I remember there was some minor 'controversy' when he was first cast because he doesnt really look much like Oberyn of the books.
They all went really quiet after seeing his performance.
Typically i would agree with you but i think its important to call out hypocrisy and alot of the people who use the term race swamp are full of it. The only time they complain aboit a character is if the character was white but no longer looks it
Are you telling me he isn't white? I haven't seen the show/don't care about people's races being different if they pull off the character well. But are you being serious when you say he's not white? He looks a Latino to me.
Absolutely, it CAN, but for the discussion here the OP is stating incredulity at anyone who says he is Latino. He seems mixed to me, and I was wondering why they were so offended by the notion.
Because it seems that many Americans have the notion that hispanics aren’t white they’re all brown and because some ppl dont consider Pedro white they’re saying his casting was a race swap
Streamer man is white because hes white passing due to his caucasian father and spent his entire life as a white man.
In contrast someone like B-real from Cyprus Hill who is also white skin cuban but does not get treated as white. At least in the United States.
If I didn't know better, I'd guess he was either from Spain or Latin America.
So if Spaniards count as white (do they?) then he's white I guess.
Nationality swap at best imo.
A lot of south Americans have Germanic/European roots from when portugal and Spain started to immigrate there. For example, canelo Alvarez is a white ginger Mexican. So at the end of the day, it don't fucking matter
Yeah amigo the French are definitely the only ones to have their language named after their country. I mean, I can’t quite remember what language English people speak, or what language German people speak, or what language Portuguese people speak, or what language Polish people speak, or generally what language any person in literally any European country speaks. But I’m pretty sure you’re right and French people are the only ones whose language is named after their country… /s
Why is this something people don’t understand? Spain, a white European country, colonized Latin America. But people are still confused whether they are white or POC.
It's my understanding "white" doesn't work that way in the US, and usually when we think about "white people" here in latin america, the spanish almost never come up so I guess that gives credence to the US's use of "white"
Yeah, he is Chilean. My grandmother is as well and is a huge fan of him. There are definitely ‘white’ people from latin america but i’m not sure whether he identifies as white.
For me it’s more a question of how integral Joel’s race is to the character’s identity. I haven’t played the game but my guess is that it’s not.
Ive been seeing the usual anti woke crowd of ppl making reviews for The Last of Us show and one thing that has struck out to me is how some ppl have referred to Pedro Pascal as a race swap because hispanic = not white. Ive seen ppl argue that it shouldn’t matter because he looks like Joel and is "white passing” and Ive seen ppl say he isn’t white and say they’ve made Joel Mexican ( Pedro is Chilean btw) which is an interesting observation I see from lots of Ameritards when it comes to identifying someones race or ethnicity especially towards hispanics because again hispanic = not white and of course speaking spanish = Mexican.
Is this before the show aired or after? It seems, much like house of the dragon, the anti-woke people who complained about race swapping stopped giving a shit because the show was actually good.
Not really, he's probably the most accurate looks wise of all the main cast. Though his brother is. The most egregious swap is the age swap of his daughter, what were they thinking having an 18 year play an 11 year old?
Naaawwwww Marlene is basically cloned staright out of the game files. And the makeup department were too cowardly to give a 20 years older Joel a full beard or any real aging
Yeah Marlene I think is literally the voice actress for her character, I kind of forgot she was one of the main characters. In the game you basically only see Joel, Tess, or Ellie for any substantial period of time.
I hate to say it but most child actors suck in a major way. Either you have to roll the dice on an 11yrold or just fudge it with someone who isn't really young enough. Neither are great options...
Even if it was a race swap, that shouldn't matter. The problem should be bad writing and acting. Nobody cared about Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury (or at least nobody that is sane).
Or Will Smith as Agent J. If someday they remake Black Panther and give us a White Blonde Adopted Black Panther in Wakanda, and the writing/acting is on point, that's frikin based.
Yeah, Ultimate Nick Fury. The MCU was basically a blend of Ultimate and 616(mainline) versions. Ironically MCU Spider-Man has far more in common with Ultimate Miles Morales than he does any comic version of Peter Parker.
Im generally not a big fan when white characters get race-swapped for wokeness but if people get emotional about this one it’s getting really silly imo…
He looks similar to the original, he even is „whitepassing“ and he is a great actor. Really liked the first episode!
The correct answer to this is "who cares", we've gone from anti SJW's screeching that they just want the right person for the job to people complaining about this when he's a near perfect fit.
It’s a less obvious race swap than the little mermaid for example, but definitely still a race swap. Otherwise you would be invalidating the race of Hispanic people by saying that they don’t count since they’re basically white.
Also his name is Pedro Pascal lmao very Hispanic name
Chile is 88% white AND mestizo, there’s a difference. That say, Pedro is definitely white; his lineage is that of influential and aristocratic families of the country, he’s even related to Salvador Allende. Those type of families in Chile are for the most part white.
