I feel like there’s a lot of cherry picking here too, because if we take the MCU, it also does some race swapping that nobody has a problem with.
Nick Fury is one, but Samuel L Jackson is so cool in that role, it doesn’t matter.
Heimdal is another one. Norse mythology, probably not a lot of black there, but Idris Elba is also so damn cool in the role that it does not really matter, and I’ve never heard anyone complain about these people.
I think in general it’s more about if the people in the roles do a good job or not. Tilda Swinton did a great job. Johnny Depp… Maybe not so much, but I also do remember people were mad about that one.
I was weirded out by Heimdal, but the overall sci-fi aesthetic is also weird so eh.
Fun fact about the Lone Ranger, the most likely real world basis for the protagonist is a man named Bass Reeves. He was black, and an escaped slave. The misrepresentation has been present since the beginning, if I’m not mistaken.
And I only learned about him in the first place because of Watchmen.
Let’s not forget this simple aspect:
Interesting character - Seasoned Actor
Interesting character - Seasoned Actor
Interesting character - Seasoned Actress
Interesting character - Seasoned Actress
Interesting character - Just some Chick
In the end studios want money above anything else. And big names rake in bigger money.
I feel like characterizing Halle Bailey as “just some chick” is disingenuous at best.
Most of the people on the list have been successful actors/actress longer than Halle was alive.
Regardless, she’s acclaimed and talented. Her performance was excellent. Her previous performances have been excellent. If all the hypothetical naysayers have to go on is career length, it seems like a very weak motive for selective hatred.
Lets have one of those seasoned actors play a 15 year old mermaid
…gonna be real honest. Just some chick is actually less of a description than I’d give in this case.
She was in two romantic comedies, I guess? A lotta Last Holiday fans? She wasn’t known for anything beforehand other than one sitcom spinoff, unless she’s a pop star or influencer or something, in which case… lol?
This is a common problem when studios want a seasoned non-white actor: they find out they haven’t seasoned any. If you fail to cast minority talent in small roles through the years, you end up with only white actors with the chops for big roles.
Wait until you tell extremist, right-wing Christians that Jesus wasn’t a white guy! Oooohhh boyyy!
Also, I think it’s important to not forget that in the internet age, a very small minority of hateful asshats can appear to have a very large voice. They are still a very small, minority group of asshats.
I agree, they’re small groups of asshats but they’re loud and effective groups of asshats. Take kiwifarms for example; despite being a pretty small community, they can inflict a lot of damage to a lot of people in short periods of time.
Yup. Characters should remain consistent if it’s important.
Tonto should not have been played by Johnny Depp. Gross.
The original Ancient One was a poor stereotype of a Tibetan person and Tilda Swinton is cool so I’m ok with this one.
Liam Neeson is a great actor with a ton of gravitas and he pulled off the role well, but yeah shoulda found a middle eastern dude. Maybe that hot Djin dude from American Gods can be the next Ras Al Ghul.
Anything to do with Scarlet Witch’s background is a retcon, she was originally introduced as Magneto’s moustache twirling daughter. Despite her tan in the referenced photo she’s more often depicted as white, but I could see her being middle eastern, but it would make sense that she’s half Jewish at least, given her father’s background.
Lastly, she’s a fucking mermaid. Who gives a shit? How many of the dude bros removeding even watched it?
Lastly, she’s a fucking mermaid. Who gives a shit? How many of the dude bros removeding even watched it?
They also chose to set the entire movie in the Caribbean because there’s not fuckin colorful tropical fish off the coast of Denmark, it’s not like they randomly made her black for no reason
Shoulda gone with something like this
“You will not replace us!” shouted the white supremacists after centuries of erasing a multitude of other cultures, histories, and societies.
Really shows you that their worldview leaves no room for multiculturalism lol. As soon as brown people are let into their country’s borders, bam, suddenly their whole identity and culture ceases to exist somehow, despite still being the majority.
Multicultural is different from multiethnic. One is clothing and holidays and norms, the other is just skin.
Personally I think a large part of the lack of outrage over the first four is that no one who watched the movies had heard of the source material. People who watch Marvel movies don’t tend to read the comics, but Ariel was a Disney movie (one of the most famous of all time) remade as another Disney movie.
Correct. Nobody was bothered by Nick Fury’s change for example, even though he went from white to black. That was a wholly unknown character for most Marvel moviegoers. And Samuel L. Jackson is awesome in that role.
Actually, Fury’s always been black in the Ultimate Marvel Universe; the character and the design was actually based on Jackson so casting him for the MCU probably was an obvious direction choice.
I also had my boss, when I worked in fast food, list this as one of the issues he had with the movie, when it came out (to quote him, “he’s a white character; no offense but that’s what he is,” which was particularly galling, given the aforementioned fact).
I also had my boss, when I worked in fast food, list this as one of the issues he had with the movie, when it came out (to quote him, “he’s a white character; no offense but that’s what he is,” which was particularly galling, given the aforementioned fact).
Megyn Kelly said that stupid shit on TV 10 years ago and she is even more popular today.
