Finn Jones cast as Iron Fist, people inexplicably take offence to his race

[Godzillarich(aka tf2godz)]

Iron Fist Was a dammed if you do, damned if you don't type situation, I wouldn't have blame them if they went either way on his race. I'm just wondering how they're going to handle it from this point

 

[DrownedAmmet]

I was hoping for an Asian Iron Fist. I was also hoping for Miles Morales for the new Spider-Man, so I wasn't too surprised.

I'm a little bummed. I'll probably still like it, though Netflix Marvel shows are on a good streak

 

[JimB]

Wanting your ethnic group to be represented by a character whose background is based off exposure to legends inspired by your ethnic group is not "prejudice against whitey," or whatever the hell people are on about. It's about wanting to grant some legitimacy to that kind of cultural appropriation by letting someone from that culture reap the benefits of that appropriation.

 

[StreamerDarkly]

Wait, bully? You consider petitions to be bullying?

The general idea of online petitions is to give the appearance of a much greater consensus than actually exists by bringing in people who've no real care about the issue. Social media makes this quite easy. Whether you want to call it bullying or not, you're certainly attempting to force a company's hand, and on topic like race there is a clear threat of negative publicity whether it's justified or not. The non-bullying option would be to just write your opinion pieces and trust they're good enough to convince people without resorting to a petition.

Boy there's a lot here. You say "correct" in quotation marks as though nothing was corrected. What did I fail to correct? I'm pretty sure the link I gave is the correct one and is working.

You say "making lame jokes among themselves", so "among themselves" seems like there's some sort of little group or something? I take it that's what you're implying there, yes? So uh, where's the "among themselves" here? Is everyone I quote just part of this little group? Or is it people that quote me?

The link is not the issue. But since you bring it up, the original poster is by no means obligated to change an archive link to the main site as you seem to assume. It's clear you prefer to try to bait me into an insult instead of addressing the point I raised. Poor form.

You go all over the place here. What's problematic is that he thinks a character should be a certain race and that's discrimination? So, under your logic there, doesn't that mean if anyone thinks any character should be a certain race they're discriminating against every other race, therefore making it impossible to not discriminate?

Come now. It should be quite obvious that there are legitimate reasons for hiring actors of certain races for specific parts (setting, continuity, etc.). What we have here is different - the author tacitly admits that whitey would be a perfectly valid choice but then gives some contrived reasons why it should instead be an Asian American. He's arguing for a diversity choice instead of something that could legitimately improve the art.

You then say there's a "clear agenda" which makes it "difficult to take the rationalizations seriously", so does that mean if there was a vague agenda it'd be easier? I mean you say a lot there but it's incoherent. I mean lets really break down what you said:

"When you start with a conclusion.. there's a clear agenda..". Well uh yes, of course. I mean I can say "I think this wall should be painted blue" and I'm pretty sure it's because I want the wall to be painted blue. It's a pretty clear agenda, so your sentence there was completely redundant. A very round about way of saying nothing.

"..and it becomes difficult to take the rationalizations seriously". So in other words if I said "I think this wall should be painted blue" it would become "difficult to take the rationalizations seriously" because I "started with a conclusion" which meant I had "a clear agenda". Don't you see how incoherent that is? You said a lot of things but none of it made any sense, you're effectively saying that people shouldn't ask for anything because it'd be "difficult to take the rationalizations seriously" if they do. That's just bizarre.

Really? The clear agenda - that is, to get a minority hired because it's the 'progressive' thing to do - is exactly why the rationalizations that follow should be treated with skepticism. Is this not a natural reaction when someone asks you to do something out of their own self-interest instead of your own best interests? In this case, Marvel's best interest is to make the highest quality movie they can instead of limiting the talent pool by means of race discrimination. Not sure why you think the phrasing is some sort of "gotcha", but apparently you feel qualified to be dispensing lectures on logic and sentence structure.

