The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[trillykins]

I don't agree. And justifying a double standard with something that happened numerous generations ago just adds to the frustration. Sure, it sucked, but clinging to that guilt - guilt that doesn't belong to anyone any more - just prolongs a separation that we should be working to weed out of our society. In fact, the double standard is pretty racist itself, because it makes exceptions based on skin colour. If we keep making exceptions based on something as trivial as skin colour, then we'll never reach the goal because everyone will have their actions judged on the basis of their skin (hyperbole). If it's okay one way, it should also be okay the other way. Do I have to feel guilt for Vikings raping and pillaging the British? What about African-Ameri- black people; do they have to feel bad about all the slavery and so on that happened in Africa before the evil white men arrived? Bad shit has happened all over the world. No one are innocent and hanging onto pre-historic guilt gets us nowhere.

All that said, as long as the roles are filled with the most qualified people, then that's a-okay with me. I don't really care which nationality the guy is. Of course, there's a difference when making something historical. Casting Anne-Frank with Will Smith's son in drag would probably piss a lot of Jewish people off, just like if they let Judge Reinhold portray Malcom X.

And I have friends of all shapes, sizes, heights, colours and genders.

 

[DuelLadyS]

You know, it never even occured to me watching the movie that Heimdall's race could even be an issue... I think I was too distracted by Mr. Hemsworth's chest. Much to my fiance's dismay. But yeah, I'm in the 'these are comic book space vikings and not real nordic figures, so who cares' camp.

Also- please, PLEASE do a Samurai Pizza Cats episode. That would be epic.

 

[rancher of monsters]

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."

I do like parts of your arguement, but I think we'll have to wait a while for any new substantial ethnic characters in the realm of comics, and I tell you why. Many of the most famous comic book characters, the ones the cartoons and movies are made from, are very old, the youngest about thirty years. many of them predate even the earliest days of racial sensitivity, and DC has been known to have vocal racist (as in, edit background characters so that they were white, moved all black people in the universe he wrote in to a segragated island, racist) writing characters. When the first batches of ethnic characters came around in the 70's they were laughable stereotypes, such as Apache Cheif (who's power had nothing to do with his name or Native American garb), The Samurai (who's powers had nothing to do with his name or somewhat Japanese clothing), Black Vulcan (Insert smae bullshit here), and El Dorado (See before). Marvel did better at times, but they were still far from perfect. The Falcon, was a pimp or something at one point and Luke Cage was a jive-talking mercenary.

Now Marvel and DC both hold a major monopoly on the heroes we are introduced to. And it's highly unlikley that they are going to hire ethnic writers solely for the purpose of writing ethinic characters. While minorities could start their own publishing companies to write ethnic characters, that doesn't seem like an idea that is going to do well to me. So for now we're basically stuck with hopeing that whatever white guy (I'm sure they do occasionally have enthic writers, but for the most part, this) is writing are characters at the moment has some racial awareness, and isn't a secret member of the klan.

Now on the subject of Norse Gods, three points can be made. One, nobody is really worshipping Odin anymore, so how upset can we be? It's not like they made Budhha an Inuit Eskimo or turned Jesus gay? Two, Heimdall, to my knowledge, was something of a minor character, I had never heard of him before the controversy, and he only get's about ten minutes of screen time anyway. Three, the Norse gods, as depicted by Marvel, are ALIENS. does it really matter what their norse creators pictured them to be when we've already reduced them to aliens?

 

[kickyourass]

There are some characters that I believe should stay white, mostly those that lived in a white community or something. Most characters however, are racial interchangeable. That dude in Thor is, Superman is not. If a black alien baby was found in the southern states back when the comic was originally written, I guarantee that Clark Kent would be a different person altogether due to culture.

Also loved seeing MLP whenever Bob said perfect world, and I would love to see an episode on Samurai Pizza Cats

Yeah he probably would be, but I for one would be interested to see how something like that would turn out.

 

[PunkRex]

PONIES!!!

Saw the film and the black guy was a great actor, his voice was like a mountain cracking, as in AWESOME!!!

Also first Southpark, now MovieBob. Who is this Tyler Perry and why does he suck so hard?

 

[DoctorObviously]

To me, racial changes in fiction (as in: movies) should only be allowed along the character's importance to the story. Example: You don't turn Blade into a white guy. You don't turn Frodo into a black guy. Does. Not. Work.

Why? That's why. I'm sorry for sounding "TOTALLY RACIST, BRAH" but we lose the recognizability and likability if our favourite hero (mine: Batman) is turned into a black character or vice versa. It's not a racial thing, it's being faithful to the books/movies...

 

[gizmo2300]

Some people have argued that Heimdal in the original mythology was called The White Asir Which is true but really, Marvels interpretation of the Norse Gods at least as taught in my good old home of Denmark isn't really accurate so there :b

Next you're going to tell me Loke isn't actually evil but just a trickster, Well, Duh. But I guess Outgardloke was too long of a villain title and such.

