Why does Hollywood always make Greeks blond?

[hansel]

ginojda said:

Greeks are probably the darkest of all the southern European countries(the main 3 known one's). Not in dark olive skin but in hair and eye colour frequencies. Spaniards and Italians are not as dark as people want them to be.

i'm sorry but i have to disagree with you.
i think the darkest europeans on average are southern spaniards and portoguese.

[alexandrian]

k5125 said:

I never saw alexander, so I am shocked to hear that they portrayed Persians as black. Thats like portraying ethiopians as Romans.

The only movie I can think of that was pretty accurate about how the physical portrayal of Jesus and the Jews was The Passion.

Especially the Sanhedrin. Played by all Italian actors. When they were dressed up in those costumes with the beards they looked extremely mideastern to me.

I was glad Mel didn't overdo it on the dark features though too. Lately I have noticed that stations like the discovery channel seem to have this fetish for portraying Jesus as a southern arabian. Some people have even gone as far to say that Jesus was an arab .

They had an African-American actress named Rosario Dawson play a Persian princess. I never saw the Passion, but I can assume that Mel did a good job traitwise. I think in modern society, Jesus would have looked like a typical Palestinian.

[buddyrydell]

hansel said:

i'm sorry but i have to disagree with you.
i think the darkest europeans on average are southern spaniards and portoguese.

I've seen people who are darker than average in all southern European countries, though I'd also say on average, the southern Iberians tend to be more uniformly dark-haired and dark-eyed, though of course even here one finds some lighter-haired and/or light-eyed people.

The fairest southern Europeans are northern Italians imo. Southern Italians and Greeks are similar in their hair and eye color frequencies.

[Daniel]

Well i guess it is call ethnocentric
They portrayed Alexander a macedonian look , like a good american white boy

American and british have a tendancy too rewrite history in the way they like their people see it and learn it.
Not like it was.
And since there people have almost a nil notion of basic history they make them believ what they want

Think of it the first western movie (good old cowboy and indian movie) were shoot in 1910 era in this movies they show the native (amerindian ) like savage beast.

20 years after the last slaugthering . wounded knee.
By doing so they just make their people believ it was a good thing to bring civilisation (reservation) to this half naked wild savage and they did not spoil them of their land ....

So Alexander was a great man he must be of our breed.
Not a med...med are mafia etc...

America win the second ww2 on the d day
stalingrad was just a sniper affair .....

[asdf]

They've made Hannibal predominantly negroid Denzel Washington--why should hair color matter to them?

At least they got the Trojans mostly right in Troy.

[buddyrydell]

Seizure said:

They've made Hannibal predominantly negroid Denzel Washington--why should hair color matter to them?

At least they got the Trojans mostly right in Troy.

LOL true. I heard Denzel and Vin Diesel are each doing their own Hannibal projects. Obviously Diesel would look much more accurate for the part, but I also don't think he's too much of an improvement lol. I think a good choice for Hannibal would be somebody like Tony Shalhoub or John Turturro, but that's just too accurate for Hollywood heh .

Now let's talk about Gladiator shall we. Good storyline, I liked the movie, though again I would say that the characters were a bit too northern European-looking. I thought Joaquin Phoenix looked fairly appropriate yet still not quite "Roman" enough. Seriously, what's wrong with getting an Italian actor to play the part of the Roman once in awhile? It's kinda funny cuz I don't think I've ever seen an Italian playing an ancient Roman even once.

[asdf]

Commodus was Aurelius' son who we decided could have had some Iberian in him.

But uh, yeah, totally agree. Have real Italians playing Italians.

Worked in the Godfather! You know, they (random evil Hollywood producers) didn't want Coppola's choice for Mike Corleone (Al Pacino). They wanted Robert Redford! So they took tons of money from the project, but it benifited, because it had more a realistic look to it, which they kept for part 2.

[Buddyryvall]

k5125 said:

I think Greeks look very mid eastern. John Stamos is a good example, so is George Corraface (spelling), not to mention George Michael.