 

[JimB]

Really? The clear agenda--that is, to get a minority hired because it's the 'progressive' thing to do--is exactly why the rationalizations that follow should be treated with skepticism. Is this not a natural reaction when someone asks you to do something out of their own self-interest instead of your own best interests?

If you think an actor who is not you and whose hiring you will in no way ever profit from is your self-interests, then it seems to me you treat race as a collective all of whom are being hurt by letting an Asian dude play a magic kung fu master who learned how to punch from a dragon in Shangrila. When you approach race from a stance of aggressive conflict like that, it's hard for me, at least, to believe your skepticism is based on anything other than a desire to "win" the race wars so everyone else loses.

 

[Simonism451]

Wanting your ethnic group to be represented by a character whose background is based off exposure to legends inspired by your ethnic group is not "prejudice against whitey," or whatever the hell people are on about. It's about wanting to grant some legitimacy to that kind of cultural appropriation by letting someone from that culture reap the benefits of that appropriation.

To be fair, if the cultural appropriation in question boils down mostly to "fancy martial arts+some vaguely exploitative mysticism", making Iron Fist the first Asian MCU hero brings its own set of problems with it by playing to an (arguably) even more pervasive stereotype than the White Saviour trope.

I can't really see Marvel "winning" this one on a casting level, aside from making Iron Fist an ethnicity other than white or asian (which would still be some kind of appropriation, although less egregious than what's currently being done), which certainly is an option, but, I'd argue, from what little I've seen of the character in the actual comic books, his status as an ultra privileged rich white dude actually greatly informs the dynamic of his relationship to Luke Cage, who's the exact opposite (well, still a dude), and would, if handled well, give them a chance to actually say some interesting thing about privilege and race, making, if not for a greater representation of asian people in pop-culture, at least for a good piece of media.

 

[JimB]

To be fair, if the cultural appropriation in question boils down mostly to "fancy martial arts+some vaguely exploitative mysticism", making Iron Fist the first Asian MCU hero brings its own set of problems with it by playing to an (arguably) even more pervasive stereotype than the White Saviour trope.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of "Asians with magic kung fu powers." I kind of cringed with the old woman whose name I forget punched Daredevil back twenty feet. But I do think it's less goofy than White Saviour, and it's not like the MCU isn't white enough as is.

I can't really see Marvel "winning" this one on a casting level, aside from making Iron Fist an ethnicity other than white or Asian (which would still be some kind of appropriation, although less egregious than what's currently being done), which certainly is an option, but, I'd argue, from what little I've seen of the character in the actual comic books, his status as an ultra-privileged rich white dude actually greatly informs the dynamic of his relationship to Luke Cage, who's the exact opposite (well, still a dude), and would, if handled well, give them a chance to actually say some interesting thing about privilege and race, making, if not for a greater representation of Asian people in pop-culture, at least for a good piece of media.

Asian people can be rich too, and from what I've heard (which comes with a huge asterisk attached that I don't know many people who are culturally Asian to ask them, so this is based on things I've picked up from media), a lot of Asian cultures have just as much prejudice against black people as Americans. Americans might not get it the parallels right away, though.

 

[TheJebus]

No one, not even japs, gave, and still don't give two shits until SJWs got their claws on it.

More racist pandemonium... yay.

 

[JimB]

No one, not even japs, gave, and still don't give two shits until SJWs got their claws on it.

So, no one cared until people cared? And here you are decrying people caring by caring enough to create an account to speak up, while using a racial pejorative term for Japanese people as apparently indicative of the feelings of all Asian people regardless of national origin? And you further have the gall to decry the people who disagree with you as being racist while you are using pejorative terms?

Right.

 

[Cowabungaa]

So in short: instead of casting an Asian actor for one of the few Asian Marvel heroes, they got a white actor?

Yeah, I agree; that's dumb.