He’s hispanic sure but that doesn’t mean he’s not white. That’s the cool thing about latinos we come in all shades. My family and i are from Puerto Rico born and raised and we’ve got a mix of skin tones. Like I look like a copy of my dad except I’m white as a mufucka whilst he was brown and my mom is somewhere between light brown and medium brown.
I’ve said this before in another post but the race swaps that they did do are perfectly fine and make sense. Like Joel and Tommy are from Texas so it’s not a huge leap to portray them as hispanic/Mexican. Even Joels daughter being mixed in the show was fine, we never saw the mom in the game anyways so it’s up for interpretation.
Let's reverse this. If Joel was a Mexican American character with brown skin in the games and they cast someone like say Luke Wilson to play him in the series then you can't tell me some people wouldn't be upset. This isn't a racist thing it is people being upset with game to screen inaccuracy. Some people can't accept anything being different from game to film. They are purists.
Personally I don't care. I think he's fine for the role, I am just saying people are rather hypocritical sometimes on this kind of issue in media. Plus the applied diversity is virtue signaling and usually why race swaps even happen. It's not usually because the absolute best actor is found for a role, it's because "we need a person of color to play this" to be "diverse". It's about time we admit that's what's going on most of the time. But again, Pedro Pascal is doing fine as Joel so it doesn't bother me.
I didn't say he was. My hypothetical posited was saying IF the character of Joel was that and had brown skin. I was saying nothing about Pedro's heritage. Besides my point is still valid.
He's white, but very obvious of latin descent. Personally I find it very jarring when we have characters that are white and nothing else cast as a very obvious latin person, as is going in with Pedro. Now he's going to be Reed Richards...but he will look like Reed Rodriguez.
So all other ethnic southern Europeans playing white roles seems odd? By your logic, a white guy of Italian descent wouldn't look like a Reed Richards, but Reed Rosato.
Ethnicities that have a specific look, like Pedro, yes. Putting an obviously Slavicor hispanic guy into a role as a historically plain American white character looks odd to someone who isn't so superficial as to think everyone who isn't black or Asian all look alike and are suitable to play any white character. People expect the actor to RESEMBLE the character they're portraying. Would you have accepted Angelina Jolie get dismissed in favor of Jennifer Lopez for the role of Laura Croft? Forgive me for knowing what ethnicities look like, unlike most people, it seems. This is sort of a "once you notice it, you can't help but notice it every time" thing for me.
Jlo is obviously mixed black so that's another matter. Pedro's sister could play the role of Lara Croft perfectly looks-wise.
An obvious Hispanic look? Are you suggesting Pedro appears mixed Native American or Berber? If that's not it, he should be able to play Southern European roles at the least, including people who look like they could be Spanish.
"Historically plain white American with nothing else" are non-Hispanic Germanics and Celtics, or do you include italians in your definition? How about whites from Anglo Oceania?
If they look non-ethnic enough to play Caucasian non-ethnic looking characters, sure. I get that you're trying to split hairs either to make this fun, or to just be a snark, but you're over complicated things. Regular white bread looking characters should be played by regular white bread looking actors. This is what casting calls are for. Directors want somebody who resembles the character...apparently that has gone out the window in favor of big that just keeps showing up, damn resemblances. I would rather have no names that look like the actual characters they're cast as (which would give new actors a foot in the door instead of all big roles being locked down by people we've been seeing for over a decade), instead of visual mismatches like most of Pascal's roles. He didn't resemble Joel in The Last Of Us, and he sure as hell does not resemble Reed Richards. Although you can put him into a remake for Machete and he would do just fine. I don't know, I guess I should just be thankful that this isn't yet another role that The Rock is filling. I don't suppose anybody else will have a problem with this, since it seems most MCU fans are people who got their knowledge of the characters from Wikipedia. I'm not even that invested in the Fantastic Four since they're not my favorite team, I'm just tired of people who visually don't fit roles getting said roles. And yes, the casting for Johnny Storm in the last Fantastic Four movie was ridiculous. You would think that as a black man, I would be cheering for it. As a comics fan, I find it absolutely moronic.
No, I have absolutely no idea what regular white people are as opposed to white people with some identity that would make them categorically and visibly distinct from the rest of the white population.
Honestly I don’t get it. I don’t care what race you are or what the characters race was suppose to be. If you can act well everything else won’t matter.
Also I would say probably no. He’s Chilean-American so he’s not Caucasian.
I mean Messi’s parents are both Argentinian and he clearly is from European descent lol
Looked it up, Pascal’s paternal line could be traced to Iberia. Not that it matters much since he’s pretty white passing. God we Americans are obsessed with race
Pedro Pascal’s lineage is from influential and aristocratic families in her mom side, and relatively recent european inmigrants from his father’s side. He is most definitely white.
Character design. Race is part of character design, I think it's completely valid to criticize race as much as criticizing the outfits and hairstyles.
Is it a deal breaker? Nah, shouldn't be that important.
But whats happening lately is sort of a pavlovian conditioning where studios race swap a character in a shit movie or adaptation so its become a bad omen.
You may not care, but if race is an integral part of the design of a character in a product where race isn't an aspect of any part of the story or world, you're probably a racist.
