So a black actor is considering role of Johnny Storm and nerdrage has turned racist again.

Prosis

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Flunk said:
I think the real reason to be upset is that the last set of Fantastic Four movies isn't even that old. Why are they rebooting it when they could just make more? All they're going to have time to do is introduce the characters again. It will be like that crappy Spiderman movie they made recently.
Eh, I'm not too concerned. I'll agree that Spiderman didn't need another reboot. The first Spiderman Reboot was a good movie (and Spiderman 2 was decent as well).

Fantastic Four though? The first one was a terrible movie, and somehow the Silver Surfer was even worse. While its silly to reboot the reboot, I honestly don't think it can hurt the Fantastic Four. In cinema, they're already pretty much at rock bottom. It may help (much like how The Hulk reboot was crap, but the next reboot was an ok movie), or it may be a disaster. Either way, they aren't losing any ground.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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Flunk said:
I think the real reason to be upset is that the last set of Fantastic Four movies isn't even that old. Why are they rebooting it when they could just make more? All they're going to have time to do is introduce the characters again. It will be like that crappy Spiderman movie they made recently.
I believe its being rebooted so the movie rights don't lapse and revert back to Marvel. (See also: Spiderman reboot).
 

Schadrach

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MrGalactus said:
I'm not understanding why it matters. Surely his character is what's important, so whoever can interpret the personality best on screen should be given the part. Why should they compromise the character because of an unimportant aesthetic difference?
The real irony to all this is the number of people who make this kind of argument that only believe this when the character in question this happens to is white.

That's what I find amusing -- the number of people who will declare it racist to have an issue with a canon-white character played by a different race actor but *also* declare it racist for a canon-any-race-but-white character to be portrayed by a different race actor.
 

Asuka Soryu

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For me, this doesn't bug me. Super hero comics are well, inconsistent. Thanks to BS different dimensions and the fact that the writers and artists can take their own twist on them, Thor could wind up a pink haired girl of age 12.

So, changing these things doesn't bother me. This would bug me if it was a live action version of something I like that is consistently had their characters look a certain way and act a certain way. Because of that attitude, I would despise Dragon Ball Evolution even if it wasn't bad.

Yes, I even get annoyed if the hair is the wrong colour. Gawd, how expensive is hair dye or a wig?
 

Drauger

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boots said:
Drauger said:
Meh I agree with you xD, don't we ever get tired of always being "politically correct"? I do, but i don't give a shit for the fantastic four so whatever, cast selena gomes for richard reed, the rock for sue , and lets get species diversity too ! a chimp should play Ben part.
I did wonder how far down the thread we'd get before someone came out with: "If we're going to cast black people in white roles then we may as well cast animals!"

Further than I thought. Good job, Escapist.
Meh as far as i known ben is a pseudo golem thing so who is talking about black people? you right? the main reason why i posted that is because if hollywood doesn't give a shit about casting then let's throw the casting away, but meh do as you please anyway you belong more here in this forums looking at the number of posts you have.
 

ShipofFools

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Drauger said:
boots said:
Drauger said:
Meh I agree with you xD, don't we ever get tired of always being "politically correct"? I do, but i don't give a shit for the fantastic four so whatever, cast selena gomes for richard reed, the rock for sue , and lets get species diversity too ! a chimp should play Ben part.
I did wonder how far down the thread we'd get before someone came out with: "If we're going to cast black people in white roles then we may as well cast animals!"

Further than I thought. Good job, Escapist.
Meh as far as i known ben is a pseudo golem thing so who is talking about black people? you right? the main reason why i posted that is because if hollywood doesn't give a shit about casting then let's throw the casting away, but meh do as you please anyway you belong more here in this forums looking at the number of posts you have.
They do give a shit about casting, though. You got to have an actor that fits the roll, or brings something new and interesting to it.
Just take it easy. So the Torch is a black guy now. And?
I fail to see the problem, really.

Also:
but meh do as you please anyway you belong more here in this forums looking at the number of posts you have.
?????
 

Goofguy

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As long as they stay true to the nature of the character, then I'm okay with this.

I did get pretty irked when they had Ludacris play Jim Bravura in the Max Payne movie. Here's a crusty, overweight, middle aged white character being played by a young, fit black man... why? I'm all for having the best actor for the role regardless of race but that casting choice was just *puts sunglasses on* ludicrous.
 

MrGalactus

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Schadrach said:
MrGalactus said:
I'm not understanding why it matters. Surely his character is what's important, so whoever can interpret the personality best on screen should be given the part. Why should they compromise the character because of an unimportant aesthetic difference?
The real irony to all this is the number of people who make this kind of argument that only believe this when the character in question this happens to is white.

That's what I find amusing -- the number of people who will declare it racist to have an issue with a canon-white character played by a different race actor but *also* declare it racist for a canon-any-race-but-white character to be portrayed by a different race actor.
No, no, you've missed the point. The racism comes from the idea that an actor should automatically not be considered for a role based solely on their race.
 

