Reply to “kept down by systemic racism,” Djimon Hounsou “struggles to make a living”

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It's called aging out. He is a Gen X actor who had a prime in the 2000s.

He's also made a ton of really, reallllllllly bad movies. [/quote]

That's the whole point -- he's made a bunch of terrible movies because he wants to work and those are the only jobs he gets offered. And it's not about aging out -- he's been having this problem for 20 years even when he was fresh off of Amistad or Blood Diamond, high profile prestige movies where his work was extremely well reviewed.

The PP who said he gets typecast is correct and let's be even more clear -- he gets typecast as a slave because of his appearance. He's played a slave in multiple movies. How many white actors have played a slave multiple times? How is that NOT systemic racism. It is so weird to me people are even arguing this.[/quote]

Italian actors get typecast too. But, acting is a choice. it pays well if you're good at it but nobody said it would be easy. There's a reason a lot of them are "struggling actors".[/quote]

Yet Leonardo DiCaprio, an Italian actor who was nominated for his first Golden Globe the same year as Hounsou (in arguably a less challenging role -- DiCaprio was nominated for Titanic, Hounsou for Amistad) has not been typecast and has enjoyed a varied and highly successful career. Hounsou is as talented an actor as DiCaprio. But there are a lot more roles for someone with DiCaprio's looks because Hollywood tells way more stories about white men than it does about black men, especially dark-skinned black men from West Africa.

That is literally systemic racism at work.[/quote]

He's half Italian. DeNiro and Pacino spent a long time as mobsters. Many other lesser knowns are always gangsters. Also ask any woman over 40 how fair all this is. [/quote]

Lol DeNiro and Pacino are terrible examples. DeNiro's breakout movie was Godfather II but he followed it up with Taxi Driver (gritty, realistic movie where he plays a working class loner with mental health issues), The 1900 (Italian period drama where he plays a wealthy landowner in northern Italy at the turn of the 20th century), and The Last Tycoon (romantic period drama where he plays a young American movie producer in 1930s Hollywood). Literally all three of those movies came out in 1976, two years after he played young Vito Corleone. That's a lot of variety.

Pacino's breakout role was Godfather I and while he's revived his mobster bona fides many times over his long career, back in the 70s post Godfather his biggest roles were cops and robbers -- Serpico (cop), Dog Day Afternoon (robber). Also even when he's played a mobster, they haven't all been Italian or Italian-American. Scarface is arguably his most iconic role (even more so than Michael Corleone) and he plays a Cuban drug lord in it.

Hollywood was made for actors like Pacino, DeNiro, DiCaprio, Brando -- white guys!

I agree women over 40 have to struggle for roles and it's very unfair. Also women over 40 in Hollywood talk about this all the time. So I don't get why Hounsou talking about his own experience with a career that has obviously been curtailed by the unwillingness of Hollywood to tell many stories about people who look like him even though there are many, many people who look like him in the world is such a problem. He's right. He has had fewer opportunities as a result of being a black man, especially a dark-skinned black man from Africa. This is not a controversial statement unless you shut your eyes and put your fingers in your ears and go "LALALALA ROBERT DENIRO WAS TYPECAST TOO LALALALALALA."[/quote]

You picked a half Italian to make your point. You tried though! [b]Lots of Italians are typecast, as we can see and as you demonstrated.[/b] Ask overweight women what they think of being typecast as the "funny sidekick". Maybe pick a more talented actor to make your point here become Djimon is pretty forgettable a lot of the time.[/quote]

Literally the preceding comment shows the many ways in which the Italian actors mentioned are not typecast, are offered a broad variety of roles.

It is weird you are choosing Italian as your hill to die on here, and then chose Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino, two actors with some of the most successful and varied careers in Hollywood, as examples of Italian actors who have been typecast. Like you might have an argument it's just you chose the weirdest possible examples to make it.[/quote]

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