Come on people, it's not complicated. Minorities are pretty underrepresented in our cultural expressions. This is just making that worse. That's not good because it skews public perception of minorities. We live in a very plural society, but the media we consume does not adequately reflect that. We miss valuable viewpoints like that, viewpoints that fuel understanding and dialogue between demographic groups. Understanding and dialogue we desperately need.

Decisions like this undermine that, even if they're probably not consciously racist.

 

[Simonism451]

To be fair, if the cultural appropriation in question boils down mostly to "fancy martial arts+some vaguely exploitative mysticism", making Iron Fist the first Asian MCU hero brings its own set of problems with it by playing to an (arguably) even more pervasive stereotype than the White Saviour trope.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of "Asians with magic kung fu powers." I kind of cringed with the old woman whose name I forget punched Daredevil back twenty feet. But I do think it's less goofy than White Saviour, and it's not like the MCU isn't white enough as is.

I can't really see Marvel "winning" this one on a casting level, aside from making Iron Fist an ethnicity other than white or Asian (which would still be some kind of appropriation, although less egregious than what's currently being done), which certainly is an option, but, I'd argue, from what little I've seen of the character in the actual comic books, his status as an ultra-privileged rich white dude actually greatly informs the dynamic of his relationship to Luke Cage, who's the exact opposite (well, still a dude), and would, if handled well, give them a chance to actually say some interesting thing about privilege and race, making, if not for a greater representation of Asian people in pop-culture, at least for a good piece of media.

Asian people can be rich too, and from what I've heard (which comes with a huge asterisk attached that I don't know many people who are culturally Asian to ask them, so this is based on things I've picked up from media), a lot of Asian cultures have just as much prejudice against black people as Americans. Americans might not get it the parallels right away, though.

From what I've heard about the direction the Luke Cage series is taking, it supposedly deals fairly explicitly with issues such as police shootings and racial profiling in an American context, so, if Cage's "themes" remain the same in the Iron Fist series or the eventual Defenders thingamajig, it will probably resonate more/make more sense if Danny Rand is true to the classic "american" picture of privilege. But I'll admit that all that justifying of Marvel's choice is pretty much based on speculation and Jessica Jones being apparently not that awful with its treatment of minority issues.

I think Iron Fist without major changes to his character might just be "problematic" without any real way around it, so I think the best way to treat his story is to tackle/subvert those problematic aspects head on.

But, admittedly, I'm saying that as a fairly well-off, bisexual-by-boner-only white guy who isn't a member of any religious minority and who, although understanding why people want to see greater diversity and having no problem with it, isn't actually tired yet of being sold stories about straight white dudes having magical adventures in "exotic" lands, so make of that what you will.

Edit:

So in short: instead of casting an Asian actor for one of the few Asian Marvel heroes, they got a white actor?

Yeah, I agree; that's dumb.

Come on people, it's not complicated. Minorities are pretty underrepresented in our cultural expressions. This is just making that worse. That's not good because it skews public perception of minorities. We live in a very plural society, but the media we consume does not adequately reflect that. We miss valuable viewpoints like that, viewpoints that fuel understanding and dialogue between demographic groups.

Decisions like this undermine that, even if they're probably not consciously racist.

Iron Fist is white in the comics.

 

[runic knight]

Anyone else get a very hypocritical feel when reading the piece there when they start to complain about the "white savior" thing? Not the trope itself, (the whole outsider saves the world thing is pretty common, especially when people remove the race thing from it and see it outside of black and white),but the way they describe how the white martial artist character "out asians the asians", effectively relying on a stereotype itself in order to justify a rather racist argument that they should change the character's ethnicity because it would be better for diversity sake. Something about the reliance on such stereotypes from someone pushing a racist agenda really undercuts the push there. Not that there isn't a rich martial art history within asian cultures, but the whole point reads like "the character is white so they shouldn't be able to be better martial artist then asians". It sounds very patronizing and makes the push for diversity seem far from genuine.

