Can I talk about this modern trend in "diversity casting in TV shows?"

[Samtemdo8]

So you're saying I'd get 10 years of the right not complaining about Diversity in TV and movies?

Ah, never considered that one, I say that could be a win in of itself.

But since you brought that point up, alas I say it be the opposite, 10 years of white people complaining too many black people in media.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I'm not familiar with the lore of A Song of Ice and Fire, but just like with Lord of the Rings, which is getting its own more racially diverse adaptation, you're dealing with a very popular and lucrative IP that seemingly excludes non-white actors. Maybe if there were equally popular IPs that feature only black people or asian people this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but there aren't. So now we're in a situation where whenever the next GoT or LotR project is decided on it's basically 'Yeah, sorry everyone who's non-white, but you can't be part of this unless you want to play an orc or something.'

In fairness to LotR, there are other races in that lore. But they aren't based on color, humans, elves, dwarves, etc. The races are mythical in nature, often used as fantasy placeholders for real life races.

Frankly I think it's sad that people can't look beyond the color of the actors, and see the work for what it is.

If Game of Thrones and LotR are racist, then Black Panther and all of BET's programming must also be racist.

 

[Samtemdo8]

That was not them adding diversity as the character of America Chavez was already hispanic in the comics. They actually lightened her up quite a bit in the movie and straightened out her hair, so one could maybe argue there was actually a bit of colorism going on.

As for the topic itself... I'm absolutely, totally, and utterly fine with this. You can call it racist or ironic racism (though I certainly won't), as it has to do with race, but to at all compare this to the time when people of color where tokenized or just left to the side (which they kinda still are), yeah no. In most popular media white is still very much the default. Look at all the movies and TV shows that have come out this year and the vast majority have white people in the starring role. Heck, I don't even feel the need to look that up, because it's pretty much been that way since always.

I'm not familiar with the lore of A Song of Ice and Fire, but just like with Lord of the Rings, which is getting its own more racially diverse adaptation, you're dealing with a very popular and lucrative IP that seemingly excludes non-white actors. Maybe if there were equally popular IPs that feature only black people or asian people this wouldn't be as much of an issue, but there aren't. So now we're in a situation where whenever the next GoT or LotR project is decided on it's basically 'Yeah, sorry everyone who's non-white, but you can't be part of this unless you want to play an orc or something.'

You can say that these characters are supposed to be white and you'd be right, but then these characters are almost always white. And most of the recurring franchises are from a time when white was unquestionably the default, which would make most non-white actors shit out of luck everytime a new movie or show gets made, unless someone manages to make something on the same scale with the same franchise potential. This type of casting in the new GoT and LotR show feels like people deciding not to wait on that any longer and just make it a bit more fair for non-white actors to actually play in popular fiction. And I'm very much alright with them no longer waiting around and just doing it.

That's exactly what I think is at play here, this is the more real world factor here and not the narrative of the fiction at play.

We want more POC to be in roles that are not traditionally "POC Roles". We want POC people to play as nobles in Medieval Europe-like places instead of being relegated to being either A slave in a plantation, gangster in the ghetto streets of LA, or a Civil Rights Activist fighting against racism in society

Tell me this though, how do you feel with the casting a POC playing a real life historical figure who is in reality white?


(Anne Boleyn , Queen of England and wife of King Henry VIII of England)

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

All I can say is, thank god Black Panther exists. Otherwise if somebody said "but what if we took a movie where most of the cast was black with a token white guy and made them white with a token black guy, people would call that racist!", they wouldn't be able to use a Marvel example.

You *could* make a case against color-blond casting in certain historical dramas where a big part of the character of the people involved

EDIT: fucking hell, tablet did a thing and ate most of my post

 

[CriticalGaming]

Otherwise if somebody said "but what if we took a movie where most of the cast was black with a token white guy and made them white with a token black guy, people would call that racist!", they wouldn't be able to use a Marvel example.

Instead they could use every Tyler Perry movie. Or the Friday movies.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Oh look, another thread about racial diversity in media, and is it condescending, pandering or necessary.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Instead they could use every Tyler Perry movie. Or the Friday movies.

Cute. How many comedies out there with mainly white people and the occasional token black guy?

How come these comments *only* get pulled out when somebody tries to add a bit of color into fantasy media? Where's this energy for the 96 white guy Marvel movies? Do you honestly believe we have and had such a massive imbalance in actor races due to the natural outcome of meritocracy?

EDIT: Incidentally, if I ever publicly say that Chris Pratt is a legitimately good actor, I'm am being held against my will and require rescue

 

[CriticalGaming]

Cute. How many comedies out there with mainly white people and the occasional token black guy?

I dunno. THey usually star The Rock and Kevin Hart though.

 

[Samtemdo8]

EDIT: Incidentally, if I ever publicly say that Chris Pratt is a legitimately good actor, I'm am being held against my will and require rescue

I never liked Chris Pratt as an actor.

