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

[CriticalGaming]

You're thinking of Clone Troopers, which were all clones.

Storm Troopers are people from general population who enlisted.

Oh well see I didn't know. I thought they were all clones. Then I dunno. Star Wars sucks.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Err, I said Kung Fu movie, you know, Drunken Master? Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon, IP man, stuff like that.

The movie you're talking about is from Hong Kong which has a lot of western influences due to being a British colony until relatively recently, not mainland China, and that movie is more like a contemporary martial artist cop thing. I guess you could count it among some of the american Jackie Chun stuff he did later in his career but those are not really what I was describing as a Kung Fu movie. Those are more just action movies with kung fu in them.


Basically, no, this thing would not be unmade because it's already heavily influenced by the west anyways so it makes sense to be heterodox.

The antagonists in IP man are literally Japanese.

And Malaysian Actress Michelle Yeoh was literally in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, holy shit.

 

[Dreiko]

The antagonists in IP man are literally Japanese.

And Malaysian Actress Michelle Yeoh was literally in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, holy shit.

Which is why my post said " (with maybe that one guy that uses a different martial art who is usually the villain being something else, and only sparsely) ".

It's a common trope to have some other form of martial art being represented by a different national cause these movies have a vein of jingoism in them, some more than others of course.



Though that being said my favorite antagonist out of all the IP man movies was the chinese guy from 3, the other villains were cartoonishly villainous hence not very interesting.

 

[Schadrach]

So what? The canon justification for why they passed on the mantle is entirely irrelevant to our discussion.

Is it really passing on the mantle when more than half a dozen characters with the same callsign and vaguely related powers are able to team up? Try this one for me - which Clayface passed the mantle to which and when? It's really, really all over the place. If the answer were any more complicated it would resemble explaining the history of the Reaver to someone unfamiliar with the Legacy of Kain.

I legit couldn't care less if someone Japanese was Alice. Or the Mad Hatter. Or the Queen of Hearts

Fucking autocorrect. That was supposed to be "Alice in Borderland", a manga and the Netflix series based on it. That is set first in Tokyo, then an alternate universe version of Tokyo.

I'm not bothered that Tilda Swinton played that elder wizard in Dr. Strange, either.

There was however a fair amount of outrage about her playing that part, specifically because she was white.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Which is why my post said " (with maybe that one guy that uses a different martial art who is usually the villain being something else, and only sparsely) ".

It's a common trope to have some other form of martial art being represented by a different national cause these movies have a vein of jingoism in them, some more than others of course.

Though that being said my favorite antagonist out of all the IP man movies was the chinese guy from 3, the other villains were cartoonishly villainous hence not very interesting.

So people should always be the exact ethnicity they *should* be, except sometimes when they aren't, but it's racist sometimes if they aren't too much, based on...? Only real objective answer I can seem to get is whether or not you personally liked them

 

[Dreiko]

So people should always be the exact ethnicity they *should* be, except sometimes when they aren't, but it's racist sometimes if they aren't too much, based on...? Only real objective answer I can seem to get is whether or not you personally liked them

The metric is whether something has been being done for enough time to make it intro a trope, whether I like the trope or not is irrelevant, I just respect it as an element of the genre at that point, which is something that is done for the sake of the project being better, hence a valid option if the creators of the work deem it to be. Meanwhile making people be some weird random race to just tick boxes on some vapid oppression pyramid is not at all valid.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

The metric is whether something has been being done for enough time to make it intro a trope, whether I like the trope or not is irrelevant, I just respect it as an element of the genre at that point, which is something that is done for the sake of the project being better, hence a valid option if the creators of the work deem it to be. Meanwhile making people be some weird random race to just tick boxes on some vapid oppression pyramid is not at all valid.

...until it's done often enough to be a trope?

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

So I watched Lightyear last week (7/10, good kids movie, roommate loved it for sci-fi story aesthetic reasons). Now, if you know anything about Lightyear short of actually seeing it, there's a good chance that you know that Buzz's best friend/teammate gets lesbian married. There's even a little smooch. She's also black, for extra Diversity.

Now, the movie doesn't call any extra attention to it past what it would do for a straight marriage. It goes by montage style as Buzz comes back from each mission, flung into the future via time dilation from testing hyperspace fuel at near c speeds, until his best friend is on her deathbed of old age, introducing her granddaughter, the main secondary character for the 2nd and 3rd acts. Tertiary characters include a brown guy and a sprightly old lady who likes making explosions.

Would this movie have been better if they were all white and straight, with more men? Like, it's an animated movie, they couldn't just go with whoever was cast. The diversity had to be planned from the get-go.

 

[Trunkage]

So I watched Lightyear last week (7/10, good kids movie, roommate loved it for sci-fi story aesthetic reasons). Now, if you know anything about Lightyear short of actually seeing it, there's a good chance that you know that Buzz's best friend/teammate gets lesbian married. There's even a little smooch. She's also black, for extra Diversity.

