a white guy with an Australian accent is a Spaniard?
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IvarTB — 12 years ago(March 07, 2014 12:31 PM)
Haven't you heard of Hollywood's poetic license?
How many ''blacked up'' 1950's actors played Indians? Don't you have a brown President speaking a 'white' language?
Sir Alec Guinness played an Arabic Prince [Faisal] in Lawrence of Arabia, etc etc etc -
bobby9512-846-360489 — 11 years ago(August 03, 2014 11:47 PM)
Spaniards (you know, from Europe) are white in the first place. This is coming from a person with Spanish heritage.
How many ''blacked up'' 1950's actors played Indians?
It's not comparable to a white actor playing an "Indian" or blackface for that matter. If a white actor plays a Spaniard, he's technically playing a character of the same race.
Complaining about a white actor like Russel Crowe playing a Spaniard is like complaining about a Jamie Chung (a Korean) playing Mulan. Or the fact that Djimon Honsou (a Beninese man) is playing a Numidian. Though I guess that does upset some people.
So long as you're playing somebody of the same skin color/race I personally don't mind. If Russel Crowe were playing Juba, then yes, that would be weird. But he's not, he's playing a character who is also white. -
npanou — 11 years ago(August 29, 2014 08:21 PM)
Exactly, this film is set a thousand years before the Muslims invaded and did enough beep to dilute the bloodline. Not sayign any one race is superior or anything like that, but regardless, i could buy Crowe as a modern Spaniard easily, even more so as an ancient one.
It's terrifying how many people get confused between Hispanics and Spaniards.
"World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door." -
cusca — 10 years ago(October 07, 2015 11:11 AM)
In northern Spain no muslisms came to dilute any bloodline. In fact in the region where I live (Galicia) most of us are of celtic ancestors and blond people is common. And in Southern Spain Muslim conquerors were just a powerful minority in number who ruled over a vast majority of original population, so they hardly could "dilute" that much.
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lumbee — 10 years ago(October 15, 2015 04:56 PM)
Indeed. Both the peoples of Northern (modern) Spain and northern (contemporary) Italy are primarily of Celtic/Germanic ethnicity. This is borne out by their food, language (Romansch, for instance) and Culture.
"Italy" did not exist prior to 1871. People considered themselves "Venetians" or "Sardinians" or "Calabreseian" or "Roman".
Of "Spain"; at the time the entire peninsula was "Hispania", a subjugated people, colonized by Rome, as was much of the rest of the European world. And people there would, again, consider themselves not Spanish but "Galician" or "Andalusian" or "Basque". Many still do. -
npanou — 11 years ago(August 29, 2014 08:22 PM)
Exactly, this film is set a thousand years before the Muslims invaded and did enough beep to dilute the bloodline. Not sayign any one race is superior or anything like that, but regardless, i could buy Crowe as a modern Spaniard easily, even more so as an ancient one.
It's terrifying how many people get confused between Hispanics and Spaniards.
"World needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door." -
doowopfan — 12 years ago(March 07, 2014 02:50 PM)
I'll agree to an extent. Like Inigo Montoya being a Spaniard but not looking Spanish in The Princess Bride. He at least sounded the part. Russel Crowe didn't even try, looks or sounds.
I did sixty in five minutes once -
ecuelles — 11 years ago(May 04, 2014 04:46 AM)
Well the fact they called him "Spaniard" is not even correct because Spain as it is didn't even exist yet, nor did they speak Spanish as they do now.so Russel Crowe didn't need to speak with a Spanish accent..it would have been silly really. If they would have chosen Antonio Banderas it wouldn't have worked because he is obvious modern Spanish. I think Russel Crowe did a great job portraying a Roman originating from a Roman province that now is Spain. By the waynot all Spanish are dark haired Latin lovers.they actually are and probably were quite diverse and can range from the typical dark-haired type to blond haired and everything in between.
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treach33 — 11 years ago(August 29, 2014 01:28 PM)
Like Inigo Montoya being a Spaniard but not looking Spanish in The Princess Bride. He at least sounded the part.
Spaniard- "I don't think that word is what you think it means", Inigo Montoya
~What if this is as good as it gets?!~
- "I don't think that word is what you think it means", Inigo Montoya
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Kalustratus — 12 years ago(March 09, 2014 01:12 PM)
I think the Spanish you and many people are talking about on this thread were the people that interbred with the Moors after their conquest of Spain which began in the year 712AD. These dark skinned Spaniards didn't exist at the time Gladiator is set so I don't see a problem with RC playing a lighter skinned Spaniard.
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Kalustratus — 12 years ago(March 09, 2014 08:14 PM)
To be honest with most of the characters in this movie having English accents I don't think Russle's mild Aussie twang was a problem. Lucilla and Juba seemed to have the most authentic accents out of everyone and do we even know what Spaniards sounded like in that period? Visigoths ruled before the Moors and before them it was Vandals and Suebi, all these bar the moors were Germanic tribes.
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martinusx — 12 years ago(March 11, 2014 03:28 AM)
I think the accent doesn't realy matter in this case. He should have spoken Latin with the then common accent in Spain. If you speak English then an accent doesn't matter. And besides, Maximus talking like "You, seor Emperore, areh aaaa wizze man-e' would ruin it me thinks
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Shade2 — 11 years ago(May 28, 2014 07:29 AM)
During this time, as someone else has pointed out, the darker skinned Moors were several centuries away from invading, and the Romans had well established colonies in Hispania at the time Gladiator is set. The Emperor Hadrian famously came from one such colony in Spain and was ridiculed for his accent.
"Well she turned me in to a newt! I got better."