I really hope they make a Black Panther movie! He has been a favourite of mine for forty years.
If they do, would it be okay to cast a white actor to play the Black Panther?
Would it makes sense for a white guy to inherit the role of supreme monarch and religious leader of an isolationist African nation that has assiduously avoided outside influence and regards all outsiders with a great deal of suspicion?
Because comics are a highly visual medium, I understand the desire to have characters match how they are usually drawn, but a teenager/young adult from New York being black isn't exactly going to change much about the character.
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I don't care that Johnny Storm is black. There's nothing about Johnny Storm that requires he be white, if the Storm family is a mixed family that's cool too.
I do care that the Ever-Loving Blue Eyed Thing, terror of Yancy Street is a skinny british dude. "I do believe it is clobbering time old chaps." Doesn't have the same ring to it.
Milady, 'tis the clobbering hour.I don't care that Johnny Storm is black. There's nothing about Johnny Storm that requires he be white, if the Storm family is a mixed family that's cool too.
I do care that the Ever-Loving Blue Eyed Thing, terror of Yancy Street is a skinny british dude. "I do believe it is clobbering time old chaps." Doesn't have the same ring to it.
Can't... Stop... Laughing...
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Yeah, Doom is defined a lot by the methods and the mindset. Lawful Evil to a T. And the mask, in a sense. Anybody can wear the mask and the green cloak, and it's iconic.
And Doom is a megalomaniac genius, not a businessman accidentally endowed with electromagnetic powers and a bad case of metallic eczema.
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Because comics are a highly visual medium, I understand the desire to have characters match how they are usually drawn, but a teenager/young adult from New York being black isn't exactly going to change much about the character.
It actually kinda will in this case. It's a small change that triggers a minor avalanche of necessary changes.
Change: Johnny is black. No necessary changes in mannerisms. Neat.
Change: Since Sue is still white, Johnny MUST be adopted (unless they pull a leaf from Shameless' book or have him be the product of infidelity).
Change: Either of those necessitates a change in backstory, SOME kind of tragedy inserted in there that didn't exist before. Most likely that his parents either abandoned him or were killed.
Change: Because of the above, I sincerely doubt the writers will be able to resist the sweet lure of including a sub-plot of him dealing with "Not being Sue's real sibling", finding his parents, yadda yadda. There will be, I guarantee it, a scene where Johnny and Sue get real mad at each other and he says "Yeah? Well you're not my real sister, so butt out of it!" and then she'll look dramatically at the camera, open mouthed and distraught.
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I figure the meeting on this one went thusly:
- We can't make Reed black because he's the smart one!
- We can't make Sue black either, because then we'd have to make her a "sassy black woman". That doesn't really fit the comics and Queen Latifa is both too fat and too busy!
- Well, we can't make Thing black because he's a big orange monster.
- We could just make him speak ebonics! "It be clobberin' time, yo."
- Shut up, Dave.
- That leaves Johnny, the fun loving, not-too-bright prankster.
- (In Unison) Perfect!
In a recent fantastic four (can't tell you the number or series because marvel has f'd it up so bad I have no idea of either)the FF run into an alternate time line FF that is all black and I believe Sue and Johnny aren't related. Why not just go that route if you are going to change things. (and I don't mean Things):)
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Hm. I could see them (Sue and Johnny) as step-siblings. Second marriages for both parents.
And Doom is a megalomaniac genius, not a businessman accidentally endowed with electromagnetic powers and a bad case of metallic eczema.
Yeah, Doom is defined a lot by the methods and the mindset. Lawful Evil to a T. And the mask, in a sense. Anybody can wear the mask and the green cloak, and it's iconic.
And don't forget he is also a mother f-ing sorcerer...people often for this...
And don't forget he is also a mother f-ing sorcerer...people often for this...And Doom is a megalomaniac genius, not a businessman accidentally endowed with electromagnetic powers and a bad case of metallic eczema.
Yeah, Doom is defined a lot by the methods and the mindset. Lawful Evil to a T. And the mask, in a sense. Anybody can wear the mask and the green cloak, and it's iconic.
I am well aware. Genius does not preclude sorcery. Iron-fisted autocrat is also on his C.V.
And don't forget he is also a mother f-ing sorcerer...people often for this...And Doom is a megalomaniac genius, not a businessman accidentally endowed with electromagnetic powers and a bad case of metallic eczema.
Yeah, Doom is defined a lot by the methods and the mindset. Lawful Evil to a T. And the mask, in a sense. Anybody can wear the mask and the green cloak, and it's iconic.
...Well "mother loving" at least ... since he clearly loved mumsy ...
