What is it with all the racism???

I'm Asian and I understand why Asians were left out of the picture, or rather this picture. The producers are Spanish and they chose to tell the story about a Spanish family who survived this tragedy against all odds. Their ordeal was heart-wrenching and ultimately inspiring, so why shouldn't their story be told in a movie? And yes what happened to this Spanish family may also have happened to many Thais. But I guess it will have to take an Asian film company to tell their stories on film.

And so why did they change the nationality of the family? It would have been easy to cast Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas in the leads, but it would have been awkward to have them speak in English, especially when realism is important for a movie like this. The natural thing for them to have done is to speak Spanish. But then, this would have been considered a foreign-language film in the US, thus limiting its box office potential

Here's my opinion: The Spanish have such a distinctive culture and cultural traits might have had to be incorporated into the characters. This would have distracted audiences from the main narrative.So the issue here isn't about race; it's actually about culture. Spain is predominantly Catholic; and if my instincts are right, the Spanish family did a lot of praying during their ordeal. I wouldn't be surprised if they recited the Rosary during the worst moments. And if they did pray, I'm sure they acknowledged how prayer had helped them survive. But no, the filmmakers decided they can't have that in the script because they weren't making a religious movie. They wanted a clear cut narrative so they couldn't have miracles happening here, even if what happened at the end of the film -- the impossible -- is nothing short of a miracle.

I feel like both sides of the argument have some weight. The family is portrayed through a pretty narrow scope, and almost everyone they interact with is also of Western descent. Furthermore, early on when Lucas and Maria are driving down the road in the bed of the truck, it seemed that every victim on the shoulder of the road was also a Western tourist.

That being said, the story is, foremost, about the family - not a chronicle of the tsunami itself. Therefore, the narrow scope is to be expected to some extent. As for only seeming to encounter a bunch of other white people along the way, I would imagine that these characters are, at least to a pretty good extent, based on actual individuals with whom the real family directly interacted. As was stated above, some of the cultures of these individuals may have been altered for film distribution and reception purposes.

Also, it may have been mentioned but I am not going to comb through every post on this thread, as far as changing a Spanish family to an English family is concerned, I was under the impression that Maria Belon chose Naomi Watts to portray her. I feel as if that is a relevant point to make as far as this situation is concerned. Source: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Bel%C3%B3n , citation 6)

I agree.

This movie is pretty ridiculous. I understand that its about ONE family and the family just happens to be anglo-saxon looking whites (they're actually spanish but whatever) but my gripe is with how the directors treated the EXTRAS. The white background characters where given overwhelming priority over any local characters.

From the german father being reunited with his son at the hospital (with touching lifetime piano music to boot), to the boy seeming to have a VERY skewed preference for helping white people at the hospital (even though there seems to be a 50/50 split of tourist and locals at the hospital), to hearing/seeing quick clips of crying blue eyed white tourist (again, very sad, but extremely skewed. Where are the locals?).

I felt that at times the locals were even almost a NUISANCE for the main white protagonists. We have the boy crying for his mother who was moved from her bed (which of course, the local thai hospital staff just scoff at him and give him annoying glances) to the thai driver who impatiently looks at his watch with an irritated attitude. And the rest of the background locals are virtually non-existent. We see a room full of children (the majority of them, presumably orphaned and emotionally damaged) but STOP THE PRESS....theres an aryan, blond-hair blue eyed white kid in there! I mean its sad that the asian kids lost their parents but lets not give any of them more than 2 seconds of screentime because theres a blond white kid in there!

By the end of the film, I was under the impression that the locals went through this kind of thing everyday given their lack of reaction. It was like, "Oh yeah, tsunami...no big deal! It happens all the time! We've been through much worse! :D" ...I don't know, thats just the honest vibe I was getting from the movie. You don't see any of their hardships but you DO get to see plenty of the white background tourist crying, supporting each other, reuniting with families, etc.

I believe with a few tasteful considerations that director could've easily avoided any claims of racism but after watching this film, I have to honestly say, it was VERY skewed. I wouldn't necessarily say racist (as I believe racism has to be intentional and I don't think it was the case) but again, definitely skewed. As I watched the film I couldn't help but think that the director felt that white lives/tragedies were more important than brown lives. Thats just how I felt and your feelings dont lie to you.

Again, its 100% FINE that the main character/family are white but he did NOT handle the background characters well at ALL and I think thats why some people are claiming that it is racist.