Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Ben Affleck As Tony Méndez, Creative Casting or Hollywood Whitewashing?

In the movie ArgoBen Affleck, at
right
, plays Tony Méndez, at left.
Check out this blog by Diana Lesmez in the Huffington Post on the movie Argo (produced by George Clooney and directed by Ben Affleck who also plays the lead role of CIA agent Tony Méndez) and the conundrum of casting Latinos by clicking here.

Tony Méndez as a young man
in Laos (date unknown).




Check out this blog by And Palladino in Tail Slate regarding Ben Affleck in Argo and whether it fosters Hollywood racism by clicking here.

3 comments:

  1. The one-and-only Tony Mendez APPROVES & SUPPORTS Ben Affleck and the movie Argo you can see the pictures of him at the premiere! Tony Mendez's wife said in an interview she would have casted Tommy Lee Jones to play her husband! IN YOUR FACE!!!!!!

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  2. anen - Classy... with all due respect to Mr. and Mrs. Mendez, they are likely not conscious of the lack of Hispanic role models and heroes in the mainstream media. The fact that they named white actors to play his part just means that the majority of people are used to seeing white actors portray main characters, and that there's a much larger pool of famous white actors than there are famous Hispanic actors. "In your face" nothing.

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  3. Yes. The Mendez family is coming from a "Oh wow, they're doing a movie about me." perspective. The film producer, Grant Heslov could've played Tony Mendez and if they needed star power, Clooney knows Andy Garcia. It's easy to say get over it when it's not your race that's being ignored.

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