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Because comics are a highly visual medium, I understand the desire to have characters match how they are usually drawn, but a teenager/young adult from New York being black isn't exactly going to change much about the character.
It actually kinda will in this case. It's a small change that triggers a minor avalanche of necessary changes.
Change: Johnny is black. No necessary changes in mannerisms. Neat.
Change: Since Sue is still white, Johnny MUST be adopted (unless they pull a leaf from Shameless' book or have him be the product of infidelity).
Change: Either of those necessitates a change in backstory, SOME kind of tragedy inserted in there that didn't exist before. Most likely that his parents either abandoned him or were killed.
Change: Because of the above, I sincerely doubt the writers will be able to resist the sweet lure of including a sub-plot of him dealing with "Not being Sue's real sibling", finding his parents, yadda yadda. There will be, I guarantee it, a scene where Johnny and Sue get real mad at each other and he says "Yeah? Well you're not my real sister, so butt out of it!" and then she'll look dramatically at the camera, open mouthed and distraught.
I like that Sue being white means that Johnny must be the adopted one ... And that it apparently means that they're going to have to dwell on their backstory rather than just nodding to it and getting on with the show.
Fist, what's wrong with Johnny or Sue being adopted? Does it mean that they're going to love each other any less? What does it really change about their backstory in a functional way?
Second, the idea that Johnny must be adopted? What? People have half siblings of a different race, such situations exist in my own family, it's 2014, are we going to pretend that such a thing doesn't happen? That it can only be a result of infidelity?
Heck, for that matter it's possible, if somewhat rare, that a multi-racial child primarily exhibits phenotypes of one particular race. A half back/half white man or woman who has a child with a white man or woman can have a white skinned, blonde hair, blue eyed child who can easily "pass" for white without even trying. The same parents could have another child who is very dark with the traditional West African phenotypes. So it's entirely possible that this Sue and Johnny are full siblings.
Also, Johnny and Sue already have a tragic backstory in the comics. Their mother died in a car crash and their father crawled in to a bottle in the aftermath and basically abandoned them. Is Johnny or Sue being adopted or half siblings is really going to constitute a tragedy?
Johnny is also a hot head who gets angry and says asinine things all the time, so I'm not sure why the idea of such a scene has anyone worked up. The Evans/Alba pair had a scene with him yelling at her to leave him alone and that she's not "mom".
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The problem with all that is about storytelling. There's some saying about 'If you show a gun in act one it has to be fired by act three', or something like that. If Johnny is inexplicably black then you have some explaining to do. If you explain it, then it must be important to the story or it shouldn't be in the story!
But the FF movie shouldn't be about that! There's so much story to mine in he history of these characters that making up something so mundane out of left field simply takes away from the Fantastic Four.
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The problem with all that is about storytelling. There's some saying about 'If you show a gun in act one it has to be fired by act three', or something like that. If Johnny is inexplicably black then you have some explaining to do. If you explain it, then it must be important to the story or it shouldn't be in the story!
But the FF movie shouldn't be about that! There's so much story to mine in he history of these characters that making up something so mundane out of left field simply takes away from the Fantastic Four.
Nothing about Johnny being black needs to be explained.
"Johnny and Susan Storm are members of a mixed family."
That's the end of that. You don't need anything more than that. Can they go fight the Mole Man now, or whatever. Nobody has to be adopted, there doesn't have to be the product of multiple marriages. They are a mixed family: The end.
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If you explain it, then it must be important to the story or it shouldn't be in the story!
For some reason, that reminded me of almost every Jean-Claude Van Dam movie where they have to take time at the beginning to explain his accent. (Yes, he's an American martial arts and yoga instructor [see! he can do the splits!] but he was raised in the Netherlands which is why he talks like that.)
They didn't even try to explain it in Bloodsport, where he's playing Frank Dux, who was born in Toronto and raised in California. In the flashbacks to when he's a teenager, they just made the kid playing him fake his accent. *facepalm*
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Sam Jackson as Nick Fury I think works awesome. The Ultimate version of Nick Fury was pretty much designed to be played by Jackson and it works
There's no "pretty much" about it. While the original Ultimate Nick Fury didn't look like Jackson, they redesigned him a short time later to be an almost 100% clone of him. I've heard it told alternately that they either approached him and asked him for permission to use his likeness, or that he was unaware of it but when he found out he secured the right to play Fury in any movie that took place in the Ultimate universe. It's probably a mixture of both situations.
To add another Hispanic/Latino Marvel hero to the mix, would Magma/Amara Aquilla count? She's supposed to be from a fake mini-country near Brazil, after all. But I think they're supposed to have been Romans or something, so maybe she doesn't fully count.