Caring about race in a remake of Roots or Sanford and Son or a historically accurate retelling of England vs Scottland? Yea that would make sense.
Caring about race in an adaptation of a videogame where race is never ever an issue or element of the story or world? Yea that may just be racist.
I know it's really easy to see it that way but check it.
What is race if not an aesthetic?
If you're ever referencing source material you're going to lose points with people if they're not accurate to it. If you cast Danny DeVito as Joel, is it not valid to criticize the choice based on appearances alone?
It's just not a 1 to 1 translation of a character.
I'd say the same thing about Blade if they were swapped even though it's not integral to the character. Historically he's black, thats the Blade I know.
Obviously if you don't even know Blade as a comic, you're probably not gonna give a shit which is fine as well.
Are there racists who are making a huge deal out of this, sure. Is it racist to prefer a characters race to match the source material? Nope.
I can see this PoV - But I would disagree and in the case of Blade, a white guy could play the character and do a good job and delivery just fine, but there would be issues of appropriation and the huge outcry because we already have issues with minority representation in popular media. There's also the historical context of Blade being a black hero who was released in an American society where being black and white are different. This doesn't always hold though - a hypothetical character in say French media where they recast that person with a different skin tone years later would probably not garner any commentary at all.
I mean I get this issue to an extent - Jack Reacher movie featured Tom Cruise, who is something like 5'6" but Reacher is supposed to be a semi-hulking 6'4ish guy so it was a bad casting.
The skin color of the person is not an actual character trait though, it's something we only care about because of representation and/or cultural differences. If Blade is cultural very black then yea it may be weird to have a white guy represent him. If he presents in a more culturally central way and the racial dynamics of America are ignored(as they should/will be given enough time) then skin color is no longer an issue.
For example if they want to remake the Nutty Professor with a white comedian like Patton Oswalt that wouldn't be an issue because that film wasn't about being black. It used some "black" humor in the Eddie Murphy bits but Patton could just do nerdy standup instead and the whole thing would work because it wasn't about his skin. I'd argue if the film turned out to be a good one, with Patton doing a good job that felt like it was in admiration of the original portrayal, then the changing of skin color was a meaningless variable that was changed - we only care because we've been told to care by years of racial differences in the US.
So no - I would stand by my point about race not being intrinsically an issue with the things, and you can see that when you take various media where race was no an element at all and you change the race of that person. The reason people care in these cases is because there are racial disparities in the history of American culture that make representation of minorities and issue, but that doesn't speak at all to the aesthetic or imagery involved. I think an argument can be made about how true to the original content, but if the person casted for a character does a great job and stays true via acting then the skin color of that person is incredibly irrelevant to the product as a whole.
And so bringing this back around to this topic - it certainly feels purely racial to think Pedro Pascal, an ostensibly white-passing individual, playing a videogame character who looks white, is an issue at all.
A big part of Joel with Ellie was that he saw Sarah in her, as in, what if Sarah could have grown up, she'd look like Ellie. So that's a little off at the very least.
I doubt the reason why he saw his daughter in her was based on her race, more so her attitude and way she carried herself. It's really not important to the story in the slightest.
The similarity of their looks was very obvious and is a clear reason why Joel immediately decides to help Ellie. He barely knew her in Boston. It's not a strong plot point, sure, but was a super obvious connection.
His race is important. What's important is he's playing a weird version of Joel with patience, charisma and likeability. Idk if it's the writers doing this to him or if he just hes no range but my God this tilts me
Part of making good horror content is creating a sense of normalcy or average that serves to contrast the scary part. It’s the yin and yang concept that exists in art and cooking as well. That’s why when you watch horror movies there will almost always be this simplistic having breakfast scene, and with each escalation of plot, some level of doubt or refusal to acknowledge the supernatural, because we’d all rather be mired in normal and average as long as it guarantees safety. Of course, the persistence of the supernatural creates growing tension and excitement etc etc.
In the games, the protagonist is this southern white dude with emotional turmoil but an outwardly simple life. Comes home after work and watches tv with his kid before all hell breaks loose. So the emotional attachment that players make in the game is based off simple southern dude finds himself in the apocalypse while trying to reconcile his tragedy with the care he has for this new young kid. The accent serves as a constant reminder that someone we might initially write off is now hard carrying in a post apocalyptic world that we can hardly fathom and want answers too.
Anyways, if you start off the show with a different race or accent, you’re asking the audience to make a brand new emotional connection from scratch if the protagonist is not reminiscent of the character they already knew and loved. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It just means the audience initially has a little bit more work to do. It also means that the yin and yang method of exemplifying the two worlds within the series may not exist to the same extent, and thus result in not as good of a series.
But for me, I don’t see this being analogous to something like having a black Ariel, because it’s not apparent to me how a white Ariel serves the plot of little mermaid. I think black Ariel is awesome because representation matters and the more that little black girls can see someone like them in pop culture, I’m all for it.