These guys could pass as Iranian any day.

John Stamos


George Corraface


George Michael

They dont look Middle Eastern or Iranian at all.
Greeks in General dont look Middle Eastern, they look Southern european, there is a difference.

[Tautamo]

My two cents

absolute nonsense.Hollywood is Hollywood if thier happends to be many blondes in Hollywood moives its because America has more people of northern heritage living within its boarders!!! hell i dont even think Greek Americans number more than a million in America. ha

[Daniel]

They've made Hannibal predominantly negroid Denzel Washington--why should hair color matter to them?


Well for the average american carthago ,africa , so a black man hannibal was ...lol.

And Hannibal does nt have the same perception among american, has Alexander

If you ask average american about hannibal they will associated with ,cannibal. ( lecter)
or an agressiv invader
A terrible war chief ( african killer bee )

Not really a romantic 'chevalier'

there also a marketing part in the choice of actor
Denziel Washington his a good seller even among the white.
(never loose in mind that hollywood like money)

for my part Hannibal may have look like a med of midle east maybe ...do we have any pictur or sculture of him

[k5125]

Spiro said:

John Stamos


George Corraface


George Michael

They dont look Middle Eastern or Iranian at all.
Greeks in General dont look Middle Eastern, they look Southern european, there is a difference.

I could see you saying that arabs don't look like that, but Iranians? I have seen tons of Iranians that look like these guys.

Corraface even played an Iranian in the movie "not without my daughter", and he definately looked the part. They just grew a beard on him and bam, instant Iranian.

[hansel]

if u had to guess what those guys ethnicities were,
u wouldn't say greeks or italians but iranian;;;;;;;;;
it's a bit far-fetched ,though i can see that there are iranians who in various degrees present a s.european or even central/north european phenotype

[Salvador]

Greeks in general are not the darkest south Europeans. Though their appearance differs. The average Greek has dark brown hair, light brown eyes and a light skin.

South Spaniards and Portuguese seem clearly darker to me.
Although it is said that Greeks look a lot like Sicilians. I think that Sicilians are on average also slightly darker than Greeks.Though Italians in general are the lightest Europeans.

As far as the portrayal of ancient Greeks in movies. Quite simple: the ancient Greeks are idealized for centuries. They sure as hell won't portray them as southern Europeans.

Sometimes I even feel like Hollywood portays them even lighter than britons (like Scandinavians).

very funny actually.

[visigodo]

Salvador, Spaniards darker than Greeks? You must be joking. ;D

Here look at the racial components of Spaniards as apposed to Greeks then tell me who’s darker.

Spaniards…Mix Mediterranean/Germanic Tribes (Visigoths, Celts, Vandals..etc) Ethnic groups: composite of Mediterranean and Nordic types

Greeks: Ethnic groups: composite of Mediterranean mostly

[ginojda]

Visigodo said:

Salvador, Spaniards darker than Greeks? You must be joking. ;D

Here look at the racial components of Spaniards as apposed to Greeks then tell me who’s darker.

Spaniards…Mix Mediterranean/Germanic Tribes (Visigoths, Celts, Vandals..etc) Ethnic groups: composite of Mediterranean and Nordic types

Greeks: Ethnic groups: composite of Mediterranean mostly

Yeah maybe but who really knows whiter than who in those SE countries. The reason I said that Spaniards and Italians where lighter than Greeks is from what I have seen in pics and movies. The only two European countries I ever been to was France(when I was 3) and Britian.(when I was 15 back in 200) So I don't really don't know much about Southern European countries. From what it's worth, I've seen some genetic charts here at dodona and skadi claiming that Spaniards have the most Nordic genes/blood out of all the SE countries. 49 or 50% percent I think it was. (does it equal to lighter skin,hair,eyes to u guys?). But with all the muslim and third world immigrants pouring into Spain and Italy, I wouldn't be surprised that Greeks and Portuguese will be lighter than both Espanoles and Italianos in the near future. They probably already are!