strange deletion

January 14, 2014 10:08 PM

I posted a question tonight in the society culture section, and I'm baffled about why it was deleted.

Last week I posted a question asking what regions of America are hotspots for street-kids, related to a film project I'm researching. Tonight I asked a related question in the society and culture thread about what spring break spots and festivals might appeal to a specific demographic and the question was deleted with the reason, "this is not a good question for askmetafilter."

I feel like this is exactly the kind of question metafilter is good for. It's frustrating when I come to the forum with the sort of not easy to answer question it's good at answering and I get told it's inappropriate.

Is there something I'm missing?

posted by caseofyou to Etiquette/Policy at 10:08 PM (16 comments total)

Did you read the part where he said to contact the mods if you had questions?
posted by empath at 10:12 PM on January 14, 2014 [4 favorites]

Did you contact the mods and get a response from them?
posted by jetlagaddict at 10:12 PM on January 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

Wow. Would you accuse the casting directors of Winter's Bone of being exploitative for looking for a specific demographic or aesthetic when they're casting (which I'm sure they did)? This forum continues to surprise me...
posted by caseofyou at 10:15 PM on January 14, 2014 [2 favorites]

You should come out and say that you want some poor white trash to exploit.
They actually did :(
posted by ftm at 10:17 PM on January 14, 2014 [8 favorites]

To be fair, caseofyou didn't say they were going to exploit them. For all we know, the employment conditions might be awesome and they might be paying a fair rate.

But the framing was icky, and the language used to describe what the director wants was problematic, and I can see how answers would have (maybe rightly) been distracted by that and not really answered the question.
posted by lollusc at 10:17 PM on January 14, 2014 [7 favorites]

Did you actually read the post? The story is about these kids being exploited. We're not trying to exploit the kids by casting them in the movie -- quite the opposite -- but we need to target a demographic that could relate to that experience.
posted by caseofyou at 10:18 PM on January 14, 2014

The Winter's Bone people hired actual actors, not desperate street kids.

I'm sorry, your question was so sleazy it made my skin crawl.
posted by empath at 10:19 PM on January 14, 2014 [77 favorites]

The director I'm working for has a stellar reputation and has helped out many of the kids they've pulled off the street for their projects in the past, often launching their careers.
posted by caseofyou at 10:19 PM on January 14, 2014

(For me, specifically, the biggest problem was that they are looking for kids who are "naive and desperate enough to fall for some sort of fantasy", and starring in a movie is exactly the sort of thing that is a fantasy naive and desperate kids might "fall for", so there's a built in opportunity for exploitation.)
posted by lollusc at 10:19 PM on January 14, 2014 [28 favorites]

It sounds creepy and exploitative. "I'm looking for a bunch of poor white kids who look nice but are also sheltered and not street smart and sort of desperate to work on my secret project." I'm sure there's some reasonable story behind this, but as written it looks like you want people who are easy to abuse. It isn't clear what the movie is for, why you need desperate seeming kids who aren't smart but are impulsive, why you can't just actually hire actors.

The mods will generally work with you in order to write a question.
posted by jeather at 10:20 PM on January 14, 2014 [16 favorites]

But that's what the story is about.

Have you guys never heard of street scouting? You look for kids who fit the demographic so that they don't have to be professional actors.
posted by caseofyou at 10:21 PM on January 14, 2014

I don't know how to frame this in a way that would have made everyone happy.

This is an acclaimed director who has good relationships with all of the actors that they've cast in the past.
posted by caseofyou at 10:23 PM on January 14, 2014

I've heard of street scouting but I've never heard of Wallmart scouting. This is giving me the willies. I need an adult.
posted by ftm at 10:23 PM on January 14, 2014 [10 favorites]

The Winter's Bone people hired actual actors, not desperate street kids.

Actually, they did street scouting/open calls as well, targeted at the same demographic, for the smaller roles. This is commonplace in the film world.
posted by caseofyou at 10:24 PM on January 14, 2014

For those of you who have not lived in the South for any significant length of time, there are about a dozen major Spring Break destinations, about half of which tend to attract one demographic or another.
posted by Ardiril at 10:25 PM on January 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is something you should use the contact form for. We just wrote to you about this. I am closing this MeTa.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 10:26 PM on January 14, 2014 [9 favorites]