If you want to talk about race and film in a more enlightened, nuanced manner, the headline at Drudge Report right now is pretty stellar.

The last choice should be edited to read: "Wait, one of the most gorgeous men to walk the planet is named Armie Hammer?"

I am really not sure which to chose on this one. I know the third and fourth are out of the question for voting for but I AM amazed there is a human named Armie Hammer.

re: choice #5

This guy must really have blown your mind:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hamm…

depp is like 1/64th cherokee, right? so it makes it totally ok.

I'll never be able to unsee him as the Winklevoss Twins...

An option of "This makes me want a .45 Long Colt" would probably drive up the comment count. But not in a good way.

Wow, thats a bit racist. But there's also a nice bit of a Native American revenge plot hinted at, and Tonto seems more like the star of the show with the Lone Ranger as the sidekick, so it's better than previous Lone Ranger interpretations.

Between this and Django Unchained, I'm looking forward to our new racist future. It's at least an improvement over our racist past.

Best of all, the makeup and outfit is swiped from a non-Indian painter who makes "Indian-inspired" art

That's the annoying thing about this: Depp is mish-mashing together a whole bunch of "spiritual" (because Indians are, like, really spiritual, maaaan) Indian signifiers, from god knows what traditions -- there's miscellaneous Plains Indians and Southwest Indians in there, and probably more, because he's sending a message. He thinks it's a message of respect, but it's absolutely not. Indians are people, not symbolic artifacts.

The dead bird on his head is just overkill.

@9 It's like they took Brando's amalgamated southern accent from Sayonara ("Anywhere in the South where there's an army base") and decided they could do the same with native cultures.

Has anybody actually seen the movie before they go all red alert over it?

@13

no.

@13: This must be your first day here.

I, for one, love watching middle to upper class white folks argue about what is, and is not racist.

But Fnarf @9 is right, this is just another incarnation of the "Magical Negro:"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_Neg…

Racist? Could be. Tacky? Definitely. Tediously boring, drawn out, overplayed and repetitious while pandering to the lowest common denominator? Most definitely.

http://nativeappropriations.blogspot.com…

Soooooo maaaaaybe sombody at the The Stranger should actually see the entire move before attempting to raise and internet outrage posse.

I realize getting all het'd up over cultural minutiae is the new cottage industry of The Stranger since they gotta get them page views up. But it is too much to ask that our pitch fork wielding mobs at least be fully informed before storming the castle?

@18

no.

@18

yes, it is.

@18--

Read the link in @17. Even if someone haven't seen the movie, it's still perfectly acceptable to acknowledge that the genesis of the character is problematic.

@21 How do you know that the genesis of Tonto isn't addressed in this movie? Maybe the entire point of the movie is to raise awareness of these old racist tropes?

Ok. Sure. I doubt it, too. It might be the most racists thing in the universe. I'm probably not going to go see either way. But I'd like to see an opinion from somebody who has.

See it's getting rather unsavory this habit of going ape shit - literally every sigle day on SLOG - over even the littlest hint of something that "might" politically problematic. Sometimes you can be wrong.

There is such a thing as reason and a fair hearing, you know.

You know what would be the greatest twist to this movie?

If at some point all that makeup and that stupid bird comes off Johnny Depp and the Lone Ranger realizes he was just some dumb white guy all along.

Before you assume there's anything clever going on with this movie, just look at who is behind it. On that note I'm just going to quote something I recently read in a completely different context:

There's a point where a team has a feeling, where they can look at something and say "Ruh-roh." It's not something they can quantify, and there isn't any way to prove their feeling, but it's a learned reaction. It's like when you're with another couple and you can smell the breakup in every passive-aggressive comment, or when you walk by a mostly empty restaurant on a Friday night and immediately check it off your list, or when you see "From Michael Bay" in the opening of a movie trailer. You can feel the impending doom, even if you can't quantify it.

Pictured in the video's still image: The only two expressions I made while watching the trailer.

Its not near as racist as this movie I saw once called "Blazing Saddles".....wait, that movie wasn't supposed to be a serious rendition of people of the time but was supposed to be a satire of the common perceptions of what those people were like, right?

@9 Is Depp also his own costume designer on this movie?

Obligatory:

http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.co…

@29

Read the comments section. Seems that a lot of First Nation people, including Comanche, are against this. Who knows?

From what I know (which isn't much), tribal politics can be very interesting as well as divisive. Some tribes are poor, some are rich, and they often have different requirements for membership. Some tribal governments are pretty corrupt while others are not.

This movie will probably divide many in the First Nation community but my guess is that most will find it ignorant and offensive.

Fnarf at 9 nails it.

Johnny Depp may or may not be First Nation.

He thinks he is either Cherokee or Creek. But not enough of a % to actually know!

http://www.aceshowbiz.com/news/view/w001…

If he really wanted to do something creative for the First Nation community, why not create something new. "The Lone Ranger" was never a inspirational story, as far as Natives go.

Looks like a horrible, brainless movie. I wouldn't see it even if it wasn't disrespectful.