Also, for the humor, I liked that other people noticed that russia, the land of pasty faces as white as the endless snow, is also asia. Honestly, I would love to read a russian martial artist story if they are looking for cultural diversity there. Well, one without relying on the russian fighting/is bear stereotype. But I get the feeling the real complaint is entirely because the author doesn't like the color of the character's skin in the end, and all the rest is just excuse and justification after the fact to defend that racist ideal.

My take on them going with a different race for the character? Well for one, it would be losing part of the character themselves. The outsider from the culture they are empowered by is sort of iconic of, if not heavily defining the character themselves (I will admit, I have limited experience with the character in comics, so my memory might be fuzzy there. But I do recall that being the basis of a few character moments and universe reaction to and interaction with the character.) the fact they were white and better at martial arts then many asians can be both a source of comedy at racists who assume asians are best at martial arts (such as the piece writer perhaps), as well as a source of perpetual drama as the character is never quite part of heritage they joined but are not descendant from (something you could, say, really work into parallels in order to discuss and explore themes of racism in a nuanced and less obvious way then a stereotypical asian martial artist character ever could).

For another, it would be done entirely to appease a personal opinion based on a political view. Lets not lie to ourselves, the push for an asian backed character here is entirely to push diversity and promote an idea of inclusion and multiculturalism and has nothing at all to do with the character themselves outside of how they can be used toward that purpose. And I can get why people would want to use them as such and would see them as a good fir in that direction. The problem is that I don't care about other people's political or ideological motivations in changing the character, I care about the character being good or not, being true to the heart of the source material, and being the source of good stories. An asian instead of a white may well do all that, but I do not support the push to change it based on political opinions first that this most certainly is. Hell, didn't the fantastic four movie bomb like no tomorrow despite the push for a black johny blaze? Not saying the character made the movie bad, but the motivations behind the character trait push certainly outweighed the actual quality in that regard and I really have to want to avoid seeing that pattern followed with another character.


You know what I suggest for this character if people are really hard up in changing their race to appease some sort of imagined quote of race, well first of all not using pretty blatantly racist stereotypes as suggestions for one if the goal is to combat that sort of thing specifically. But beside that, if you wanted to change the race to something that would make it still work and not be blatantly obvious and mirroring what a 1950's movie director would suggest, go with a middle eastern heritage. Hell, plenty of dynamics to play there for a character from a wealthy background given the striking difference between rich and poor, it could feed into supporting the origin story as well as being a unique tackle of the character. I'll pause on this idea for now though.

 

[JimB]

So in short: instead of casting an Asian actor for one of the few Asian Marvel heroes, they got a white actor?

Depends on how you mean "Asian." Iron Fist is Danny Rand, a white boy with blonde hair and blue eyes who...actually, I don't know what his origin story is these days, but it involved him getting lost in mountains and finding a magic Asian society and learning their kung fu and being better at it than people who were born to it. So ethnically and by birth he's a white American, but his powers come from Asian legends and mythology.

I can't think of a compelling reason the character has to be white, though. Is there even an Asian superhero in the MCU? There are two characters on Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, and that doctor who I think probably died off-screen in Marvel's the Avengers: Age of Ultron, but I wouldn't call any of them superheroes.

From what I've heard about the direction the Luke Cage series is taking, it supposedly deals fairly explicitly with issues such as police shootings and racial profiling in an American context, so, if Cage's "themes" remain the same in the Iron Fist series or the eventual Defenders thingamajig, it will probably resonate more/make more sense if Danny Rand is true to the classic "American" picture of privilege.

Fair enough.

 

[happyninja42]

Same tempest, different teacup?

I have no idea if "Iron Fist" was or will be that kind of story.

It kinda is. And I know you said you don't care, but I just wanted to point out that I'm not horribly bothered if it makes it into the Netflix series. I mean, Netflix already has two SJW-fueled series, one that preaches the superiority of the disabled and one that makes a woman into a Mary Sue with no flaws who villifies all white men, something something cuckoldry, so why not give the white dudes this one?

