Keanu Reeves’ futuristic appeal
CVK
One of my favorite podcasts is Cinecast (soon to be renamed The Cinema Show). It’s basically these two guys named Adam and Sam from Chicago, both film geeks, who review movies Ebert & Roeper-style. Anyway, on one episode they were talking about the films to be released later this year that they were most looking forward to. One of them was A Scanner Darkly, an animated sci fi film that imagines a paranoid world in which two of every 10 Americans has been hired by the government to spy on the other 8–in the name of national security and drug enforcement. The film stars Keanu Reeves.
Anyway, Adam and Sam started talking about the fact that Keanu Reeves keeps getting cast as the lead in these really interesting sci fi films (Constantine, The Matrix trilogy, Johnny Mnemonic) despite the fact that, well, most people think he’s an awful actor. They were wondering why directors were especially drawn to him for these very specific kinds of roles–the Christ-like figure who sometime in the far future, will save the world from near-certain destruction.
That got me wondering if his being mixed had anything to do with it. I got into an email conversation about it with my friend Liz (a past MMW contributor) and she brought up the idea that mixed race identity is often seen as somehow modern or futuristic. So perhaps in the minds of these directors, his “look” is one that corresponds with the modern, futuristic world they’re trying to create in these films.
And next thing we know, bam, Liz sees Keanu on the cover of technology magazine Wired. And in a sidebar to the cover story on A Scanner Darkly titled 10 Reasons Keanu Rules, the magazine proclaims:
1. He’s the face of globalization
Born in Beirut to an English mother and a father of Hawaiian and Chinese descent, he’s a citizen of the world. And unlike the multiracial Vin Diesel, he saves the universe with geekiness, not mere muscle.
So does mixed=futuristic? In the case of Keanu Reeves, it certainly seems that it does.
[Full disclosure: Liz and I both have an irrational, ahem, lurve for Keanu so this is not the most objective analysis ever written.] 
mtevc wrote:
Your thoughts might be head on…but I bet that futuristic multiracial future wouldn’t include a part black and white person!
Posted 28 Feb 2006 at 12:28 pm ¶
Ben wrote:
wait a sec… look at reason #2:
2. He’s now Hollywood’s sci-fi guy
[…] When Ewan McGregor and Will Smith turned down the part of Neo, Reeves jumped at the chance to enter the Matrix.
IMDB adds that Brad Pitt and Val Kilmer also turned down the role, and Warner Bros. convinced the Wachowski bros. to cast Keanu over their first choice, Johnny Depp. (Kilmer was also supposed to star in Johnny Mnemonic, but left to play Batman, and Nicholas Cage was set to star in Constantine until the first director quit.)
In theory, I agree that “mixed looks” are seen as futuristic, but that particular criterion seems to a low priority when stars are chosen - at least for the sci-fi films Keanu ends up in.
Posted 28 Feb 2006 at 1:19 pm ¶
rand wrote:
lol @ the idea of will smith in The Matrix. That would have been horrible. I can see Dep. I can see Kilmer. But Will? Gosh, the viewing public dodged a bullet there. LOL.
—–
but yes, the face of globalization? I understand what was meant, but more and more I’ve been getting tired of people speaking about “globalization” as if the mixing of peoples, complicated arrays of cultural exchange, and trans-continental commerce are something new and amazing. They’re not. We need better world history classes taught in this country.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 1:07 am ¶
justin wrote:
Mtevc, what about Vin Diesel?
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 9:29 am ¶
John wrote:
I get mtevc’s point.
Most Hollywood execs think Diesel’s (and KR’s) “mixed looks” can “pass”- won’t scare or turn-off certain audiences.
Same old shit- there are “good” ethnic facial features and “bad” ethnic features…
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 11:47 am ¶
mtevc wrote:
John (above) understands…they want someone they see as watered down…or appealing to all audiences…hence not casting a black woman with Will Smith in Switch…read his comments…
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 2:58 pm ¶
Dolly wrote:
Futuristic,good looks and subtle charm combined… that’s really something.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 9:42 pm ¶
justin wrote:
John, mtevc your both right of course. Setting some perceptions aside, I think Pitch Black really counts on Diesel being perceived as being mixed or perhaps even as an albino black man, while the only movie where Keanu Reeves really trades on being mixed is Little Buddha.
If Keanu was forwarding the Wired agenda, well he just wouldn’t be cool any more.
Posted 02 Mar 2006 at 11:33 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>I think Pitch Black really counts on Diesel being perceived as being mixed
How so? Given, I liked the movie way more than I thought I would, and I was estatic that not one but two visible minorities actually SURVIVE a sci-fi film.
>perhaps even as an albino black man
Hunh? I think in the movie, the character’s eyes are implanted/augemented to see in the dark, because his last prison was completely without light. Hence his sensitivity isn’t because of albinism.
Posted 03 Mar 2006 at 10:25 am ¶
justin wrote:
Lyonside, forgive me but I mean that in the most offensive way. Riddick is like Darth Vader. Judging from the end of that trilogy the character is not even meant to be human and from begining to end he is very much an other. I also enjoyed the movie but I do not have a lot of confidence in it.
Posted 03 Mar 2006 at 10:12 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>Riddick is like Darth Vader
Hunh. I have to think about that one (then who is the redemptor (a la Luke?)) Besides, DV was set up as the genocidal bad guy for at least 2 movies (then as a genocidal ansty pawn for the 3rd). Riddick: bad guy, check. gratuitious bad? Not so much (i.e., he’s not stalking innocents around town, they’re all bad). And not genocidal.
>Judging from the end of that trilogy the character is not even meant to be human and from begining to end he is very much an other.
I’m guessing you mean the SW trilogy (the original… the other 3 are so not canon to me :). There may or may not be a sequel to Riddick, in which case I’d have to go back and compare the character arcs.
But DV DOES Have an arc. Starting human. Gives up humanity (in multiple ways). Recovers bits of humanity in not wanting to kill his child (but wants to convert the son to his world). Ultimately recovers whole humanity in rejecting evil. Dies anyway. Son is left in shadow w/ hope of light.
Posted 06 Mar 2006 at 12:45 pm ¶
justin wrote:
Oh-khay. I was referring to the Riddick movies, Pitch black, Dark Fury, and Chronicles of Riddick. It’s debateable if that is a trilogy, one’s a cartoon and the other is a spin off.
Like OB 1 I don’t think of DV and Anakin as one person. Vader has some autonomy in popular culture, Anakin doesn’t. James Earl Jones is the true Darth Vader . . . . . and Vin Diesel is the Iron Giant. (yes, my argument is so weak)
If I were to dissect both series chapter one would be ‘images of the black man in sado-masochism‘.
Riddick is the last descendent of the warrior planet Furia. He is prophesised to save the universe with some kind of zombie army. I don’t think the makers had enough time to provide a Luke.
Posted 08 Mar 2006 at 9:27 am ¶