TIL; thank you! I was aware enough of the comics to know of white Fury, but didn’t know there is, in fact, a black Fury.
Your boss is an idiot. I’m white as printer paper and would gladly let SLJ play me in a biopic. Because he’s awesome in every role he’s played. Good actors are good actors.
Personally, I think the lack of outrage is because the people who get outraged by black people being cast for roles that were previously white characters, aren’t concerned when it’s white people being cast no matter the source material.
“Personally, I just want to chalk this up to racism so I can be upset about it”
Name one outrage among conservatives in the US when a white person was cast for a role that was any other ethnicity in the source material. Sure, it happens on the Left, Netflix is especially accused of white washing (recent example: Three Body Problem). But, conservatives don’t give a shit when it happens the other way around.
Regardless, I truly couldn’t give a shit who gets cast for what regardless of source material. If the actor/actress is able to play the part well, I come for entertainment and couldn’t care less.
The best example I can think of where the race choices really got stupid to the point of offensive was the first “The Last Airbender” movie where the director race swapped the entire fire nation to Indian, made the water nation white when they probably should have been Innuit or something similar, then chose to mispronounce the main characters name to make it sound more ethnic when the source material was in English, so they knew exactly how it should be pronounced.
Then for whatever reason, people got mad that the main character was white when it was the only character animated in such a way they could be white, and the tribe was a nomadic collection of people making it somewhat possible albeit not relevant to the nation theming of the other nations.
Anyways, this triggered my annual Last Airbender rant, so sorry about that.
“Personally, I just want to chalk it up for people being mad for no reason so I can feel safe in my view that racism is over because Barack Obama or something.”
Could this be because people don’t tend to get mad over things they don’t know exist? Naaaaah, must be racism. Anyone who disgagrees that racism is the most likely explanation thinks racism is fake.
What is it with leftists and making mountains out of molehills?
I am a silly little ignorant guy therefore everyone else is a silly little ignorant guy, I am the very model of a modern human.
I’d pull up statistics on movie ticket sales versus comic book sales and point out that the movie outsold the comics by (conservatively) 200 to 1, but there’s no point bringing facts into an argument against a troll.
Most of the media, leading the charge on the outrage, are people who consider themselves fans of the material, and claim they aren’t racist for being upset over the change, just mad that they didn’t respect source. Then you look over their channel and there is not one single video, where they do this, when source material is whitewashed. Even though there is plenty of that, in the stuff they claim they are only upset over, because the source material wasn’t respected.
These are the people who stoke this outrage, they often started as straight fan media, but found out ranting about people of color, and gay people, being in media made a lot more money. Communities centered around the fanbase, for these things, are hotbeds of this behavior. There is no way you can make this argument, about these people. The people introduced to the media, by the movies, get mad because of these people.
I don’t know how you can not know this, and claim enough familiarity with audience statitics to make your argument. So I agree with others saying you are likely going out of your way to make this seem not racist.
In fairness to Tilda Swinton, they decided to entirely rewrite the character to be a Celtic woman instead of a Tibetan man. This was probably to avoid being censored in China, but getting away from the racist 1930s, “oriental mysticism,” trope was probably a good idea. It’s certainly a lot better than letting Jonny Depp pretend to be a Native American because he’s one-eighth Cherokee.
I remember reading he was one third German and sometimes I cannot sleep at night because I am trying to figure out the math. This has been like 15 years ago and it still bugs me.
Sprinkle in a little incest and we are good to go.
I also have no idea, I thought it was all halves of halves.
You can get some odd fractions by two parents having similar lineages. Like, if your mother is Irish, and your great-grandmother on your father’s side is Irish, you would be five-eighths Irish. I’m having trouble finding a combination that gives you thirds, though.
deleted by creator
Gotcha. Three-eighths is roughly one-third, so I guess that? One-quarter German on one side, one-eighth on the other?
deleted by creator
Well, the Ariel thing is basically the same kind of ‘rewrite’.
Also Ariel isn’t even “white”… she’s a mermaid
Well, I think it’s a bit different. The Little Mermaid takes place in an unidentified kingdom on the surface (it seems vaguely Italian or Mediterranean, I guess?) and an underwater Atlantian kingdom, so race doesn’t matter. The original Dr. Strange comics have all sorts of uncomfortable racial and religious tropes; it’s about a white guy who finds magical order Tibetan monks, not only learns their magic, but becomes even better than them at it, and moves to New York with an Asian man-servant named Wong who serves him tea. Changing up the races and backstory on that one isn’t just acceptable, it’s advisable.
Liam Neeson is also like Samual L Jackson.
I don’t give a shit was race the character was originally, the character is about to be transformed into a next level badass.
I have mixed feelings about Liam Neeson in that role. His performance is great, and given that they got rid of the whole, “immortal genius from the Islamic Golden Age,” backstory, I guess the character’s race is less important. It feels very strange that an Irish guy is somehow the leader of a group of Asian ninjas, though.
