Racial matching in movies and TV-series.

[Bryce]

Have you noticed that in most films and TV-series, a tacit rule is followed : Don't mismatch certain characters, especially the hero(in) and the first supporting role (of the opposite gender). It is as if these movies' conceivers were either afraid to alienate a part of the public, or were unwittingly unable to mentally grasp all the possible combinations. If Arnold "Heck-I-must-remember-not-to-yell-Sieg-Heil-before-witnesses" Schwarzenegger has a mixed-race partner, a former Miss America, she's so mixed she's quasi-white (fair skin, green eyes, light brown hair, delicate features). Examples are rife. Cite me movies in which the hero is definitely black and has a beautiful white woman sidekick who becomes his girlfriend. With Asians, the lesser racial distance seems to hinder less the scriptwriters' imagination, especially if the white one is the hero. A counter-example is Jackie Chan and Jennifer Hewitt in an action movie, but Chan, if not a Pierce-Brosnan-like playboy, is very athletic, energetic, pleasant and a kung-fu expert, and Hewitt, if a pretty young woman, is very paedomorphic, not a paragon of drop-dead-gorgeous feminity.
Of course, it also depends of who, of the actor and actress, is darker and facially more or less Europid (Europoid?).
Perhaps it reveals that most of us, whatever our racial background have a spontaneous propensity not only to go for mates who belong to our own racial group, but also to wish to see this unspoken rule respected by others.

[oubit]

it's mainly about identification. People like the idea that the hero could be a relative of them, so if he's not looking like you at all than you may not identify yourself with the hero that much. That's one of the reasons, why a big Chinese movie like "Hero" only made $53,710,019 at the domestic (that means Northern American) box office.

[Drooperdoo]

Bryce,
"The Pelican Brief" bucked tradition and cast a black Denzel Washington with a white female "sidekick," Julia Roberts.
The first time it was done, though, was by horror film director George Romero, in his 1960s cult classic "Night of the Living Dead," when he had the "temerity" to make the hero a competent black man who saves a blond woman, and between whom there crackles sexual tension.

P.S.--TV's first interracial kiss was also intergalactic. Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" kissed Uhura.

[Bryce]

drooperdoo said:

Bryce,
"The Pelican Brief" bucked tradition and cast a black Denzel Washington with a white female "sidekick," Julia Roberts.
The first time it was done, though, was by horror film director George Romero, in his 1960s cult classic "Night of the Living Dead," when he had the "temerity" to make the hero a competent black man who saves a blond woman, and between whom there crackles sexual tension.

P.S.--TV's first interracial kiss was also intergalactic. Captain Kirk on "Star Trek" kissed Uhura.

All my Vulcan good wishes, my dear Drooperdoo.
So little time, so many things to do, so many films I'll never watch, so many books I'll never read.
I think I saw the Pelican Brief, years ago, but I don't recall much from this movie. Do Washington and Roberts actually have an affair or is it just hinted?