The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[TheRealCJ]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

As a comic book fan, AND someone who is incredibly adverse to changes (Often the smallest incongruities between a book/comic and movie is enough to downright piss me off; it's just me), I'd much rather have a inconsequential character have a race lift rather than an entirely new character introduced into a years-long continuity.

So did you take umbridge with the inclusion of Lucius Fox or Rachel in The Dark Knight?

You mean the Lucius Fox that has been part of the Batman canon since the late 70s?

 

[Harbinger_]

I think I would have been actually raging at Marvel if they did what they did for the movie and then claimed that it was completely true on a mythological standpoint. Otherwise yes for a movie they did an excellent job in the casting, the art direction, the script, literally everything was done well. I would have preferred a few more fight scenes but you can't have everything.

Also did anyone else look at the character of Loki and the way his actions and mannerisms were and think: He'd be perfect in Slytherin!

 

[DTWolfwood]

perfectly reasonable. sorry white man, you've had it good for too long. time for some double standards! lol

and Heimdall was very commanding! as a gatekeeper should

Now that i've seen Idris Elba as Heimdall, im having a hard time imagining anyone else playing him :O just like Samuel L Jackson with Nick Fury. these actors completely own the character now XD

 

[JDKJ]

I'm Norwegian, and I'm not angry that a black man was casted as Heimdall as I don't really care about the movie, but I do find the choice extremely odd. In norse mythology (and I can only speak for the mythology itself as I haven't read the source material of the film), Heimdall is referred to as "the whitest of the Gods". His name translates to "The one who illuminates the world". Every depiction of him ever has been a white man. Having a black norse God is just not done, it's not logical when thinking about how this is an old Scandinavian belief. It's just silly. So why the change? For political correctness? To make up for crimes this generation was not actually a part of? Or just because hey, why not? It seems rather unnecessary and weird that they would make that kind of choice.

To pay the Norwegians back for participating in Himmler's "Lebensborn" program would be my first guess. Pay back's a *****.

 

[Hive Mind]

Why does this matter to anyone? Just let it go.

This is all a bit too much. It's like that guy who points to his black friend at a party and loudly exclaims 'see, I'm not racist!' Or those people who make a point of Obama being black - as if it mattered any more than him being the first president with a thigh freckle exactly 5mm big.

Stop going around talking about race like it means anything. It doesn't. No one cares what skin pigment your mother had, and no one cares what land mass your grandfather happened to live on.

/rant

 

[Hive Mind]

The ideal, theoretically logical thing to do would be to make every role either culturally correct or completely interchangeable. But in practice, the latter ensures that no artistic liberty can be taken that doesn't suit all races (a white Malcolm X?) while the former makes an outstanding number of roles skewed toward the ethnically dominant. The imperfect concession that we make is to allow ethnic minorities to play traditionally white roles, because there just aren't that many roles they're suited for.

I still disagree. If I were to go to a country that was 90% black, and 10% white (somehow through the power of magical hypotheticalness there are no other minorities), I would not start demanding they change roles simply to suit "white people". I also wouldn't demand they keep roles within gender bounds either. I'd demand (or perhaps merely suggest) they go with what works. In the Thor example, it seemed to work quite well. There was nothing about the story that required him to be white, they are magical freakin' gods.

I believe in meritocracy. Roles should be given to whomever can play them the best, irrespective of race. That goes both ways.

Would you have raised an eye-brow if Thor was depicted as a seven-year-old Asian girl?

 

[Dracain]

Boy I got in on this one late, and I am not reading 16 pages of replies, so if I'm being repetitive, sorry.

First off, I don't buy any of the "paying for the sins of our fathers" crap. My direct father did a lot of idiotic things that quite honestly I never want associated with, and I sure as hell am not going to right his wrongs, of feel I have to be for the ones that he might have wronged kids or grand-kids. It's idiotic say that the past gives them the right to a double standard. I can feel for them all I want, but when collages lower standards for this, and for what? Slavery itself was ended more then a hundred years ago and while segregation held on far longer then it should have, no one under the age of 40 have much experience in it.

Now I'm not saying that racism is gone, after all, making stealing illegal didn't stop that so thinking someone is going to accept others just because it's not legal. The funny thing is that as I go about my life, I've noticed that at this point there are segments of all the races that have a permanent looking down for other races and I get tired of being the only one that it's considered bad.