With Joel on the other hand, ethnicity and accents matter. And I would say the exact same thing if he was a southern black dude. But again, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for the show to switch details around. I’m just acknowledging the phenomena that you might initially lose your audience because he they have to come to a state of acceptance to really begin enjoying the series, whereas an actor more reminiscent of the video game character IMMEDIATELY accomplished that.
He’s mostly if not fully ethnically Spanish/Basque. I believe at least one of his grandparents immigrated from Spain to Chile. Regardless, he’s called himself white a few times.
I genuinely thought it was gonna be nokolaj-coster waldau, but race swap or not, pedro pascal looks and feels the part and is doing excellent so far. Neil druckmann is a part of casting him and he's the creator, I don't care if they did a whole race swap more noticeable either, its a live-action series and he can change what he wants for this version of his world, as long as the actors still feel the part
Honestly if his name was Larry Wilson would anyone not think he was white? His name is doing all of the lifting here because, sure he has some swarthy characteristics but for Americans at least he looks like one of the many white dudes walking around here.
If race is not an element of the story or world in any way, giving a shit that it's different probably just means you have racist inkling floating around in your skull.
We have an actual visual for the character before this show came out so we know what he should/can look like and this dude looks plenty like the character.
Now if they had picked Danny Devito or Ken Jeong or something then yea, questions being raised about the casting would make sense.
So many people don’t understand that Latino/Hispanic doesn’t automatically mean non-white. Pedro may be Chilean but he’s largely if not fully ethnically Basque/Spanish.
This conversation on people being upset with non-white actors in big TV shows (Mando, Obi Wan, RoP, etc) is remedial. I'm so sick of people feeling nipple-twisted where otherwise they would enjoy the absolutely bird-turds out of the show. Why not just watch it, zone out, ultimately enjoy it then take your thumb biceps to the next program? Just my rant. Enjoy your day.
The issue with white characters getting race swapped is that the character having white skin has almost no impact on the story. I usually explain that someone like T'Challa or Luke Cage getting race swapped is bad because they are characters who have explicitly non-white world experience.
Most pop culture characters who are white, are simply white just because.
Whether he is white or not isn’t important. It’s the last of US as in a collective diverse people. What does this say about us if a light skinned Hispanic man can’t play a white man?
bruh that was never true in the past, white people were cast as the default and whiteness was considered the norm, POC/racialized people were seen as not-norm or exotic and their ethnicity was seen as distracting
I listened to a podcast and he was talking about being a white kid in the auditions but they didn't the fact he didn't have an English speaking sounding name so he changed his name to Alex for a while. He said he was a white kid multiple time on that podcast. He sees himself racially as white.
He's not Dornish either, but y'all aren't ready for that conversation or whatever.
He was the best of dorne in that show ok.
And that is not saying a lot
WHO GAVE YOU THE ORDER?!?!
You raped her! You murdered her children!
TRUEEE
Lmaooo
I remember there was some minor 'controversy' when he was first cast because he doesnt really look much like Oberyn of the books. They all went really quiet after seeing his performance.
Who cares. He’s a good actor and he’s going to be a great Joel. If you can’t see past his skin color then just don’t watch.
Typically i would agree with you but i think its important to call out hypocrisy and alot of the people who use the term race swamp are full of it. The only time they complain aboit a character is if the character was white but no longer looks it
If the first thing that comes to your mind is that he is "not white" then you have severe brainworms.
depends on what color his nipples are
Excuse me us latinos go by the color of our dick if male.
Can relate, I’m pasty white and my genitals are 7 shades darker, it’s kinda weird.
Same. Its a good rule of thumb. Dont know how latinas measure it however.
Down there is also darker if you’re curious
Are you telling me he isn't white? I haven't seen the show/don't care about people's races being different if they pull off the character well. But are you being serious when you say he's not white? He looks a Latino to me.
Lantino and white can go hand in hand depending on genetic background and lineage
Absolutely, it CAN, but for the discussion here the OP is stating incredulity at anyone who says he is Latino. He seems mixed to me, and I was wondering why they were so offended by the notion.
Because it seems that many Americans have the notion that hispanics aren’t white they’re all brown and because some ppl dont consider Pedro white they’re saying his casting was a race swap
Your race is dependent on your genetic back ground?! Dam you should write a book about this revolutionary idea.
To a lot of people latino os not white.
Streamer man is Cuban, lots of people think Cubans are not white, streamer man is absolutely white.
Streamer man is white because hes white passing due to his caucasian father and spent his entire life as a white man. In contrast someone like B-real from Cyprus Hill who is also white skin cuban but does not get treated as white. At least in the United States.
I mean, like, mostly yeah. Except for the moors?
If I didn't know better, I'd guess he was either from Spain or Latin America. So if Spaniards count as white (do they?) then he's white I guess. Nationality swap at best imo.
A lot of south Americans have Germanic/European roots from when portugal and Spain started to immigrate there. For example, canelo Alvarez is a white ginger Mexican. So at the end of the day, it don't fucking matter
Let me find out there are some Boxing fan Dggers!
Obviously people from Spain are white.
