Racists boycott Thor movie because of Idris Elba playing a god

[teh_Canape]

Spoiler

Dissenters will inevitably abhor

now now, really, that thing they're doing is about as stupid as it is fucking pointless

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Fraggles

There were Fraggles, they were eaten by Frost Giants. It's why everyone hated them.

This explains so much... those fuzzy giants weren't Gorgs, were they? They were some kind of relative to the frost giants of Ragnarok!!

 

[WolfThomas]

I think though a lot of people are missing the fact that this is not a historic rendition of nordic saga, it's a fucking comic, an enjoyable one nonetheless but not striving for any historical accuracy.

The marvel comics already have Hogun the grim, who is an asian/mongolian asgardian (actually he was adopted long story). Many times Marvel has tried to shy away from the gods angle, and has explained the Asgardians as convergent evolution of humanoid beings from another dimension that inspired legends. Though honestly I just prefer when they are unashamedly gods (any book with Ares in it is awesome by default).

You're going to have a Norse god fighting alongside a man in power armour, a WW2 super soldier and a not so jolly green gamma giant.

I hate Marvel. They pretty much took the entirety of Norse mythology and changed one tiny bit of it(aliens instead of gods) to get away with bastardizing the fuck out of it.

Actually in the comics, they are unquestionably gods, humans like Tony Stark like to label them aliens because they don't understand magic. Marvel doesn't just have Norse gods, the Greek, Asian and Egyptian pantheon have been involved in stories. So you get awesome stuff like Hercules versus Thor.

Anyway I don't see why they'd need to change any to avoid "bastardizing" anything. Nordic Saga is public domain anyone can write whatever they want about it, I don't see whats the big deal, Christian religion is important in some very good comics like Preacher and Hellblazer. If you don't like the comics don't read them or see the movie, but I'll be damned if it's changed or censured

Spoiler: For the same reason in any Preacher adaption

will get people pissed off about a cowboy shooting god through the head

 

[UltraParanoia]

Hey look! It's Heimdall!

Fraggles

There were Fraggles, they were eaten by Frost Giants. It's why everyone hated them.

This explains so much... those fuzzy giants weren't Gorgs, were they? They were some kind of relative to the frost giants of Ragnarok!!

Ymirs "special" cousins.

 

[TheDarkestDerp]

Hey look! It's Heimdall!

Fraggles

There were Fraggles, they were eaten by Frost Giants. It's why everyone hated them.

This explains so much... those fuzzy giants weren't Gorgs, were they? They were some kind of relative to the frost giants of Ragnarok!!

Ymirs "special" cousins.

OH MY GOD!! It's my high school gym teacher!!! *flees in abject terror*

 

[Byere]

A black god is not more retarded than those outfits in relation to the source materials.

First time seeing that picture... and yea, I fully agree with your above statement.

 

[Staskala]

Why do Americans care about Norse gods anyway?
It's not like anyone's insulting an existing religion by commiting the fellocy of casting a black man as a god.
It's not even "insulting" the real Norse gods, we're talking about the Marvel version here, who barely have anything to do with the real thing anyway.
It's such a non-issue that only the people who have nothing to do with could ever care about.

 

[UltraParanoia]

Why do Americans care about Norse gods anyway?
It's not like anyone's insulting an existing religion by commiting the fellocy of casting a black man as a god.
It's not even "insulting" the real Norse gods, we're talking about the Marvel version here, who barely have anything to do with the real thing anyway.
It's such a non-issue that only the people who have nothing to do with could ever care about.

Because there are a shitload of people who are of Scandy descent in America. Minnesota alone is like 98% Norwegian.

Or it might just be that people dislike it when it's perfectly acceptable to shit all over their cultural history.

 

[WolfThomas]

(Deep breath in) Okay so I'm going to nerd out now...

So from the Marvel canon which this film is depicting, not the actual lore:

In the marvel universe, Asgard to be specific, the ragnarok cycle occurs roughly every five hundred years. Basically all of the Asgardian gods die in Ragnarok and the nine worlds are destroyed. But then all of the souls of the gods are reborn without memory and they then repeat the same lives they previously lead but with small differences, but the key things like Thor getting his hammer, Loki's adoption and Balder's death signifying the start of Ragnarok occur.

This has been going on for who knows how long. The gods however ocaisonally visit Midgard, our legends are derived from visitors from that cycle which was occuring during the dark ages, a different cycle to the one they're currently in. The players are the same in spirit, but there are minor changes.

