foreigners being whisked away from the carnage, they will live and go back to there nice home where as the natives will go back to rubble, Ewan and Naomi got through there horrors and I know it must have been horrific but for most people that was only the start.

I just thing there is a bigger story to be told, in no way do I want to belittle the event, and I'm sure this is an accurate portrayal of the struggle of western people during the tsunami (which must have been horrific and we will never fully understand the terror without experiencing it). I just couldn't share the relieve of there airlift to safety when so many people are struggling and won't be able to restart there lives.

Even though I am no better than a beast do I not have the right to live?

Khaki, stop trying to make everything about race. The story is based on a true account of a Spanish family. What do you want the filmakers to do? Kill them all off incase anyone thinks it's racist?

At no moment does this film address anything related to race, countries of origin, language, or accents.

Yes, I think that's the problem some people have with it. Watching this film, you'd think that the tsunami only affected white tourists. Clearly most of the people affected were local residents, who as one contributor above said didn't have the relative luxury of an insurance company able to whisk them off to Singapore. A little more explicit acknowledgement of that would have been welcome I think.

Having said that, the Thai characters in the film were very sympathetically depicted.

Turning a Spanish family into an English one is an understandable decision on commercial grounds I guess, but it still seems a shame that people feel the need to do that. It's the same phenomenon that kept black actors out of leading roles for so long - this notion that the audience won't be able to 'identify'. If that's true it does actually indicate racism on the part of the audience. If it's not true then it indicates a pretty disappointing failure of imagination on the part of the filmmakers.

If people can't see the problem with white anglo saxons being disproportionately over-represented in leading roles, they really need to go away and think about what racism actually is. It's certainly not just about people using the n-word.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

Quite unbelievable what I am reading here. It is a movie based on the true events of a family caught in one of the worst natural disasters of our time. It is about the human race, love, family, caring, sharing and a determination to survive, and race does not even enter into it, in any way, shape or form.

I found the film extremely moving and I thought Naomi Watts was superb, as were the special effects and the direction as a whole. Anyone who could not be moved to tears by this movie needs to take a good look at themselves before they comment.

I was in Thailand (Phuket)just before the tsunami, and two months after it and the damage and devastation was still very evident. The people that died will be forever remembered in the many Wats/temples in the affected areas and even now I, along with other Thais and foreigners visit the Wats to remember these folk on the anniversary of the disaster.

What came out of this disaster was the fact that no matter what colour or creed you were,you pitched in and helped one another and shared one another's hope, sadness and joy (such as it was).

See the film for what it is, a celebration of humanity over diversity when mother nature plays her worst hand.

The real family who went through this were not "latina." They were Spanish. That means they were from Spain. Latinos are from the Americas.

Nobody - or much less people - would have gone to see a Hollywood film featuring an family from the place.

But that is exactly the problem, do you not see?

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.