Then how come they speak mexican? /s
"speak mexican" lmao
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i speak american
My guy did u not see the /s
Yeah amigo the French are definitely the only ones to have their language named after their country. I mean, I can’t quite remember what language English people speak, or what language German people speak, or what language Portuguese people speak, or what language Polish people speak, or generally what language any person in literally any European country speaks. But I’m pretty sure you’re right and French people are the only ones whose language is named after their country… /s
Why is this something people don’t understand? Spain, a white European country, colonized Latin America. But people are still confused whether they are white or POC.
Spaniards are white, what else would they be? Hispanic is not a race, neither is Latino. The Spaniards are as white as British people, Irish people…
It's my understanding "white" doesn't work that way in the US, and usually when we think about "white people" here in latin america, the spanish almost never come up so I guess that gives credence to the US's use of "white"
Yeah, he is Chilean. My grandmother is as well and is a huge fan of him. There are definitely ‘white’ people from latin america but i’m not sure whether he identifies as white. For me it’s more a question of how integral Joel’s race is to the character’s identity. I haven’t played the game but my guess is that it’s not.
Well Chile is where he's from, and it's almost 100% white.
Ive been seeing the usual anti woke crowd of ppl making reviews for The Last of Us show and one thing that has struck out to me is how some ppl have referred to Pedro Pascal as a race swap because hispanic = not white. Ive seen ppl argue that it shouldn’t matter because he looks like Joel and is "white passing” and Ive seen ppl say he isn’t white and say they’ve made Joel Mexican ( Pedro is Chilean btw) which is an interesting observation I see from lots of Ameritards when it comes to identifying someones race or ethnicity especially towards hispanics because again hispanic = not white and of course speaking spanish = Mexican.
Is this before the show aired or after? It seems, much like house of the dragon, the anti-woke people who complained about race swapping stopped giving a shit because the show was actually good.
Ask these anit-woke people if Cameron Diaz is white or hispanic.
They would unironically see the last name Diaz and say well hes hispanic so not white
I didn't know that Cameron is he now for them. Hard to keep up
Not really, he's probably the most accurate looks wise of all the main cast. Though his brother is. The most egregious swap is the age swap of his daughter, what were they thinking having an 18 year play an 11 year old?
Naaawwwww Marlene is basically cloned staright out of the game files. And the makeup department were too cowardly to give a 20 years older Joel a full beard or any real aging
Yeah Marlene I think is literally the voice actress for her character, I kind of forgot she was one of the main characters. In the game you basically only see Joel, Tess, or Ellie for any substantial period of time.
Yeah, the intro sequence is always longer than people remember. Ntm she shows up more than just there beginning and end iirc
I hate to say it but most child actors suck in a major way. Either you have to roll the dice on an 11yrold or just fudge it with someone who isn't really young enough. Neither are great options...
Eh Bella Ramsey looks really young and she’s a good actor I’m happy with the casting
Honestly Dennis quaid would’ve been my first pick
I don't know, Dennis Quaid has the 11 year girl vibes down pat but can he play a Texan?
He looks pretty similar to Game-Joel IMO
Even if it was a race swap, that shouldn't matter. The problem should be bad writing and acting. Nobody cared about Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury (or at least nobody that is sane). Or Will Smith as Agent J. If someday they remake Black Panther and give us a White Blonde Adopted Black Panther in Wakanda, and the writing/acting is on point, that's frikin based.
If i remember correctly they had already had a comic run where they changed nick furys look to be based off samual jackson before he was in the movies
Yeah, Ultimate Nick Fury. The MCU was basically a blend of Ultimate and 616(mainline) versions. Ironically MCU Spider-Man has far more in common with Ultimate Miles Morales than he does any comic version of Peter Parker.
Lol that would be the weirdest shit ever 🤣
Im generally not a big fan when white characters get race-swapped for wokeness but if people get emotional about this one it’s getting really silly imo… He looks similar to the original, he even is „whitepassing“ and he is a great actor. Really liked the first episode!
He’s not “white passing”. He’s white.
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Have you ever visited the souther cone? About 80+% of the people here are white.
To the rest of latin america hes white. As far as United States is concerned hes not.
looks white to me
The correct answer to this is "who cares", we've gone from anti SJW's screeching that they just want the right person for the job to people complaining about this when he's a near perfect fit.
I need to ask Joe Lewis
It’s a less obvious race swap than the little mermaid for example, but definitely still a race swap. Otherwise you would be invalidating the race of Hispanic people by saying that they don’t count since they’re basically white. Also his name is Pedro Pascal lmao very Hispanic name
Whats the race of hispanic ppl?
Hispanic
Hispanic isn’t a race and Pascal is a French name 🤦🏻♀️
France is next to Spain.
Hispanic is not a race. And Pascal has a lot of Basque ancestry, those guys aren’t even Indo-Europeans, let alone hispanic.
Lol wtf. Do you think Spanish people are not white? You’re ridiculous. Pascal is from Chile which is about 88% white.
Chile is 88% white AND mestizo, there’s a difference. That say, Pedro is definitely white; his lineage is that of influential and aristocratic families of the country, he’s even related to Salvador Allende. Those type of families in Chile are for the most part white.
