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Why is Hollywood responding so strongly to actors criticisms regarding Game of Thrones predominately white cast with the big upcoming epic fantasy adaptations?


Mwm

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7 hours ago, Ran said:

And your point, re: Charlemagne  -- there was a historical Charlemagne and he sparked all sort of made up romances hundreds of years after his existence; the legendary King Arthur never existed, but it's very likely that his name derives, in some fashion, from a historical figure as well, given the literary and archaeological evidence, but yes, all the legendary stuff has very little to do with whatever reality this figure existed in.

What we also know about the other important work that inspired chilvalric culture, the Song of Roland, that it was based on a real battle (where the rearguard of Charlemagnes army was wiped out in the Pyrenees). It is very unlikely that the commander of Charlemagnes rearguard who presumably fought in his other campaigns as well, was in fact the ideal picture of knighthood and had a mythical horn etc. But the battle itself which took place in 778 is a relatively undisputed fact.

So it's not very far fetched that these stories do in fact have a kernel of truth and are obviously expanded upon to tell a story about knightly ideals in the face of adversity, a very popular medieval theme.

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21 hours ago, Werthead said:

That would be strange, as the discussion was about a "black Guinevere" as represented in the series Merlin being believable. The actress in question is not from sub-Saharan Africa (she's British of Guyanese - South American - descent and does not look like someone from sub-Saharan Africa).

In modern parlance, "black" also refers to a wide range of skin tones, not specifically people from sub-Saharan Africa. Trying to argue that is very much a case of moving the goalposts after the argument has been lost.

I think they meant it in the sense that a person who is of South American black descent is still descended from people of Sub-Saharan African descent (the same goes for African Americans or black people from Jamaica) - as their ancestors were brought from Sub-Saharan Africa during the slave trade a few centuries ago.

On the other hand, "Black" can also refer to people who are not of Sub-Saharan African descent, such as the indigenous people of Southeast Asia and Oceania (Aboriginal Australians, Melanesians such as the people of Solomon Islands, Andamanese,  "Negritos" from Philippines, Papuans, indigenous people of Fiji...) who aren't any more related to Sub-Saharan Africans than anyone else in the world, and aren't descended from Africa (except in the sense that every human in the world is descended from Africa if you go back 80,000-100,000 years into the past).

Whereas North Africans are not black (but are also not white, certainly not in our understanding of these classifications today).

But I have no idea what that has to do with the possibility of a black Guinevere - if Guinevere had ever existed in the first place. People move, people mix, and there was no magical boundary that prevented black people from crossing the borders of Sub-Saharan Africa in the Roman times. Romans did know about black people, too, and there were black people even in Roman Britannia.

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7 hours ago, Alarich II said:

 

What we also know about the other important work that inspired chilvalric culture, the Song of Roland, that it was based on a real battle (where the rearguard of Charlemagnes army was wiped out in the Pyrenees). It is very unlikely that the commander of Charlemagnes rearguard who presumably fought in his other campaigns as well, was in fact the ideal picture of knighthood and had a mythical horn etc. But the battle itself which took place in 778 is a relatively undisputed fact.

So it's not very far fetched that these stories do in fact have a kernel of truth and are obviously expanded upon to tell a story about knightly ideals in the face of adversity, a very popular medieval theme.

There are many histories of all these matters re Charlemagne including what he paid the poets and minstrels to write.  The Song of Roland was a debacle, of their own making; the chanson turned it heroic.  What isn't mentioned in this chanson de geste is the reason the army was in Islamic Spain in the first place: to fight with his Muslim Spanish allies against their enemies for a great big amount of payment.  The baggage train -- with massive booty, etc. --was coming back against all reason and experience by that route which was infested by bandits and everyone knew it.

That's just one instance of the kind of deliberate mythmaking lying that Charlemagne sponsored.  His relationships with Muslims were generally very good and mutual.  Many even fought with him against his real enemies, the German tribes -- and Italians.

BTW -- for more info on this in ENGLISH, since most really good histories of Charlemagne are by French and German and Austrian scholars, which don't get translated here are two from those on my shelves:

Charlemagne by Johannes Fried, and Becoming Charlemagne by Jeff Sypeck.

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