[ SECRET POST #4103 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4103 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 08 secrets from Secret Submission Post #587.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Just curious - do you make excuses for all movies that pull shit like this or is this one special? Is this a underrepresented population you just don't care about? Or is it because it stars Pug Face? (And yes, I know all about thematic parallels as a narrative device. I know other characters/actors in the movie are perhaps miscast in this regard too. And you know what? I enjoyed the movie and thought he was great in it.)

THE CHARACTER WAS STILL A WHITE SAVIOR.

For a story about a crisis that is so ignored, having JR and EO be the stars propelling the narrative is disgusting.

[kaijinscendre]

You've made it a special case. Anyways, great movie and I'll watch it again when I go to visit my sister.

Also, Pug Face? Clearly he is Grumpy Cat face.

[(Anonymous)]

I guess more power to you and your sister, whatever the hell she has to do with it, then.

[kaijinscendre]

Thanks!

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, dude, don't be insulting Grumpy Cat like that.

[kaijinscendre]

The resemblance is uncanny.

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT. Wow! It really is uncanny! LOL!

[(Anonymous)]

isn't part of honestly depicting that crisis admitting that a lot of government officials dealing with that population are going to be white? and it's more nuanced to have a white official be trying to do a good job but still be part of a colonialist system than to have Every Racist Be Cartoonishly Malicious like Crash or something.

[ninety6tears]

And the movie openly addresses the fact that such cases are typically ignored/don't get the same resources to get solved until white people are not just involved but care more than most do, and is based on actual incidents where that proved to be the case.

[(Anonymous)]

Fair enough...maybe.

Except they could just as easily have modified the story to tell it from the perspective of Graham Greene's character (an official investigating the case), or Gil Birmingham's character (a grieving father), or Natalie (the actual victim) or...

But they decided to make them all side/supporting characters while giving similar characteristics and motivations (grieving father/person investigating the case; young woman who suffers a trauma/person investigating the case) to the white characters who are the leads and main focus and "heroes".

For the umpteenth time, I'm not saying it was a bad movie. I'm saying how they chose to tell this story is unfortunate, to say the least. Not being Native American myself, I am not trying to speak on their behalf. But as a viewer who cares about depictions of diversity told from the perspectives of the people actually facing situations like this, I'd have preferred a different approach.

[(Anonymous)]

You're not wrong but at the same time, I don't think this example is particularly *worse* than the Hollywood median, and I don't think any of this is really Jeremy Renner's *fault*, or a reason to dislike his performance

[(Anonymous)]

Where did I say it was worse than other examples? Where did I say it was his fault? And I did in fact say I thought his performance was great and I liked the movie.

The character was still a white savior, and that's a trope that needs to be called out, IMO. Because saying "well, that's Hollywood, I guess" changes nothing.

[(Anonymous)]

You didn't explicitly say it but it came off as implied to me and (apparently) most of the other people who read it because of how you said it and the context of the conversation. Apart from anything else, it definitely did come across as a criticism of Jeremy Renner specifically simply because of the fact that the thread was about Jeremy Renner and you didn't really say anything about how you were disappointed with the storytelling decisions, just "Jeremy Renner was miscast".

but, you know, whatever. it's all good.

[(Anonymous)]

The SECRET was about Jeremy Renner! I was replying to a comment about this movie specifically. Who or what was I supposed to talk about instead? And casting IS a storytelling decision, which also may or may not be a function of the script, the studio, etc. (Could he have turned it down? Sure. I did not say he should have. I criticized his casting. Last I checked actors don’t cast themselves in things unless they’re also producers or directors or whatever.)

And even if I did for some reason criticize him personally (which I did not), it’s just as important to criticize the actors and movies we like as it is to do so for the ones we don’t like. I am having a hard time understanding why people in this thread can’t recognize they can like the movie and his performance while still acknowledging that telling this story from the perspective of white savior characters is not a good look. If anything, that’s why my comment turned into a much longer thread than necessary. So that’s the last I’m going to say on it.

[(Anonymous)]

None of those people would have told a complete story. Graham Greene's character wasn't involved in a lot of the investigation. Gil Birmingham's character wasn't involved in ANY of the investigation. Natalie was dead.