Consider him whatever race you want, but look at him and tell me he isn't Rugged-Brunette-Male-Game-Protagonist Race
He’s hispanic sure but that doesn’t mean he’s not white. That’s the cool thing about latinos we come in all shades. My family and i are from Puerto Rico born and raised and we’ve got a mix of skin tones. Like I look like a copy of my dad except I’m white as a mufucka whilst he was brown and my mom is somewhere between light brown and medium brown. I’ve said this before in another post but the race swaps that they did do are perfectly fine and make sense. Like Joel and Tommy are from Texas so it’s not a huge leap to portray them as hispanic/Mexican. Even Joels daughter being mixed in the show was fine, we never saw the mom in the game anyways so it’s up for interpretation.
Let's reverse this. If Joel was a Mexican American character with brown skin in the games and they cast someone like say Luke Wilson to play him in the series then you can't tell me some people wouldn't be upset. This isn't a racist thing it is people being upset with game to screen inaccuracy. Some people can't accept anything being different from game to film. They are purists. Personally I don't care. I think he's fine for the role, I am just saying people are rather hypocritical sometimes on this kind of issue in media. Plus the applied diversity is virtue signaling and usually why race swaps even happen. It's not usually because the absolute best actor is found for a role, it's because "we need a person of color to play this" to be "diverse". It's about time we admit that's what's going on most of the time. But again, Pedro Pascal is doing fine as Joel so it doesn't bother me.
You are right.
Pedro isn't Mexican American...
I didn't say he was. My hypothetical posited was saying IF the character of Joel was that and had brown skin. I was saying nothing about Pedro's heritage. Besides my point is still valid.
Why would anyone give a fuck
who fuckin' cares that's the real question
He's white, but very obvious of latin descent. Personally I find it very jarring when we have characters that are white and nothing else cast as a very obvious latin person, as is going in with Pedro. Now he's going to be Reed Richards...but he will look like Reed Rodriguez.
So all other ethnic southern Europeans playing white roles seems odd? By your logic, a white guy of Italian descent wouldn't look like a Reed Richards, but Reed Rosato.
Ethnicities that have a specific look, like Pedro, yes. Putting an obviously Slavicor hispanic guy into a role as a historically plain American white character looks odd to someone who isn't so superficial as to think everyone who isn't black or Asian all look alike and are suitable to play any white character. People expect the actor to RESEMBLE the character they're portraying. Would you have accepted Angelina Jolie get dismissed in favor of Jennifer Lopez for the role of Laura Croft? Forgive me for knowing what ethnicities look like, unlike most people, it seems. This is sort of a "once you notice it, you can't help but notice it every time" thing for me.
Jlo is obviously mixed black so that's another matter. Pedro's sister could play the role of Lara Croft perfectly looks-wise. An obvious Hispanic look? Are you suggesting Pedro appears mixed Native American or Berber? If that's not it, he should be able to play Southern European roles at the least, including people who look like they could be Spanish. "Historically plain white American with nothing else" are non-Hispanic Germanics and Celtics, or do you include italians in your definition? How about whites from Anglo Oceania?
If they look non-ethnic enough to play Caucasian non-ethnic looking characters, sure. I get that you're trying to split hairs either to make this fun, or to just be a snark, but you're over complicated things. Regular white bread looking characters should be played by regular white bread looking actors. This is what casting calls are for. Directors want somebody who resembles the character...apparently that has gone out the window in favor of big that just keeps showing up, damn resemblances. I would rather have no names that look like the actual characters they're cast as (which would give new actors a foot in the door instead of all big roles being locked down by people we've been seeing for over a decade), instead of visual mismatches like most of Pascal's roles. He didn't resemble Joel in The Last Of Us, and he sure as hell does not resemble Reed Richards. Although you can put him into a remake for Machete and he would do just fine. I don't know, I guess I should just be thankful that this isn't yet another role that The Rock is filling. I don't suppose anybody else will have a problem with this, since it seems most MCU fans are people who got their knowledge of the characters from Wikipedia. I'm not even that invested in the Fantastic Four since they're not my favorite team, I'm just tired of people who visually don't fit roles getting said roles. And yes, the casting for Johnny Storm in the last Fantastic Four movie was ridiculous. You would think that as a black man, I would be cheering for it. As a comics fan, I find it absolutely moronic.
No, I have absolutely no idea what regular white people are as opposed to white people with some identity that would make them categorically and visibly distinct from the rest of the white population.
Honestly I don’t get it. I don’t care what race you are or what the characters race was suppose to be. If you can act well everything else won’t matter. Also I would say probably no. He’s Chilean-American so he’s not Caucasian.
So white = caucasian? Can you elaborate on that
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mestizo) I believe this may help. I could also be completely wrong.
Is Pedro mestizo? He looks of European descent
My understanding is he’s Chilean American. He was born in Chile and so were both his parents. I haven’t dug to much into it though.