All his performances he was just playing himself. And I fear that will be the case with him as MARIO

 

[Schadrach]

For example, Heimdall, in pretty much everything except the MCU, is white.

I mean, one of Heimdallr's descriptions is "the whitest of the gods", and has his origin in Northern Europe, so I don't know why typically depicting him as white should be a shock.

Because all that stuff about artistic freedom apparently doesn't matter when it means making a character black that they'd prefer to be white.

Hypothetical: MCU starts introducing New Warriors characters at some point in the future, would you be OK with it if they cast a white woman as Hummingbird? Do you imagine it would go without upset and outrage from certain corners of the internet? In case you aren't familiar with that character, in the comics she's a Mexican girl and also probably an incarnation of Huītzilōpōchtli (the Aztec deity of war, sun, human sacrifice, and the patron of the city of Tenochtitlan).

ETA: It's a bit dicier when it comes to recasting pre-established characters,

...and you'll notice most of the times you see significant bitching, it involves casting pre-established characters in a way that doesn't at all resemble their existing descriptions. Hell, there wasn't even much complaint about black Nick Fury, mostly because there was an extant black Nick Fury (albeit from a different version of earth than most of the MCU is set in).

That being said, I am reminded when Ghost in the Shell became an American movie starring Scarlett Johansson.

Was opposed to that too. I mean beyond the degree to which I'm opposed to live action adaptations of anime, because they have a general habit of not being very good.

Green Lantern? Robin? Clayface? It happens all the time. But for some reason we get far fewer moans when it's a white dude passing the mantle to a white dude.

Green Lanterns have been multiple races, as well as aliens of basically any description. Also Carol Ferris, Katma Tui, Arisia Rrab, Jennifer Lynn-Hayden and Jessica Cruz for notable female Green Lanterns. Y'know, I'm now tempted to start up the Scribblenauts DC game and see if they're among the 40-odd Green Lanterns that game recognizes. Of course for GL this isn't super surprising, since it's akin to talking about how the mantle of "works for the police" gets passed around, as GL is essentially a job title rather than a single identity.

Robins either age out of the role and take on a new identity to get out of Batman's shadow (Nightwing, Red Robin, Spoiler/Batgirl), or they...don't survive long enough to get there (such as being beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker).

Clayface is admittedly all over the place, although about half of them derived their powers from either experimenting with blood or DNA from another version of Clayface (usually Hagen, or someone who's powers came from Hagen) or in one case being the child of two different versions of Clayface (Cassius). Notably, Cassius' parents met because a villain group composed entirely of versions of Clayface called the Mud Pack formed and both of his parents were members.

Also, at least one woman has been Robin (who later fakes her death and then becomes Spoiler) and at least one woman has been Clayface (Cassius' mother).

Also notably all your examples are DC. Speaking of DC, a movie or (another) series about Static could be cool - for anyone not familiar he's a black superhero with electrical powers. Maybe have him show up as a side character in another movie first to introduce him to people who's familiarity with DC comics is limited.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Anyway, the second half of my post that got ate because apple wanted to be "intuitive":

While color based casting can *potentially* make sense in the case of certain specific period dramas, anywhere else it's just bone stupid. Castlevania figured it out because they remembered that Europe had ports and trade. Can't tell me they both had a road that went from France to Jerusalem and also tell me that nobody ever came back the other way, that'd be asinine.

Lord of the Rings? Yeah, add some color to that shit. It ain't very meritocratic if you can only pick white people in all the non-prosthetic roles. It's not Earth. A genie lamp makes it all the way to Not-Poland in the Witcher but nobody with melanin did? C'mon now. Hell, Delicious in Dungeon/Dungeon Meshi mixes up some skin tones largely because why the hell not? Why wouldn't elves come in a variety of skin tones?

 

[thebobmaster]

I mean, one of Heimdallr's descriptions is "the whitest of the gods", and has his origin in Northern Europe, so I don't know why typically depicting him as white should be a shock.

I wasn't aware of that being one of Heimdall's descriptors. I thought he was just generally assumed white because Norse gods are generally assumed white. I wasn't commenting on that being a bad thing, either. I was just using Heimdall as an example of changing the usual race of a character in a way that didn't come off as pandering or diversity for diversity's sake.

Also, there have been two female Robins that I can think of. Stephanie Brown is the one you mentioned, but before her was Carrie Kelly in The Dark Knight Returns.

As for people complaining only when they don't resemble established counterparts...that's only partially true. Let's just say that when they change race or physical attributes in general, people are a LOT quicker to assume that the character has been betrayed. I still remember all the "Bond, not blonde!" cries when Daniel Craig was cast as James Bond, and then some journalist got a picture of Daniel Craig wearing a life jacket, which somehow translated to him being too cautious to be a believable James Bond.

 

[Casual Shinji]

That's exactly what I think is at play here, this is the more real world factor here and not the narrative of the fiction at play.