Now, the movie doesn't call any extra attention to it past what it would do for a straight marriage. It goes by montage style as Buzz comes back from each mission, flung into the future via time dilation from testing hyperspace fuel at near c speeds, until his best friend is on her deathbed of old age, introducing her granddaughter, the main secondary character for the 2nd and 3rd acts. Tertiary characters include a brown guy and a sprightly old lady who likes making explosions.

Would this movie have been better if they were all white and straight, with more men? Like, it's an animated movie, they couldn't just go with whoever was cast. The diversity had to be planned from the get-go.

I actually enjoyed Lightyear more than any Toy Story (and just cut out the first paragraph, it was unnecessary.) This is generally because I find Woody a pretty terrible character. Finding out the twist was already established is the cartoons was interesting

My kids thought it was great

 

[Trunkage]

There was however a fair amount of outrage about her playing that part, specifically because she was white.

That's fine. People can be outraged if they want

 

[Hawki]

On the other hand...you have the mess that was The Last Airbender movie, where they lightened Katara's skin because a producer's daughter just HAD to be cast as her, and then lightened Sokka's skin because you can't have siblings with different skin colors, and oops, now our cast is too white. Who can we cast as a darker color to be more diverse? The villain, there we go.

Um, source needed for the last part. The producer daughter thing is confirmed, but I checked Wikipedia and Wikia, I couldn't find any source for Zuko being cast as a response to that.

(Seriously, why was the Fire Nation made Indian in the film? I'm not complaining, it's just such a bizzare choice, and strangely, something that generated far less controversy.)

As I've pointed out, there is an ironic racism having some of the Targaryans be casted by POC people, the Targaryans also being practitioners of the Slave Trade.

That's really shaky ground there. From the perspective of our own universe as well as in-universe, no-one has a monopoly on slavery.

I mean, technically speaking, in Planetos, the further east you get, the more slavery you encounter, so do the math.

 

[Hawki]

In the MCU, it was nonsensical because Bucky was not only an extremely widely accepted replacement in the comics, (which is probably helped by the fact that they didn't remove Steve Rodgers in the bargain to do it, just moved him to head SHIELD) Bucky spent much of his time in the first movie being envious of Steve for the fact that he was getting all the attention and doing practically everything himself, which was a reverse of their roles before Steve got the Super Soldier Serum. Bucky having to deal with filling Captain America's shoes while dealing with his violent past had limitless character development potential.

Meanwhile Falcon in the comics had been a long established superhero with his own record, who's role and relationship with Steve in the MCU was minor at best. The sole reason to make Falcon Captain America was for the diversity points, not because it made sense. Now instead of having "Captain America and the Falcon" two superheroes and beloved characters, we've got only "Black Captain America" and that's all Sam Wilson will be known for, a big net loss. Obviously Steve's actor had to go but they could have handled things MUCH better than they did. Even then, it shows how bad it was that the MCU passing the torch to Sam was still a vast improvement. Either way it obviously wasn't all that well thought out or planned for in advance since they never made any real attempt to set the Falcon up as even a possibility prior to Endgame or push him harder to make Sam more notable and relevant.

Disagree there.

There's a case to be made for Bucky, sure, but also a case against, since Bucky (and this is exclusively MCU, I can't comment on the comics) is so 'damaged,' it's hard to see him as a shining beacon of truth, justice, and the American Way in any scenario. If not for Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I'd kind of agree with you about Sam, but I'd say he 'earns' it there, that he's a better role model for people than Walker.

As for "diversity points"...well, okay, sure, that's technically possible, but it's a silly way of looking at the world. If you want to claim that's the case, then the burden of proof is on you.

No. Steve Rogers is Captain America. It is the ideals Steve embodies in a way no one else can match that makes him Captain America. Steve has stepped away from or been forced to give up the Captain America identity before, and the only time it stuck for any length of time was when Bucky was Cap. That was because as Captain America's longtime sidekick and their history afterward Bucky came to embody those ideas just as much as Steve to the point that many didn't even WANT Steve back as Captain America, it only happening to coincide with the MCU.

I'm kind of left to ask what the "ideals" of America even are, since where I'm sitting, the country's going to hell in a handbasket. But if you want to look at positive ideals, and factor in race, Sam being Captain America and accepted for it, despite the struggles of those who came before him, is probably a better example of America at its best than Bucky, if we're going by that route (and let's be clear, the show DOES go that route - remember the old supersoldier Sam and Bucky find? Forget his name, but he gets his statue at the end.)

We all know in comics that "the old guard passing over their mantle" never really lasts for long anyway, it's a cheap gimmick to drive up comic book sales.