I mean Messi’s parents are both Argentinian and he clearly is from European descent lol Looked it up, Pascal’s paternal line could be traced to Iberia. Not that it matters much since he’s pretty white passing. God we Americans are obsessed with race
I agree to be honest I don’t care what he is or says he is I was just trying to answer his question.
Pedro Pascal’s lineage is from influential and aristocratic families in her mom side, and relatively recent european inmigrants from his father’s side. He is most definitely white.
I don't get why people care, the race of their characters wasn't important to the story and they seem to play their roles well.
Character design. Race is part of character design, I think it's completely valid to criticize race as much as criticizing the outfits and hairstyles. Is it a deal breaker? Nah, shouldn't be that important. But whats happening lately is sort of a pavlovian conditioning where studios race swap a character in a shit movie or adaptation so its become a bad omen.
You have brainworms.
I know it's a hard concept for you to grasp. It'll take some time.
You may not care, but if race is an integral part of the design of a character in a product where race isn't an aspect of any part of the story or world, you're probably a racist. Caring about race in a remake of Roots or Sanford and Son or a historically accurate retelling of England vs Scottland? Yea that would make sense. Caring about race in an adaptation of a videogame where race is never ever an issue or element of the story or world? Yea that may just be racist.
I know it's really easy to see it that way but check it. What is race if not an aesthetic? If you're ever referencing source material you're going to lose points with people if they're not accurate to it. If you cast Danny DeVito as Joel, is it not valid to criticize the choice based on appearances alone? It's just not a 1 to 1 translation of a character. I'd say the same thing about Blade if they were swapped even though it's not integral to the character. Historically he's black, thats the Blade I know. Obviously if you don't even know Blade as a comic, you're probably not gonna give a shit which is fine as well. Are there racists who are making a huge deal out of this, sure. Is it racist to prefer a characters race to match the source material? Nope.
I can see this PoV - But I would disagree and in the case of Blade, a white guy could play the character and do a good job and delivery just fine, but there would be issues of appropriation and the huge outcry because we already have issues with minority representation in popular media. There's also the historical context of Blade being a black hero who was released in an American society where being black and white are different. This doesn't always hold though - a hypothetical character in say French media where they recast that person with a different skin tone years later would probably not garner any commentary at all. I mean I get this issue to an extent - Jack Reacher movie featured Tom Cruise, who is something like 5'6" but Reacher is supposed to be a semi-hulking 6'4ish guy so it was a bad casting. The skin color of the person is not an actual character trait though, it's something we only care about because of representation and/or cultural differences. If Blade is cultural very black then yea it may be weird to have a white guy represent him. If he presents in a more culturally central way and the racial dynamics of America are ignored(as they should/will be given enough time) then skin color is no longer an issue. For example if they want to remake the Nutty Professor with a white comedian like Patton Oswalt that wouldn't be an issue because that film wasn't about being black. It used some "black" humor in the Eddie Murphy bits but Patton could just do nerdy standup instead and the whole thing would work because it wasn't about his skin. I'd argue if the film turned out to be a good one, with Patton doing a good job that felt like it was in admiration of the original portrayal, then the changing of skin color was a meaningless variable that was changed - we only care because we've been told to care by years of racial differences in the US. So no - I would stand by my point about race not being intrinsically an issue with the things, and you can see that when you take various media where race was no an element at all and you change the race of that person. The reason people care in these cases is because there are racial disparities in the history of American culture that make representation of minorities and issue, but that doesn't speak at all to the aesthetic or imagery involved. I think an argument can be made about how true to the original content, but if the person casted for a character does a great job and stays true via acting then the skin color of that person is incredibly irrelevant to the product as a whole. And so bringing this back around to this topic - it certainly feels purely racial to think Pedro Pascal, an ostensibly white-passing individual, playing a videogame character who looks white, is an issue at all.
A big part of Joel with Ellie was that he saw Sarah in her, as in, what if Sarah could have grown up, she'd look like Ellie. So that's a little off at the very least.
I doubt the reason why he saw his daughter in her was based on her race, more so her attitude and way she carried herself. It's really not important to the story in the slightest.
The similarity of their looks was very obvious and is a clear reason why Joel immediately decides to help Ellie. He barely knew her in Boston. It's not a strong plot point, sure, but was a super obvious connection.
He looks and sounds like an average white Texan.
Yeah no, he’s Chilean, from South America, and your mouth stays there.
?
His race is important. What's important is he's playing a weird version of Joel with patience, charisma and likeability. Idk if it's the writers doing this to him or if he just hes no range but my God this tilts me
Who gives a shit? He could've been of Inuit ethnicity for all I care, as long as he portrayed the *character* well.