The Sam Jackson/Nick Fury story is pretty hilarious. When Marvel created the Ultimate Universe in the comics, they changed a lot of characters’ backstories. One of those changes was making Nick Fury black, and one of their artists started drawing him looking a lot like Sam Jackson. Jackson talked to his agents, and Marvel was basically like, “Well, instead of suing us, would Mr. Jackson like to play the character in any future projects?”
Eh, plenty of people voiced issues with the racial (and gender) recast of the Ancient One when Doctor Strange came out.
Tilda Swinton is great btw.
I think that this is making fun of the people who were upset at Ariel being black in the remake. The people this is making fun of don’t care about recasting race until it’s done from a white character to a black one. It’s pointing out hypocrisy.
True, but it is not done in a very genuine way. Each role had people complaining about the changes, the only real difference is the few times a white character is casted black the movie ends up being bad anyways.
only real difference is the few times a white character is casted black the movie ends up being bad anyways.
Shawshank Redemption. In the source novel, Morgan Freeman’ character was a white irish guy. The reasons nobody complained were probably that a. there was no Xitter when the movie hit theaters and b. nobody knows it’s an adaptation anyway.
Same with Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury or whatever The Boys is doing with characters. When the adaptation is good no one really cares.
I have a feeling Hollywood companies intentionally do this to stir discourse and interest in the film when they know the script is weak. You never hear about these things when the movie is good, only when it’s the Ghostbusters reboot or The Little Mermaid.
Ultimate Nick Fury came first and was openly based on SLJ, so people actually liked it.
Most people realized it was done mostly to skirt the Chinese market. I think the major problem with the other groups is the lack of major starpower. I don’t think I can even name a Romani actress.
This is a good point. Casting a genuine Tibetan actor would cause the house of mouse to lose all that sweet china money.
They could’ve still got someone vaguely Asian.
Considering most Americans lose their shit at the slightest hint of an accent, it’s not really surprising.
So what is white if Romani isn’t? I really do not understand the American concept of race, for me they are all humans.
Whiteness, at least from a racist perspective, isn’t really about skin color, it’s more like a club for ‘approved’ ethnicities. There’s many Italians with darker skin than Mexicans, but Italians are considered ‘white’ and Mexicans are not. Same for large parts of the Middle East and Asia.
Romani are white skinned Europeans, but they’re not ‘racist approved’, so they make up rumors they’re actually from Egypt and omit them from the White Club.
The determination for what counts as white is highly inconsistent. Before the 1700s Germans were not considered white. Before the 1800s Irish were not considered white. For a time in the 1900s Finnish people were considered Asian (while many Finns were striking for better working conditions, what an odd coincidence). Italians weren’t considered white until about a hundred years ago. It goes on and on.
Roma people have historically been very persecuted because of racism and ethnocentrism. Case in point: the holocaust killed up to 500,000 Romani people, but the actual figures are not known. Roma people are among the groups that are rarely talked about when the Holocaust is mentioned, despite losing up to 50% of their total population at the time.
Arab and North African folks are usually considered white on the US census but that isn’t really an accurate picture.
Race is a social construct that doesn’t have clear borders. Racial categories mostly exist as a way of creating division and limiting access to resources, to flatten the diversity of individual cultures represented by a racial category… or to inflict direct and systemic violence. The experience of being a racialized person is entirely the creation of the society that a person lives within; for example, African folks usually don’t self-identify as “black,” within Africa, but that’s an important racialized experience that people can speak to in a place like the US.
The American concept is deceptively complex. At first it’s just literally skin color. The Simpsons meme with the cop holding the color swatches is absolutely true. Then it’s about stereotypes. So yeah your skin is light, but are you anything they have a stereotype about? Their entire concept of self relies on stereotypes being true. Otherwise they can’t be smarter just because they’re of pure European descent.
Family Guy, if it was Simpsons they’d be yellow instead of white/pink
Hating Romani is more a European thing.
Even after the white washing debate we got the biggest white wash ever. The Indian ruler of Asia Khan noonien Singh, played by the whitest man in existence. Benedict Cumberbatch.
I feel like that was more a failure of shoe-horning in a reference to the original Star Trek II rather than a casting failure.
Take out the Kahn stuff and keep the same plot and it would be much better.
I absolutely remember people being mad about the first one.
The others not so much. The fantasy movies don’t really matter the same way as a historical movie about slavery does. The fantasy characters are even gender swapped without a problem at conventions.
And yes that means the racists who got mad about Ariel are dumb.
Yeah Marvel characters’ identities don’t usually feel important. Nick Fury was race swapped for the movies and it was well-received.
Why do they only replace characters with red hair?
deleted by creator
My issue is that we are pairing nationality with skin color or ethnicity here. Those are not mutually exclusive. There are 2nd or 3rd generation Asians immigrants in Mexico, just as there are Mexicans living in Ireland, and Irish people in India, etc… Somebody could be a fully integrated national but not part if the nations major ethnicity. Even saying AFRICAN-American is kind of pointless, like it matters where your grand-grand-grand-grand-parents came from. They’re as much American as anybody else. We don’t call everybody else European-American for comparison.