I'm being facetious, mind. However, those were real histrionics I was playing off of.]
Though I will say that as with most cliches and tropes, the problem isn't with any one instance. It's how common white saviours are.

Phew! For a minute there, I thought you were being serious with your summary of Jessice Jones, and was like (O_O), I think we watched 2 different shows! xD Seriously for a split second reading that, I thought you weren't joking. lol


OT: So the source material is about a white guy who goes to the Far East and learns mystic powers? Well, at least they are sticking to the source material. Might be neat to see an Asian American hero in the role, if just to be able to play the "you must reconnect with your ancestors" trope, which I personally like more than the "Outsider learns our ways" trope. Both are perfectly fine in my book, but the former one tweaks my Legacy Button more, which always makes me a happy camper.

On the other hand, I think the actor they've got slated for Iron Fist is pretty good, and I think he could play an interesting character. All other PC aspects of the decision aside, if he can do the character justice, and bring depth and nuance to the role, then I don't care what race/gender he/she is.

 

[Fappy]

People were saying Iron Fist's casting was a catch-22. If you want to avoid the "white savior" trope and having the first Asian hero in the MCU have abilities that are clearly "Asian" in origin then why not throw a curve ball and make Danny a completely unrelated ethnicity?

I could totally see the character be a black dude.

That said, I think Iron Fist and Luke Cage's relationship is more impactful if Danny is white and Luke is black. Historically speaking, their interracial friendship was pretty important to comics.

 

[Wuvlycuddles]

I feel like the only one more concerned that the guy playing Iron Fist should be an actual talented martial artist and that should take precedence over any trivial concerns over race.

 

[Fappy]

-Snip-

Just wanted to say that you're wrong about "Jap": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap

It's been an ethnic slur for half a century, man.

 

[JimB]

You people see race and only race in everything.

I do, huh? Well, good thing mind-readers like yourself are here to tell me my priorities, Edgar Cayce. And how convenient that the private thoughts in my head which you have personal access to are thoughts that justify your outrage! I would have been tempted to accuse you of setting up strawmen, if we hadn't already established your telepathic powers. Heh.

Shortening the word for Japanese is not pejorative; you just make it out to be to shit on me passive-aggressively.

In America, it has been a pejorative term since World War II. You can insist you do not mean it pejoratively if you wish, but you cannot change seventy years of cultural baggage surrounding the term.

Also, I do not think you know what "passive-aggressive" means. It refers to attempts to be indirectly hostile. Calling you out for using a racial epithet is not indirect, and it is not hostile.

Whine some more about how racist I am while you go and blog about how white men are cis scum, and, oh for the love of god, compare the amount of racism you will find in Asian countries to western ones, holy fucking shit dude really?

I apologize for blogging about how white men (and apparently only white men, regardless of their actual sexual identities) are cis scum. I hadn't realized I'd ever done that, but far be it from me to dispute your prescience. However, I will humbly submit that I am not in the least bit impressed by your suggestion that in a discussion thread about a comic book character, I am not permitted to discuss that comic book character because bad things happen in Asia. Not only do I find moral relativism used as an excuse for anything less bad than the worst possible thing one can imagine extremely uncompelling, but I also find it extremely hypocritical of you, since you are here bitching about racism against white people (in the form of a quite civil discussion about cultural appropriation, which says volumes about your standards) instead of railing against those greater evils you insist that I should be railing against.

Asian countries fucking despise Africans, do not dare compare the prejudice they have against Africans to westerners.

I do not choose to cede to you my right to draw any comparison I wish. You may continue to try to command me to speak how you tell me to speak if you wish, but I would advise you to be prepared for disappointment with the results.

Here's an entire list of Asian super heroes since it matters so much to you.

Not what I said; nor did I say any of the other nonsense you implied I said later in your post. Please stop strawmanning me.