True, but the MCU are films, not comics. It's pretty much impossible in-universe for Steve to come back given how old he is, and Chris Evans couldn't take the role forever. Besides, even if Falcon becoming Cap was the worst thing ever for you (not you, personally), reversing it would be even worse. Remember Rise of Skywalker, how it spent a good portion of its running time reversing Last Jedi? Yeah. Even if I disliked Falcon becoming Cap, I'd still prefer they go for it, because it's schizophrenic storytelling to reverse stuff like that. Which is part of why I don't care much about superhero comics since status quo is king.

 

[Gordon_4]

Disagree there.

There's a case to be made for Bucky, sure, but also a case against, since Bucky (and this is exclusively MCU, I can't comment on the comics) is so 'damaged,' it's hard to see him as a shining beacon of truth, justice, and the American Way in any scenario. If not for Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I'd kind of agree with you about Sam, but I'd say he 'earns' it there, that he's a better role model for people than Walker.

As for "diversity points"...well, okay, sure, that's technically possible, but it's a silly way of looking at the world. If you want to claim that's the case, then the burden of proof is on you.



I'm kind of left to ask what the "ideals" of America even are, since where I'm sitting, the country's going to hell in a handbasket. But if you want to look at positive ideals, and factor in race, Sam being Captain America and accepted for it, despite the struggles of those who came before him, is probably a better example of America at its best than Bucky, if we're going by that route (and let's be clear, the show DOES go that route - remember the old supersoldier Sam and Bucky find? Forget his name, but he gets his statue at the end.)



True, but the MCU are films, not comics. It's pretty much impossible in-universe for Steve to come back given how old he is, and Chris Evans couldn't take the role forever. Besides, even if Falcon becoming Cap was the worst thing ever for you (not you, personally), reversing it would be even worse. Remember Rise of Skywalker, how it spent a good portion of its running time reversing Last Jedi? Yeah. Even if I disliked Falcon becoming Cap, I'd still prefer they go for it, because it's schizophrenic storytelling to reverse stuff like that. Which is part of why I don't care much about superhero comics since status quo is king.

The character you’re thinking of is Isiah Bradley.

 

[Casual Shinji]

When you're sitting down to watch something you are temporarily transported to a pocket dimension called fiction wherein it doesn't exist unless you bring it with you.

No.

 

[Bedinsis]

The metric is whether something has been being done for enough time to make it intro a trope, whether I like the trope or not is irrelevant, I just respect it as an element of the genre at that point, which is something that is done for the sake of the project being better, hence a valid option if the creators of the work deem it to be. Meanwhile making people be some weird random race to just tick boxes on some vapid oppression pyramid is not at all valid.

Good news for you: tokenism has been done enough to be a trope, across pretty much all of fiction, so you ought to think it valid.

 

[Dreiko]

Good news for you: tokenism has been done enough to be a trope, across pretty much all of fiction, so you ought to think it valid.

I really don't think it has. You'd need to have a movie be self-aware about its casting decisions to have it be a trope and break the fourth wall about it and there's only a handful of movies that do stuff like that in general, never mind focusing on tokenism.

 

[Silvanus]

Yes but that lack of sameness is not because of the race of those people, it's because of their cultures, traditions, topographical characteristics, so on and so forth. The Eskimos are not good at building igloos because they're Eskimos, they're good at that because they live in the freaking NORTH POLE which necessitated they get good at it.

It's also about the fact their experiences of life are different. Art shouldn't shy away from that.

Catch-all maybe, but everyone can tell when it's happening. Usually when a film or show fails and they blame it on the audience being racist or sexist, that's a good indication that they made a diverse movie for the sake of the diversity and not for anything to suit the project.

It gets hurled at pretty much anything, honestly. Even if the media in question doesn't make a thing of it at all, you still get the moans. It's led me to conclude it's not actually about the media doing things wrong at all.

 

[XsjadoBlaydette]

I really don't think it has. You'd need to have a movie be self-aware about its casting decisions to have it be a trope and break the fourth wall about it and there's only a handful of movies that do stuff like that in general, never mind focusing on tokenism.

Um South Park has been doing it for years already. Modern shows like The Boys bring it up regularly too. Decades of media has poked fun at the concept. Various films too, including blaxploitation films like Undercover Brother that swaps the dynamic by having Neil Patrick Harris be the token white guy as an in-joke. But no, carry on talking out your arse about things you have no idea about, it's an amusing distraction for now at least.

 

[Silvanus]

Is it really passing on the mantle when more than half a dozen characters with the same callsign and vaguely related powers are able to team up? Try this one for me - which Clayface passed the mantle to which and when? It's really, really all over the place. If the answer were any more complicated it would resemble explaining the history of the Reaver to someone unfamiliar with the Legacy of Kain.

I fail to see how any of this is relevant. We're talking about how audiences respond when different characters take on the names of others. Why it happens in-canon has no bearing on that discussion.

 

[Dreiko]

It's also about the fact their experiences of life are different. Art shouldn't shy away from that.

Art explicitly made to showcase or highlight those experiences should obviously contain them, at the same time not all art need pursue this goal.