BTw if folks wanna read a fairly good comic that's a little more accurate to the real deal track down Valhalla =D It's in the style of the Asterix and Lucky Luke albums :3

 

[GiantRaven]

I have to agree whole heartedly and I can't say it any better than Bob did. So instead I will just say that a black superman is a totally awesome idea and I'd love to read about it if it didn't days and days (not to mention tons of cash) of comic back reading to understand what was going in the story.

I'd argue your point and state you were being silly, but that black Superman is from Final Crisis and not even the most seasoned and well-researched comic book reader can easily understand that book.

 

[Fatal-X]

Samurai Pizza Cats would be definitly more interesting than this.

 

[PunkRex]

You didn't mention the casting of Kingpin of the Daredevil movie, Michael Clarke Duncan gave a believable performance.

Oh hells yes!

Im not really a Marvel fan but his Kingpin DEMANDED attention from the rest of the characters.

 

[Marudas]

I'm not really sure where I stand on this. After thinking about it, I think its somewhere in "Dontgiveafucksville". If I were pressed to elaborate, i would kindly say to go find a different topic to discuss, but if really pressured, I'd say this. People are thinking way, too, damn, hard about this. As Bob mentioned, its not an ideal world, but does that mean the only way to fix it is to flip it on its head? Couldn't we instead let newer generations proceed by not telling them there's any difference between one person and another? Rather than telling them you need to treat one person differently because many many many years ago, someone you didn't know that was kinda like you but not at all like you did some mean things to someone who was not them but kinda like them?

If this is the best solution we have, its a bit sad on us as a human race. But then, I don't hold out much faith that anything we do will not be ridiculously stupid anymore.

 

[Woodsey]

Definitely agree.

The Poor White Man card seems to be getting played quite a lot on the forums recently, and its annoying as hell.

 

[Frybird]

Sooo...essentially i have to feel guilty and be aware that "my people used to be nazis" everytime race or something becomes an issue because i am german and not jewish?

I don't understand the argumentation presented here

 

[Phoenix Arrow]

Well the Hollywood thing is quite worse for asian than for black people. Just point me 3 movies where asian are not supposed to be a gang, a group of martial artists or both?

Well, that's a different thing. 13% of America is black and 5% is Asian, that includes the whole of Asia, not just Japan/China or whatever. Most of these being first or second generation and as such, have a different upbringing to most Americans. There aren't that many roles for Asians because there aren't as many Asian actors.
It's like saying there aren't enough roles for white people in Japanese cinema.

 

[GiantRaven]

Now Marvel and DC both hold a major monopoly on the heroes we are introduced to. And it's highly unlikley that they are going to hire ethnic writers solely for the purpose of writing ethinic characters. While minorities could start their own publishing companies to write ethnic characters, that doesn't seem like an idea that is going to do well to me. So for now we're basically stuck with hopeing that whatever white guy (I'm sure they do occasionally have enthic writers, but for the most part, this) is writing are characters at the moment has some racial awareness, and isn't a secret member of the klan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milestone_Media

Unfortunately poor sales led to it's comic-related demise. Which is a shame, because I'd love to read about some of the Milestone characters.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

Let's be realistic. No one who isn't a little odd is still worshiping the ancient Norse Pantheon. It is in fact a dead religion. That being said the only people who should or could get offended, by turning the "god" into a depiction alternate of that it's was culturally assigned visage, is dead. And that same person would have probably taken offense if you turned his religion into a cheesetastic marvel comic about space vikings. And I'm pretty sure the entire cast of that movie is either British or American which means they AREN'T NORSE EITHER!!. That and it's a fucking Thor movie, about a space viking, who gets sent to AMERICA, not Norway.

Shall I go on?

No thanks.


This series is just weird for me. Even when Bob is talking about something I agree with, I just don't like him. Cut down the snotty pretentiousness and maybe things will change.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

This is one of the rare times when my view and Bob's view are almost exactly alike.

Well said and well played, sir. You have earned my respect this day.

 

[icyneesan]

Sorry, I sorta tuned out when I saw the image of Ponies :3

PONIES~! <3

 

[btenkink]

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1076294/

Angel Coulby has been playing the role of Gwen in the British show Merlin since 2008, and has not been met with nearly the same backlash.

It seems to be part of being American where race swapping is a hot topic. Didn't Marvel receive the same controversy many years ago when Storm debuted in 1975? Though not the first black superhero (that was Gabe Jones, also from Marvel in 1963), race seems like a healthy instant-controversy pick in the States.

 

[Mister Benoit]

The Last Airbender was the worst movie i've seen in my entire life.

It's just bad, there are no redeeming factors.