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The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday published a roundtable where Seth Rogen and six white men who work in animation discussed "avoiding ethnic stereotypes and how to 'break the mold' of princesses."
A lot of people on the internet noticed the same thing about the roundtable: "Is this...is this 7 white men talking about ethnic stereotypes and princesses?"
And they were having none of it.
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"The jokes just write themselves...," one woman said.
Some offered an alternative title: "Seth Rogen & 6 White Men Talk about Avoiding Ethnic Stereotypes and How to 'Break the Mold' of Princesses."
Melissa Silverstein, an advocate for gender equality in Hollywood, called the piece "another WTF moment."
"All white dudes, talking about ethnic stereotypes, what could possibly go wrong?"
Several people called out Rogen for perpetuating stereotypes in Sausage Party, particularly the sexy lesbian taco character played by Salma Hayek.
In the article, Rogen said he was not surprised that Sausage Party was criticized for ethnic stereotypes.
Seth, you also got some criticism for some of the ethnic stereotypes in Sausage Party, like Salma Hayek's taco. Did that surprise you?
ROGEN No! (Laughter.) You know, our movie is directly about racial stereotypes and how religion divides us and how our beliefs divide us and how we look different divides us and how we speak different divides us. And at the same time, as a lover of Disney animated movies, we took a lot of cues from those types of movies. They don't use it to the same narrative effect, but you look at [Pixar's] Cars and the Fiat is Italian and the [VW van] is a stoner and the tow truck is a Southern guy. It's very much a part of the animation vernacular, and so we thought if we're going to do an animated movie and it's about these things, then it seemed like a perfectly organic opportunity to really lean into all those things and not just do them, but to really talk about them and confront them as head-on as possible — to really make it part of the overall narrative of the movie.
Some also questioned Rogen's expertise in avoiding stereotypes after he "pissed off an entire Asian country" with his 2014 movie The Interview.
Some were aghast at this line from director Mark Osborne who said, "On Kung Fu Panda, we just Googled China," while talking about researching different cultures portrayed in movies.
People just couldn't get over the irony of it all.
"Go home 2016. It's really, really just over."
But Rogen was able to poke a little fun at all of the attention the article has gotten.
Finally, you can see the white male take on ethnic stereotypes and sexism! Proud to break new ground. https://t.co/Pji1GWodm8
BuzzFeed News has reached out to The Hollywood Reporter for comment.
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