As for movies, I do think that diversity isn't a bad thing, especially for ones based on material that started when segregation was still about, or at least the mentality of it was still a lot more common. The examples in the Marvel movies prove this well. Hell, I wasn't one that was bothered overall by the idea of casting a black guy for the Spider Man Reboot. There is a lot of far more important things I think of for a super hero then there race. It's far more important that Spider man is a nerd (well, Peter anyway), Nick Fury is a bad ass and... arg.. can't remember the name of the guy in Thor, but for him, it was that presence of don't mess with me (and alot of that is in the eyes). Those are the traits I think of, not there skin color.

I think that the only time that I'd be bothered by a race change would be if it's a movie about a real person. For an example, I'd be wondering what the hell if they put a black man to play Andy Kaufmen in Man on the Moon, no matter how well they auditioned. I'd say the same if they had a white guy play Ray Stevens in Ray as well. Biography pics should go for what is as close to the subjects that there talking about, and this should include race.

In the end,like said in the video, it's not a perfect world and nothing is going to change it, so it's more just dealing with things as they come.

You just said pretty much the exact thing I wanted to say, so I am just going to add one thing. SAMURAI PIZZA CATS MUST BE DISCUSSED!

 

[hecticpicnic]

That prince of Persia movie annoyed me because there was no need to use Caucasian actors as Persians(and so use so much dam fucking CGI!) i mean ayn't 30% California's population Hispanic.I no it may seem really racially insensitive but ayn't they like the same colour as Arabic's?

 

[JDKJ]

During the time when Odinists existed there were white slaves.

Black people worked as slavers in Africa.

We don't have slavery anymore.

No-one forgot that it happened, there's no need to act condescending and pretend they have.

Finally, Odinism was a real religion. If we were to depict Mohummed (AT ALL) as a white guy, or an Asian guy there would be outrage. Even though the Middle East had (and has) slavery and was never oppressed in the same way. The double standard isn;t as miniscule as you suggest.

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Good on the guy for delivering a good performance. My issue is with the decision makers.

I don't know who the "we" that doesn't have slavery anymore is, but it ain't South Asia where more than half of the underage girls who work in the sex trade there are just that: slaves.

Matter of fact, I was on a peek-a-boo site this morning and I would swear that I caught a brief glimpse of an ankle shackle locked to the bed-post.

 

[Fumbles]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

 

[hecticpicnic]

During the time when Odinists existed there were white slaves.

Black people worked as slavers in Africa.

We don't have slavery anymore.

No-one forgot that it happened, there's no need to act condescending and pretend they have.

Finally, Odinism was a real religion. If we were to depict Mohummed (AT ALL) as a white guy, or an Asian guy there would be outrage. Even though the Middle East had (and has) slavery and was never oppressed in the same way. The double standard isn;t as miniscule as you suggest.

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Good on the guy for delivering a good performance. My issue is with the decision makers.

No there would be outrage depicting him at all.We'll if they did a movie they would have to be true to life(realistic).I mean there's no problem with displaying Jesus as a Caucasian.

 

[JDKJ]

During the time when Odinists existed there were white slaves.

Black people worked as slavers in Africa.

We don't have slavery anymore.

No-one forgot that it happened, there's no need to act condescending and pretend they have.

Finally, Odinism was a real religion. If we were to depict Mohummed (AT ALL) as a white guy, or an Asian guy there would be outrage. Even though the Middle East had (and has) slavery and was never oppressed in the same way. The double standard isn;t as miniscule as you suggest.

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Good on the guy for delivering a good performance. My issue is with the decision makers.

I don't know who the "we" that doesn't have slavery anymore is, but it ain't South Asia where more than half of the underage girls who work in the sex trade there are just that: slaves.

I'm referring to 'The West', the same as Bob.

I did reference the fact slavery still exists in my post.

Not to quibble, but I don't see that at all. I see: "We don't have slavery anymore."

And I'm not sure how far "west" you're going, but if it's as far as Manhattan's Westside, I was getting a massage last week at my favorite rub joint (Madame Olga's Massage Emporium) on 10th and 52nd and I would have sworn that the little Russian girl who was attending to my every need whispered in my ear, "Help me, please. I'm being kept here against my will."

 

[Fumbles]

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Well said. I however,would like to point out that whites receive less financial aid for college, when a person of a darker skin receives a scholarship over me (where I have the higher GPA) I call BS, which has happened to me several times... I alos would like to call out the qualifications of The ESA Game Design scholarship... You must be either a minority or female to recieve, what a fucking joke...