Therefore characters like Amora the Enchantress, Skurge and The Warriors Three exist in this cycle but possibly not the previous. Likewise our current Thor is blonde but a previous may have had red hair.

This leads to the crux of my point, our current Heimdall could be black, even if the previous one was white. According to the Marvel canon which are using seeing as it's their damn movie.

Ultimately the experiences our current Thor gained from serving with the Avengers allowed him to break the cycle of ragnarok and free his people, but that's a whole other story.

/Nerd out.

Edit: Also I'd like to state I think it was in poor taste the OP insulting the Viking people and imlying their religion is any less valid than others.

Also I'd advise peole to check out Northlanders, it's a historically accurate comic featuring a collection of awesome stories about vikings.

 

[Dublin Solo]

So, people piss about a god being black instead of white, but nobody raises an eyebrow to the fact that all the characters in The Ten Commandments are white instead of Middle-Eastern...

It's a sign.

Cats and dogs sleeping together, MASS HYSTERIA!

 

[Staskala]

Why do Americans care about Norse gods anyway?
It's not like anyone's insulting an existing religion by commiting the fellocy of casting a black man as a god.
It's not even "insulting" the real Norse gods, we're talking about the Marvel version here, who barely have anything to do with the real thing anyway.
It's such a non-issue that only the people who have nothing to do with could ever care about.

Because there are a shitload of people who are of Scandy descent in America. Minnesota alone is like 98% Norwegian.

Or it might just be that people dislike it when it's perfectly acceptable to shit all over their cultural history.

Then take your complaint to Marvel. They are the ones who "shat all over it" 50 years ago.
This is an adaption of the Marvel version, I don't know where cultural heritage comes into play when talking about a comic, but oh well.
You can make a case that casting a black man is not faithful to the comic, and while that's true(?), it's not like the movie ever had anything to do with actual Norse mythology in the first place.

I mean, just look at it...
This is your cultural heritage? Nice.

 

[DazBurger]

As a Scandinavian with a great interest in Nordic Mythology, I could not care less...

Its a movie... A movie about comic-superheroes.

 

[coolicus]

"Did you know that the totally made-up-by-medieval-drunks gods of Norse mythology were all white? Literally none of them were African. We didn't know that, but thanks to the prodigious efforts of the Council of Conservative Citizens and their friends at Boycott-Thor.com, the truth has been revealed: Heimdall, Sentry of Asgard, was white and Idris Elba, the English actor hired to portray Heimdall in Marvel Studios' Thor, is black! BLACK!

More on this scandalous development after the jump!

The CCC's unhappiness with Elba's appearance in Thor jibes with the material on its Statement of Principles page, where they assert that "the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people... that the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character," and thus "oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind... to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races." The Statement also makes plain the organization's desire for the United States to be extremely Christian, curmudgeonly, and for its citizens to appear as hobbit-like as possible.

As part of its tireless efforts to those ends, the CCC -- recognized as a genuine hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center -- wrote on its website that Marvel has "declared war on Norse mythology" with "an insulting multi-cultural makeover." Not a fan of Marvel in general, the CCC added that the publisher already "attacks conservative values" and "now mythological gods must be re-invented with black skin."

Marvel is similarly criticized on the politically conservative Boycott-Thor.com, whose motto is "Keep social engineering out of European mythology." Apparently unaware that Marvel orchestrated an elaborate and embarrassing plotline by which Spider-Man and his wife made a deal with the devil to erase their marriage from memory rather than see the iconic superhero suffer the destructive liberal indignity of divorce, Boycott-Thor.com put forth the following indictment of the publisher:

Marvel is headed by radical left-wingers who insert their ideologies and agendas into their comic books and movies.

In February 2010, the TEA Party movement was viciously attacked in an issue of Captain America. Marvel editor-in-chief Joe Qesada publicly defended the issue.

Marvel creator and front man Stan "Lee" Lieber is a notorious left-winger and financier of left-wing political candidates.



Elsewhere on the site, the Boycott-Thor.com author submitted that the reason "movies fail" is, "according [to] the experts," because of bad word-of-mouth. A Facebook page has been set up to help spread those bad words, and boasts a shocking 155-person "Like" count, but only a few comments.

"What is needed is a school campaign to get White kids to boycott everything that comes out of Marvel Studios," wrote a human being called Annis Isbell. Another fan of the boycott, James Hick wrote, "Need to try and get black sepratists in on this to. Let them know that marvel is trying to negate and down play their racial culture & heritage and saying by default blacks are cultureless unless they imbrace the white mans culture. That would sit a black back lash," which we suppose is an almost utopian sentiment for someone whose Facebook profile pic is the Confederate flag.

