I don't understand your double standards when it comes to casting. You have no problem trolling white people on the fact that a black man has been cast as an aryan god…but, when a white dude gets cast as an Arabian, you get all PC on us? What's the deal?

But will it be in 3D????

The deal is it helps his argument for opposite reasons in both cases. No deeper than that with our special little Devin.

this blows. Hollywood hasn't moved past the white-actors-playing-asians, though, it's still happening all over the place! Shyamalan's Last Airbender most notably. barf.

Who says the Last Airbender is asian? It was an american CARTOON, in the style of anime.

What's kind of funny about this with Prince of Persia is that Gyllenhaal LOOKS the "most white" of the non-Persian Persian characters, (while Molina and Kingsley look the "most Persian" by comparison,) but being of Jewish descent he's ethnically/geographically "closest."

Well, I thought it was interesting, at least…

@#1: "PC" is a marketing ploy concocted to make white men feel like they're being edgy for simply being white and male. The difference between a black man being cast as Norse god and a white man being cast as an Arab lies in the long history of racist marginalization of minorities in Western popular culture. Believe it or not, the lack of Arab actors in film and television is probably not for lack of trying. Hollywood sees it as being perfectly acceptable to appropriate Middle Eastern stories and fetishize Middle Eastern culture but balks at the idea of casting actual Middle Easterners out of fear of alienating white audiences. If you actually feel affronted by the fact that someone might be upset by a white man being cast as an Arab in a white-produced adaptation of Arabian Nights, I think you might need to step back and evaluate how you've been socialized.

My favorite is the casting of Sayid in Lost. Straight up Englishman of Indian descent playing the darkest Iraqi ever seen. I can imagine the board meeting: "Well, we've got this guy who we think would be perfect. He was in The English Patient. Looks GREAT for the role." "Yeah, but, uh… he's actually Indian, not Iraqi…" "Fuck it. He's brown. Who cares?"

Of course, Naveen Andrews is completely awesome on that show, so ultimately it's a wash. Just… forehead-slappingly awkward.

The fuck do you care Devin? This touching article is brought to you by the same shithead that called a shemagh, the scarf popularized by hipsters here in the states, a 'terrorist scarf'. Then wouldn't say a word when questioned about that classification. You fucking hypocrite douche. Ridiculous.

At least Devin isn't as bad as Nick "I Want To Be A Better Racist" Nunziata

#7 seems to have missed an important component of #1's complaint: Devin sounds like a hypocrite. He only has an issue if you cast whites in non-anglo roles. I agree that the practice should be discontinued (see Slum Dog Millionaire… no white lead was required) but I don't see why non-anglo actors should be cast in patently anglo roles (like Norse Gods). Devin seems to think those are the perfect opportunities to shake things up. So I guess #1 was "socialized" correctly, since he has a distaste for hypocrisy. Also, "PC" isn't marketing, it's a desperate attempt, often at the expense of common sense, to avoid offending anyone. Put another way: PC is the belief that you can pick up a piece of shit by the clean end.

Could be mistaken, but weren't persians and arabs of different ethnicities at the time that Prince of Persia takes place?

Don't you kids have anything better to do with your time than hounding Devin every single time he posts a new article. Losing your virginity should be priority one.

@#1: There's a huge difference between casting a white guy as an Arabic commander and casting a black guy as a mythological being. There's no reason why a Norse god "has" to look like anything. They exist only in our imaginations, and thus can be changed any way we see fit. However, there are actual Arabic people, and this guy doesn't look like one, despite the fact that I'm sure there are hundreds of Arabic actors out there just as qualified who would love to get there hands on a part like this.

ChrisC is right, Norse gods don't exist, so we can make them anything we want. It is totally valid that Nordic, aryan looking people would invent gods that look unlike themselves or any other people they would have ever encountered.

Yeah, the Norse gods aren't real people like Sinbad and Aladdin.

Cute, Devin. Step up on that high horse and defend Persians and in the same breath insult them in the worst way possible. Classy

Hahaha! Thanks Tommy, you beat me to it. That "huge" difference doesn't exist really, because it's about what makes sense. I think they should get an Arabic actor for this film, but certainly the door swings both ways. Aww, screw it! I'd love to see Morgan Freeman as Abe Lincoln. Brilliant!

I like Nunziata's racism. Stereotypes only exist because they have solidified into concrete over the ages via repetition. It's the closest thing to the truth. You can evoke a cliche about anyone based on their race, sexual orientation, religious views, etc. and never be too far off. Nunziata is broadcasting these observations while forgoing pretentiousness and (a little) self-righteousness. In other words, you don't get any politically-correct, toned-down, made-for-TV bullshit and thank God someone out there isn't fearful of any repercussions. Faraci, on the other hand, seems to have adopted the New York Times method of journalism and has decided to fuse his butt-hurt sentimentality with cinematic-related news. Grade A stuff, lemme tell you.

@#19: Of course, stereotypes about individuals within a group can very often be true, but that does not mean that these stereotypes define the group. By and large, white people do not have to worry about being defined by their stereotypes, but minorities do. Society and popular culture broadcast their stereotypes at a much higher volume and that has an incredibly strong effect on the perception of minorities by whites. The notion that anyone's racism should be hailed as risk-taking or "unpretentious" is totally repellent. I'm sure Nick thinks he's being a subversive little shit when he writes stuff like "Tyler Perry makes me want to be a better racist" but I don't think anything could be further from the truth. Instead of actually going to the effort of criticizing Tyler Perry's movies, he basically types "black people (rimshot)" and just expects that his readers will be white people and that they'll fill in the blank. And it's just carrying on this common line of thinking that minorities represent this philistine "other" that couldn't possibly be fans of "good" movies or followers of CHUD. Imagine the response a black movie reviewer would get if he wrote something like "Adam Sandler makes me want to be a better racist." For white people, it's being edgy, for minorities, it's being an extremist.

I think Nick's swipe at Perry was more that he was disappointed that black audiences are just as tasteless as white audiences. He's more guilty of self-hating white-boyness in that sense – not racist enough to be properly balanced of his view of races in general.

Nick jokes about "Gooks" all the time. Hi-larious stuff. Devin thinks bombing Iran would be a good idea. This may also explain why he doesn't have the brain cells to understand the difference between arabs and persians.