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Am I upset about a black guy being cast in a white role? Nah. Don't care really. ESPECIALLY if he was as awesome as everyone says. I think they are allowed to change a character, especially through if they are modernizing it.

My only issue is that we shouldn't be allowing double standards at all. Sure, slavery was one HELL of a double standard that puts the "movie role" double standard to quintuple shame to the power of infinity, but a lesser injustice is still an injustice, and should not be allowed. Me robbing your store doesn't give you the right to step on my son's foot.

Am I being idealistic? Not exactly, because I'm not saying we shouldn't tolerate double standards, or that the only acceptable situation is when there are no double standards, only that we should constantly be aiming for as few as possible. We should not give free passes to a group who was fucked over centuries ago, simply because as long as they get that free pass, we as a society will never truly move on. It will continue to haunt and hurt both sides and I'd prefer we work towards that no longer happening.

Did you miss Bob's point that the massive double standards being used against non-whites STILL EXIST TODAY? Not nearly as bad as they USED to be obviously, but if you'd honestly claim that a black person in modern-day America is in every way equal to a white person, you're deluded.

Umm . . . did you miss the point where I said we shouldn't allow ANY stereotypes or double standards, and that the existence of a double standard against one group does not mean it is okay for there to be a reverse double standard against the other group? You know, "two wrongs don't make a right", basic morality 101 here?

Not at all. You're saying there shouldn't be ANY double standards. I agree. But since there ARE, isn't it better that they balance out on both sides, rather than non-whites being constantly discriminated against while we sit around saying how sad it is?

No, I think that's a defeatist position. "Well, there are always going to be double standards, so let's just let them be so long as they balance the equation".

Terrible idea. There will be countless idiots with no ability to grasp the nuance you are describe, and they will see it as an injustice and want to impose even MORE double standards that will then go and unbalance the equation.

It is better to treat all double standards as equally unjustified, because that is what they are.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

The ideal, theoretically logical thing to do would be to make every role either culturally correct or completely interchangeable. But in practice, the latter ensures that no artistic liberty can be taken that doesn't suit all races (a white Malcolm X?) while the former makes an outstanding number of roles skewed toward the ethnically dominant. The imperfect concession that we make is to allow ethnic minorities to play traditionally white roles, because there just aren't that many roles they're suited for.

I still disagree. If I were to go to a country that was 90% black, and 10% white (somehow through the power of magical hypotheticalness there are no other minorities), I would not start demanding they change roles simply to suit "white people". I also wouldn't demand they keep roles within gender bounds either. I'd demand (or perhaps merely suggest) they go with what works. In the Thor example, it seemed to work quite well. There was nothing about the story that required him to be white, they are magical freakin' gods.

I believe in meritocracy. Roles should be given to whomever can play them the best, irrespective of race. That goes both ways.

Would you have raised an eye-brow if Thor was depicted as a seven-year-old Asian girl?

Yes. Because I sincerely doubt such an individual would make a convincing badass god. If one could pull it off, then no. I don't see how that would be possible though. Just like you couldn't have a man play the role of a pregnant woman, while still appearing as a man. It just wouldn't be believable.

 

[JDKJ]

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Well said. I however,would like to point out that whites receive less financial aid for college, when a person of a darker skin receives a scholarship over me (where I have the higher GPA) I call BS, which has happened to me several times... I alos would like to call out the qualifications of The ESA Game Design scholarship... You must be either a minority or female to recieve, what a fucking joke...

Are you accounting for income and parent contribution before you whine? If a FASFA-generated Student Aid Report is part of the determination process or income and parent contribution is otherwise taken into consideration, it makes sense that minorities would receive more financial aid than whites. Minorities (with the exception of Asians) have less income than whites and therefore have greater need for financial aid.

 

[Ursinedriver]

After ignoring 18+ pages, I'm sure someone else has said this, but i'm going to have to disagree. Now I don't care what race they decide to change a character to or from (Alba was awesome as Hiemdale and Jackson makes a decent Fury) But just because there was a double standard in the past does not mean we should go into the future expecting the opposite o that double standard to be true. I've long believed in the montra "be the change you want to see" and how can anyone expect there to be a fair playing field it the future if we embrace an unfair one today? True in the past white folk treated my people massivly wrong, and even today we still have a harder time, but if we get into power we give you all a hard time, doesn't that makes us just as bad? I guess what I'm saying is the opposite of rascism is still rascism.

@hivemind 7year old asian female thor?
How is that not awesome