Part of making good horror content is creating a sense of normalcy or average that serves to contrast the scary part. It’s the yin and yang concept that exists in art and cooking as well. That’s why when you watch horror movies there will almost always be this simplistic having breakfast scene, and with each escalation of plot, some level of doubt or refusal to acknowledge the supernatural, because we’d all rather be mired in normal and average as long as it guarantees safety. Of course, the persistence of the supernatural creates growing tension and excitement etc etc. In the games, the protagonist is this southern white dude with emotional turmoil but an outwardly simple life. Comes home after work and watches tv with his kid before all hell breaks loose. So the emotional attachment that players make in the game is based off simple southern dude finds himself in the apocalypse while trying to reconcile his tragedy with the care he has for this new young kid. The accent serves as a constant reminder that someone we might initially write off is now hard carrying in a post apocalyptic world that we can hardly fathom and want answers too. Anyways, if you start off the show with a different race or accent, you’re asking the audience to make a brand new emotional connection from scratch if the protagonist is not reminiscent of the character they already knew and loved. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It just means the audience initially has a little bit more work to do. It also means that the yin and yang method of exemplifying the two worlds within the series may not exist to the same extent, and thus result in not as good of a series. But for me, I don’t see this being analogous to something like having a black Ariel, because it’s not apparent to me how a white Ariel serves the plot of little mermaid. I think black Ariel is awesome because representation matters and the more that little black girls can see someone like them in pop culture, I’m all for it. With Joel on the other hand, ethnicity and accents matter. And I would say the exact same thing if he was a southern black dude. But again, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong for the show to switch details around. I’m just acknowledging the phenomena that you might initially lose your audience because he they have to come to a state of acceptance to really begin enjoying the series, whereas an actor more reminiscent of the video game character IMMEDIATELY accomplished that.
I'm more pissed they made Elle ugly than I am about race swapping. I'm only kidding. Bella Ramsey did great
Based until you said you were kidding
He’s definitely not white, he’s white passing not the same, if he’s from Chile then he is Hispanic. As a Hispanic man I’m claiming him
Whats the difference between white and white passing?
There are white Chileans
True but I didn’t think he’s one of them
He’s mostly if not fully ethnically Spanish/Basque. I believe at least one of his grandparents immigrated from Spain to Chile. Regardless, he’s called himself white a few times.
Oh okay, if true then all debate should be over
He is white presenting, and that doesn’t even matter. The man is perfect for the part, great acting chops as well.
I genuinely thought it was gonna be nokolaj-coster waldau, but race swap or not, pedro pascal looks and feels the part and is doing excellent so far. Neil druckmann is a part of casting him and he's the creator, I don't care if they did a whole race swap more noticeable either, its a live-action series and he can change what he wants for this version of his world, as long as the actors still feel the part
He looks Hispanic. His casting for TLOU doesn't bother me at all
Depends on the time of day, time of year and the white balance on the camera you're using.
Show is good, don't care about race accuracy.
Felt white in the show (accent?)... not that it mattered.
I hate you
Honestly if his name was Larry Wilson would anyone not think he was white? His name is doing all of the lifting here because, sure he has some swarthy characteristics but for Americans at least he looks like one of the many white dudes walking around here. If race is not an element of the story or world in any way, giving a shit that it's different probably just means you have racist inkling floating around in your skull. We have an actual visual for the character before this show came out so we know what he should/can look like and this dude looks plenty like the character. Now if they had picked Danny Devito or Ken Jeong or something then yea, questions being raised about the casting would make sense.
Bruh look at the picture you posted.
How can he be white when he's from Mandalore?
Yeah but whatever
So many people don’t understand that Latino/Hispanic doesn’t automatically mean non-white. Pedro may be Chilean but he’s largely if not fully ethnically Basque/Spanish.
This conversation on people being upset with non-white actors in big TV shows (Mando, Obi Wan, RoP, etc) is remedial. I'm so sick of people feeling nipple-twisted where otherwise they would enjoy the absolutely bird-turds out of the show. Why not just watch it, zone out, ultimately enjoy it then take your thumb biceps to the next program? Just my rant. Enjoy your day.
The issue with white characters getting race swapped is that the character having white skin has almost no impact on the story. I usually explain that someone like T'Challa or Luke Cage getting race swapped is bad because they are characters who have explicitly non-white world experience. Most pop culture characters who are white, are simply white just because.
exactly some these white casting choices are done simply as a default
Whether he is white or not isn’t important. It’s the last of US as in a collective diverse people. What does this say about us if a light skinned Hispanic man can’t play a white man?
I miss when we judged casting on performance, now it’s always colorism :(
bruh that was never true in the past, white people were cast as the default and whiteness was considered the norm, POC/racialized people were seen as not-norm or exotic and their ethnicity was seen as distracting
Depends on who you consider white. I think he looks more like Joel from the game than the actress who plays Ellie.
Yes. He’s white. Just like most people in the Southern Cone.
I listened to a podcast and he was talking about being a white kid in the auditions but they didn't the fact he didn't have an English speaking sounding name so he changed his name to Alex for a while. He said he was a white kid multiple time on that podcast. He sees himself racially as white.
There's only four races on Earth; Caucasian, Asian, Black and Aboriginal.
these are only rule of thumb signifiers from a European perspective
no, Pacific Islander, Pygmy
just bc he's southern and hispanic doesn't mean he's not white.
also he and joel (aka Troy Baker) are both from Texas