No, she doesn't count. Her family and culture are essentially disparate Romans.
I don't understand the rawr the race doesn't mater make Peter/Johnny/Nick/The saytr from Percy Jackson black.
Huh make black panther/Luke Cage/insert any black/ Hispanic hero white? Your a horrible racist trying to whitewash comics of course their race is important!!!!!! *rageslashsmash*
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Black Panther is king of an African nation, his identity is tied to his race. Blackness is a pert of his character.
Luke Cage is a character tied to the racial hardships faced by African Americans in Urban America. Blackness is a part of his character.
Johnny Storm is a hot-headed college bro who is sometimes on fire: Race plays no part in his characterisation. Race is not part of his character.
Are you saying you can't do Luke Cage based around the hardships faced by white Americans in Urban America?
Racist.
Ahh so only non-white is an important part of the character gotcha.
Plenty of non-blacks in Africa, oh and Luke Cage is now white and had to deal with being a white kid in an all black neighborhood. Bam all fixed.
Ninja'd by a bald monk...who'd a guessed.
Are you saying you can't do Luke Cage based around the hardships faced by white Americans in Urban America?
Racist.
Considering his origin story, it would be quite difficult.
Bah origin smorigin those are like socks changed everyday.
Considering his origin story, it would be quite difficult.
Naw, come now. Changing him to white won't change much.
I'm sure with enough effort I can justify any change it might make.
Heck, for that matter it's possible, if somewhat rare, that a multi-racial child primarily exhibits phenotypes of one particular race. A half back/half white man or woman who has a child with a white man or woman can have a white skinned, blonde hair, blue eyed child who can easily "pass" for white without even trying. The same parents could have another child who is very dark with the traditional West African phenotypes. So it's entirely possible that this Sue and Johnny are full siblings.
That would be sorta-kinda what I was referring to when I said "Pull a Shameless".
An entirely white family gave birth to a black child. No infidelity involved.
Ahh so only non-white is an important part of the character gotcha.
Plenty of non-blacks in Africa, oh and Luke Cage is now white and had to deal with being a white kid in an all black neighborhood. Bam all fixed.
Most definitely not fixed and pretty shameless too. Engaging in color-blind casting for characters where race was never an issue or a central aspect of their character is one thing - changing the race of a character whose story specifically involves race and were methods their creators used to address race relations in their stories would be a racist act or at least be extremely tone deaf with regard to racism.
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See, I'm saying leave all races as is I don't want to switch them in anyway shape or form. I want Luke Cage black I want Black Panther black I want Storm black.
And in the same way I want Peter Parker white, Johnny Storm white, annoying Saytr kid white...though it seems I only get to keep one of those.
I have no problem with a black Spider-Man or black human torch "if" their names are not Peter Parker or Johnny Storm.
Also I did not mean that would be a good thing I was being sarcastic.
Edit:
Why is it that it's color blind casting if the character was white but it can't go the other way.
Tell me a character who was created black that you'd be ok with being played by a white actor.
Hugh Laurie is an amazing example of this. I had no idea he wasn't American while watching 6 seasons of House.I don't care that Johnny Storm is black. There's nothing about Johnny Storm that requires he be white, if the Storm family is a mixed family that's cool too.
I do care that the Ever-Loving Blue Eyed Thing, terror of Yancy Street is a skinny british dude. "I do believe it is clobbering time old chaps." Doesn't have the same ring to it.
Actors have been known to go to these people called dialect coaches to learn to speak with different accents than their own.
Or sometimes they change their accent on their own - it's not like you can tell that Patrick Stewart's from Barnsley.
A little closer to the subject matter, Andrew Garfield is British (well born in US, raised in UK)...
Why is it that it's color blind casting if the character was white but it can't go the other way.Tell me a character who was created black that you'd be ok with being played by a white actor.
The reason it's color blind casting for white characters is because white characters were the default norm. Race, and for many characters also ethnic group, is never mentioned nor particularly important (one might make the exception for Captain America because of the historical segregation of the US armed forces in WWII). But for most characters written to be non-white, their ethnic group or race have been written as important. In the case of the comics, most of them have been specifically introduced by the authors (mostly white) to address the lack of diversity, address race relations in the stories through the eyes of minority characters, and broaden the appeal of their comics. You'd probably be best off looking at much newer, late 20th century-early 21st century fiction to find examples written as members of other races but where the race issue isn't important to the story - for example Angelina Johnson or Dean Thomas or even Cho Chang in the Harry Potter books.