We want more POC to be in roles that are not traditionally "POC Roles". We want POC people to play as nobles in Medieval Europe-like places instead of being relegated to being either A slave in a plantation, gangster in the ghetto streets of LA, or a Civil Rights Activist fighting against racism in society

Yep, and I'm totally fine with that.

Tell me this though, how do you feel with the casting a POC playing a real life historical figure who is in reality white?


(Anne Boleyn , Queen of England and wife of King Henry VIII of England)

I think it depends. I'm not really going to lament the historical accuracy, since most historical movies and shows aren't anyway. And judging from this trailer this is primarily going for character drama. Most of these British period pieces do. Downton Abbey has what you could describe as period appropriate racial diversity, but it still absolutely glamorizes the master/servant dynamic in a way that I'm sure servants from that time would have some choice words for.

There is something to say about adding diversity to a time period when black people where still enslaved and how this can glamorize or take the sting out of how truly awful life was for them back then. But like I said, glamorizing the past seems to be part and parcel for British period pieces.

Adding racial diversity to the Nazis during Word War 2 though is probably something that should be avoided at all costs to put it lightly.

In fairness to LotR, there are other races in that lore. But they aren't based on color, humans, elves, dwarves, etc. The races are mythical in nature, often used as fantasy placeholders for real life races.

Yeah, and they're all white, so... I also wouldn't want to describe the different fantasy races as placeholders for real-life races, as it would imply some races are naturally more wise, more corruptable, more greedy, more naive, or just straight-up evil in comparison to others. As is, having a story that appears to be anti-war, but has one side be unquestionably evil with soldiers that were born evil, is already a bit iffy. Not to mention the reverence for royal bloodlines. LotR was a product of its time, and I believe even Tolkien eventually admitted to having made a mistake with the depiction of the orcs.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Hell, there wasn't even much complaint about black Nick Fury, mostly because there was an extant black Nick Fury

Also because everyone loves Samuel J Jackson, and frankly this serves one of the original points in this thread in that nobody cares what race the actor is so long as their performance is fitting to the role. Sam was fantastic as he is in almost everything he does. If anything he serves as an example of how people don't care about the race of the character if the character is good.

I mean, one of Heimdallr's descriptions is "the whitest of the gods"

But Edris Elba is fucking awesome too. So it's all good, also Heimdall is pretty obscure so i dunno how many people would know what his original depiction should or should not be.

Was opposed to that too. I mean beyond the degree to which I'm opposed to live action adaptations of anime, because they have a general habit of not being very good.

But if they had made a good adaptation, I doubt anyone would have cared. It shows just how much gets highlighted when a film or show sucks.

Also notably all your examples are DC. Speaking of DC, a movie or (another) series about Static could be cool - for anyone not familiar he's a black superhero with electrical powers. Maybe have him show up as a side character in another movie first to introduce him to people who's familiarity with DC comics is limited.

Black Adam is happening and he's basically if Superman was Black. So that's kind of already happening.

 

[Worgen]

This thread is too convoluted.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Also because everyone loves Samuel J Jackson, and frankly this serves one of the original points in this thread in that nobody cares what race the actor is so long as their performance is fitting to the role. Sam was fantastic as he is in almost everything he does. If anything he serves as an example of how people don't care about the race of the character if the character is good.

I think more to the point of the thread is that if we had had slavish devotion to the source material regarding race and color, we would've been denied Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury and Idris Elba's Heimdall.

And that would've been a shame.

 

[CriticalGaming]

I think more to the point of the thread is that if we had had slavish devotion to the source material regarding race and color, we would've been denied Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury and Idris Elba's Heimdall.

And that would've been a shame.

Nick Fury originally wasn't black, but didn't they cannonically make him black well before the films? I'm not 100% on that but i think so....hold up wiki time!

Yes he was. In the Ultimately series (which served as a "modern" of Marvel story lines) Nick Fury was a black man in a premere issue in 2000 eight years before the first marvel cinematic universe film in 2008 with Iron Man 1.

 

[CM156]

Potentially stupid opinion of mine: Any role should be open to any person, regardless of gender, race, age, etc.
If you wanted to do a remake of Der Untergang with Leslie Jones as Hitler, there is literally nothing wrong with that.
I understand that there are various historical reasons people might be against this, why it's not currently attainable, and that I'm clearly not advocating a return of minstrel shows. But this sort of thing should be the goal.

 

[thebobmaster]

Nick Fury originally wasn't black, but didn't they cannonically make him black well before the films? I'm not 100% on that but i think so....hold up wiki time!

Yes he was. In the Ultimately series (which served as a "modern" of Marvel story lines) Nick Fury was a black man in a premere issue in 2000 eight years before the first marvel cinematic universe film in 2008 with Iron Man 1.

Fun fact: SLJ specifically gave them permission to model the Ultimate Universe Nick Fury after himself so that when they made a movie, he'd have an in to get the role.

 

[CriticalGaming]

Fun fact: SLJ specifically gave them permission to model the Ultimate Universe Nick Fury after himself so that when they made a movie, he'd have an in to get the role.

The man has good taste