For his part, Idris Elba has playfully acknowledged the obvious incongruity between his complexion and what is conventionally thought to be the true appearance of a made-up mythological god who never existed. Best known for his superlative performance as Stringer Bell in HBO's The Wire and for his appearances on NBC's The Office (but identified by the CCC as "Hip Hop DJ Elba"), the performer told the UK's TV Times:

"There has been a big debate about it: can a black man play a Nordic character?" he told TV Times. "Hang about, Thor's mythical, right? Thor has a hammer that flies to him when he clicks his fingers. That's OK, but the colour of my skin is wrong? "I was cast in Thor and I'm cast as a Nordic god," he said. "If you know anything about the Nords, they don't look like me but there you go. I think that's a sign of the times for the future. I think we will see multi-level casting. I think we will see that, and I think that's good."


Obviously a fierce Googlebater, the Boycott-Thor author has kept track of his site's mentions in the media, and will no doubt read this ComicsAlliance post as well. He or she accuses our friends at Spinoff Online, who also covered this story, of "childish name-calling like 'racist,'" even though Spinoff writer Kevin Melrose's post is admirably neutral in its presentation of the facts and does not include the word "racist."

Our post will not be so neutral.

You people at the Council of Conservative Citizens and Boycott-Thor.com are racists. And because you believe that "racist" is a baseless term thrown out by "left-wingers" who "can't win based on the facts," I will explain precisely why you are racists, and I will do with the most relentless logic possible.

The reason Kenneth Branagh cast Stringer Bell as Heimdall in Thor is because that is awesome. Did you see the Thor trailer? Heimdall is awesome!

Along similar lines, the reason Mark Millar and Byran Hitch cast Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in The Ultimates is because that was awesome. Have you read The Ultimates? Have you seen Samuel L. Jackson in the Iron Man movies? He is awesome!

These are two stellar examples of demonstrable awesomeness, and, as such, they can only be refuted by the poisoned minds of hateful racists. While you are denying yourself what's sure to be a joyous popcorn epic in Thor and falling on the sword for the most socially, economically and politically dominant ethnicity in the world and their ridiculous ancient gods, we will be watching Chris Hemsworth (an Australian) and Idris Elba (an Englishman) bring to life one of the great American superheroes created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (JEWS!)


To adapt a quote from one of white culture's most celebrated and completely fake, totally made-up heroes, Buzz Lightyear: You are sad, strange little men, and you have our pity."



Thanks to comicsalliance for the story.

This is pathetic but I must be pedantic Thor isn't a medieval concept by that time all of Europe was well and truly catholic/Christian.

Apologies.

 

[DazBurger]

Just noticed the phrase "European mythology", which is used instead of Norse mythology.

Guess that says something about the boycotter's...

 

[Staskala]

This is pathetic but I must be pedantic Thor isn't a medieval concept by that time all of Europe was well and truly catholic/Christian.

Apologies.

Debatable. Most songs were written as late as the 9th century.
Sure, most themes they encompass are a few centuries older, but what is commonly known as "Norse mythology" originated ~300 AD and was written down later.

Quick reminder: Middle Ages - 5th-15th century.

Now if you're talking about the really basic stuff you can go back to prehistory and some Proto-Germanic tribes, but like I said, "Norse mythology" as we know it: 800 AD.

 

[SmokingMirrors]

Although whining about a fucking retarded Marvel property in all of its convoluted glory is rather stupid (they're right wing, everything is a leftist conspiracy even tap water, nothing new), so is claiming that you didn't know that the Norse gods were white.

What? Did I miss a massive influx of people from the Congo sailing up into deadly seas with canoes, completely unprepared for the climate, hell bent on getting some Swedish meatballs? Sorry dumbass, the Norse gods were white. That isn't racist, it is simply true. There wasn't much in the way of international migration back in those days (chances are you never left the region you were born in) unless some tribe invaded and raped everything that moved. Apart from the occasional Norse merchant near the Middle East it would be entirely correct to say that 99% of the Norse had never seen a black person. Why should the gods they imagined be black then? Because they were worried about diversity? Ahahahaha!

I see idiots spread out before me.

Has the right to expect authenticity also become a victim to political correctness?

The whole bloody world has gone insane.

Yes it has. Next we'll have Asian hobbits and Gandalf will be Samoan.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on this matter.