But even then you'd have to weather the firestorm of having characters that reflect the diversity of their home cultures white-washed - unless you're turning other characters around like Hermione Granger, Harry Potter, Neville Longbottom, or Albus Dumbledore - none of whom need to be white for their stories to work.
So I guess that's a "no" there are no black characters your ok with changing?
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See, this is why I have a problem with the idea of Spider-Man being cast as black. It wouldn't fit the story at all. The idea of a black kid growing up poor in New York as part of a non-traditional family is completely outside the realm of reality. Who would actually buy into something so fantastical?
The reason why it's generally not considered as big a deal to cast a black person for a white character as it is for vice versa, is because there are so few actual black characters in comics, especially since the Marvel movie universe has been divvied up between 3 studios. I would also agree with the above posters...black characters in comics often had race as a crucial element of their backstory/history, something white characters (with the exception of Captain America) generally didn't
So yeah, taking one of the few black characters, and making them white, is going to be a much more significant issue than taking one of something like a couple hundred white characters, and changing his/her race.
At any rate, I still hold to the view that I find the revamping of the storyline towards younger characters (Yes, I know it follows Ultimates) and casting of The Thing far more worrying than changing the race of one of the Storm siblings. And we have still yet to hear the casting for Dr. Doom....
Funny I'm the opposite I'm ok with someone else playing Spider-Man and not being white but Peter I want white.
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See, this is why I have a problem with the idea of Spider-Man being cast as black. It wouldn't fit the story at all. The idea of a black kid growing up poor in New York as part of a non-traditional family is completely outside the realm of reality. Who would actually buy into something so fantastical?As for Spider-Man, I wouldn't have real problem with Parker being cast as black, as long as they kept him the basically the same nerdy kid he was and didn't try to make a racial thing out of it.
I'm not fond of making someone else Spider-Man, as in the Ultimates, because I like Parker and am not really interested in someone else who happens to have the same set of powers. Whatever race that other person is.
You've chipped through all the irony in my statement and uncovered what I was actually saying. Well done.
So I guess that's a "no" there are no black characters your ok with changing?Off the top of my head:
Green Lantern John Stewart,
War Machine James Rhodes
Captain Marvel Monica Rambeau
Bishop (X-Man from the future)I'm sure I could think of others. All of them would require some changes most likely, but nothing as dramatic as Luke Cage or the Black Panther, characters who were intentionally created to be black.
That's something of a problem in itself since they are in many ways exaggerated stereotypes, especially at first.That's true of a lot of the earlier black superhero characters, since they were introduced specifically to fill black roles or address racial issues. Often fairly clumsily. Most of them couldn't be easily switched out to be white. Sometimes in the most obvious fashion: It wouldn't make sense to have a white Black Lighting, for example. He was Black Lightning because he was black.
The only problem with some of the more recent, less racially focused characters would be that the superhero universes are still heavily white, especially the big name characters since they largely date to the early all-white days. Swapping any of the major black characters to be white just makes that worse. Though if you were swapping roles around, so that Hal Jordan was black and John Stewart was white for example, that wouldn't be a problem
that John was black and Hal was white was a major part of green Lantern mosaic, the most important comic I have ever read. Issue number five, IIRC.
John Stewart and Rhodes definitely wouldn't be the same as white characters.
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Why is it that it's color blind casting if the character was white but it can't go the other way.Tell me a character who was created black that you'd be ok with being played by a white actor.
1) Because it perpetuates the idea that white is the default, and black needs justification or explanation. Also it's annoying that people aren't getting nearly as worked up about Ben Grimm being played by a gentile. Which shows that hypocrisy can be very specific indeed.
2) A lot of people seem okay with Jesus being played by a white actor. But I wouldn't rob anybody of seeing someone who looks like them being heroic, cool and powerful. White people (specifically white males) have plenty of examples of that.
I didn't even know about those two.
Really? I haven't read a single issue of X-Men, and even I knew Magneto's a Holocaust-survivor. (Although I suppose that strictly speaking, based just on that, it could mean that he's one or more of gay, socialist, communist, or Romani, instead.)
And the above is not meant to be snarky - although I fear I rolled a 1 on that skill-check. :(
(Although I suppose that strictly speaking, based just on that, it could mean that he's one or more of gay, socialist, communist, or Romani, instead.)
Or, more likely, related to one of the above.
1) Because it perpetuates the idea that white is the default, and black needs justification or explanation. Also it's annoying that people aren't getting nearly as worked up about Ben Grimm being played by a gentile. Which shows that hypocrisy can be very specific indeed.
I'm not sure it's technically hypocrisy because, quite often, the kerfuffle comes from different groups and people who can be expected to have different views, rather than one group acting inconsistently.
For example, consider Memoirs of a Geisha. There was quite a complaint raised that they had cast Chinese actors for some of the Japanese roles - as if all Asians look alike to Hollywood. But that's really the same practice Hollywood has followed for white roles - white people are generally interchangeable regardless of ethnic or national background. While that may be fine for the suits at the studios, for the Japanese complainers, this was a major issue since it was a film focusing on their culture, not Chinese culture and there's actually a pretty big gulf between the two.
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Why is it that it's color blind casting if the character was white but it can't go the other way.Tell me a character who was created black that you'd be ok with being played by a white actor.
1) Because it perpetuates the idea that white is the default, and black needs justification or explanation. Also it's annoying that people aren't getting nearly as worked up about Ben Grimm being played by a gentile. Which shows that hypocrisy can be very specific indeed.
2) A lot of people seem okay with Jesus being played by a white actor. But I wouldn't rob anybody of seeing someone who looks like them being heroic, cool and powerful. White people (specifically white males) have plenty of examples of that.
Thank You.
Personally I'm torn about the casting. I thought despite the overall crappyness of the last two FF movies, the casting of Chris Evans as Johnny Storm and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm were PERFECT.
Sue and Reed? Meh. But DOOM? How do you screw up DOOM?!? I mean really?
Would I have been bothered by a white guy playing Johnny Storm? No. Would I have been less inclined to go see the movie? I dont know.
I find as I get older and am raising a 12 year old black boy in America I find that I'm more interested in him seeing movies and media with people who look like us in them in heroic roles. It doesn't mean that I wont take him to see the typical whitewashed Hollywood fare.
He was already interested in seeing Captain America: Winter Soldier but after seeing The Falcon in action in the latest trailer ("WHO WAS THAT?!?)he's really eager to see it. That coupled with the mystery (and coolness) of the Winter Soldier is going to guarantee that were there opening weekend.
It was telling that in Pacific Rim that we both thought that Stacker Pentecost, Mako Mori and Dr. Newton were our favorite characters.
Growing up my heroes were the white guys because outside of blacksploitation films THAT'S ALL THERE WAS. And I remember really being drawn to Bruce Lee over everyone else because here was this Chinese d00d who was completely BAD@55 and cool. AND he got the girl. AND he didn't take crap off ANYBODY.
I looked NOTHING like him. But because we was NOT the default white heroic character and had presence and was awesome I was drawn to him as a kid. It's not like I abandoned The Man with No Name or Han Solo or Indiana Jones.
The truth is that in mainstream media, especially with comic books that white and male is the default. The arguments made for changing the ethnicity of the VERY FEW black characters of note comes across like petty revenge considering the plethora of white characters out there.
The bottom line also is that the majority of the white male comic buying public WILL NOT support a black hero who has their own ongoing title no matter how good the quality of the actual book is. The Christopher Priest run of Black Panther proved that fairly definitively. The only reason that that book had the long run that it did was because Joey Q loved and believed in it SO MUCH.
I love super hero comics. Not so much the fandom.
I know that it's primarily a white male hobby. I've been collecting and reading comics since I was SIX. I'm FORTY-TWO now. Was I wrong all that time?
I often feel that my peers who derided me for playing RPG's because it was a "White" thing were probably right as well. And honsetly I've been doing some soul searching over the past few years as to whether or not to involve my son in the RPG hobby. We play a lot of boardgames but I don't think that I'm as willing to involve him in a hobby that is making a lot of headway in one form of inclusiveness (women & LGBT) and is HORRIBLY backwards (Paizo kind of being the exception) in others (in terms of racial inclusion).
He doesn't read mainstream comics so I guess he dodged that bullet. Then again very few kids his age care about super hero comics. It's not like they dont read but theyre reading manga. Which despite the homogeneity of the characters in those the fan base tends to be more diverse than that of the American comic fandom.
I often feel that my peers who derided me for playing RPG's because it was a "White" thing were probably right as well. And honsetly I've been doing some soul searching over the past few years as to whether or not to involve my son in the RPG hobby. We play a lot of boardgames but I don't think that I'm as willing to involve him in a hobby that is making a lot of headway in one form of inclusiveness (women & LGBT) and is HORRIBLY backwards (Paizo kind of being the exception) in others (in terms of racial inclusion).
That's an interesting comment. Where do you think RPGs are going backwards? Since I'm buying so much Paizo, I'm not looking into too many other these days and was wondering if there's something going on that I'm missing. Is it in the games and industry or in the local environment (or both)?
Very enlightening post Shin. Thank you.