Froggy Slayer

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Honestly, I doubt this is for PC reasons anyway. If it was, I'd be pissed off, but the director worked with Jordan in Chronicle anyway, obviously liked having him as an actor and wants to work with him again for this role. Nothing wrong with that.
 

dementis

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As long as Susan Storm is black too I don't care, it would only phase me if they cast her as a white woman and Johnny as a black guy. Even then I'd be more confused than annoyed as these are fictional characters based in an era where their country has multiple ethnicities.
 

Daveman

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Casual Shinji said:
I'm sure we all know comicbook fans have a big bug up their ass when it comes to authenticity. And it's their right, I mean, they love these characters and want to see them stay as true to the source material as possible. Didn't Daniel Craig get critisized for being a blond Bond? That wasn't about race either.

I'm not invested in this at all, so for my part they make 'm a French hunchback.
I think Daniel Craig being blond wasn't nearly as a bad as the fact that he clearly waxed his chest.

Bond shouldn't bloody WAX.
 

Batou667

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boots said:
That's correct. Fox just missed their deadline for a Daredevil reboot and the rights went straight back to Marvel. Gotta use it or lose it.
Say it ain't so! I was waiting on tenterhooks for Daredevil 2.

Oh well, fingers crossed for Electra 2 and Catwoman 2!

boots said:
Seriously, though, what you just described? That's not irony, that's false equivalence. It would only be ironic if we lived on a planet where no racism had ever existed any time ever, let alone still existed today, and where the number of ethnic minorities in comic books even came close to being representative of the number of ethnic minorities in the cultures they came from. MovieBob [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/3183-Skin-Deep] did a good explanation of this during the black Spiderman thing.
This "correcting historical injustices" argument only goes so far, and it becomes particularly nasty when it's used to paint anybody who objects to the reappropriation of popular culture as a de-facto racist (because a hatred of black people is the ONLY reason a diehard geek would object to the canon of their fanwank material being hacked up and rebranded, right?).

I'm not that invested in comic books but as a kindred geek I can see where this frustration stems from. You don't fuck with canon unless you have a damn good reason, and "meeting a diversity quota because the marketing department says that's hot at the moment" or "broadening the appeal to make filthy casuals take a passing interest in the thing I'm passionate about" are rarely things that coincide with the interests of the core fanbase. Change stuff, expect geek rage. Tell the angry geeks that if they have a problem, they must be bigots? That's not fighting fire with fire, that's fighting fire with gasoline.

Anyway, isn't the idea that race is so triflingly irrelevant that we can switch it at a whim in itself kind of insulting? A person's race is part of them every bit as much as their gender, nationality or religion. None of those necessarily define a person, let alone act as a measure of their worth, but they're still important. All races are equal, but it doesn't necessarily follow that all races are worthless. Imagine the next Blade film has a blonde, white lead actor. Or the next X-Men film has a Storm who's white. Or a dude. It just wouldn't fit.
 

ninjaRiv

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Superlative said:
ninjaRiv said:
Gatx said:
On the one hand there isn't anything inherently "white" about Johnny Storm, what cultural traits WOULD make him or any character have to be white? Being "white," as far as the United States is concerned, is just being "American," but just being American is something any ethnicity can do. There's nothing about Peter Parker's situation that means he HAS to be white, nor Captain America's (hell, maybe being non-white would give them more reason for rejecting him for military service in the first place). What's left to justify a character's race as being white? Being racist? Or a Nazi? Evidently literally being a part of Saxon mythology isn't enough reason to keep a character white because it's okay as long as the actor is good (I know there's the whole justification that Asgardians are aliens in Marvel, but a similar reasoning could be applied to the Last Airbender, where they're completely fictional setting with people of no predetermined ethnicity, and that never flies with anyone for some reason).

On the flipside, the argument that it's okay for Nick Fury to be black because he was black in the Ultimate comics is bullshit, because that STILL means that in one adaptation his race was changed. Changing a character's ethnicity for a new comic book retelling is the same as changing it for a movie retelling. If you're fine with Nick Fury being black, you should be fine with Johnny Storm being black.
Johnny is fairly privileged, which is quite a white thing. He's a handsome, blonde white guy. He's a stereotypical privileged white guy. So that adds to his over confidence and personality.

I call BS on the "if you like so and so, you haver to like this" mentality. No, you don't. You really really don't. You don't have to like anything, just because you liked something similar.
The traits you associated with Johnny are not racial. do you mean to tell me there is no such thing as privileged (rich, well educated, socially connected), good looking, and confident black men?

the racism present in this issue doesn't show itself much in the form of people shouting the N-word, but in people making statements like that which have the subtext of "black men don't have money, aren't handsome, aren't confident, and should not play characters that are."
Sigh... You're making assumptions based on my inability to explain myself. Of course there are wealthy, good looking over confident black people. What I was saying is Johnny is a stereotypical white wealthy, good looking over confident character.
 

ninjaRiv

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trty00 said:
ninjaRiv said:
trty00 said:
When it's something as arbitrary as a characters race, and has absolutely ZERO effect on who the man is as a character... then what's the fucking problem?

No, really, what's the fucking problem? If you're getting pissy over something as minor and insignificant as a racial change, you've got some issues. Source material be damned.

Not too mention, and this is the bit people are probably going to take offense to, with so many roles in these films going to good looking white guys, I don't really see too much of an issue with one or two bits going to someone of a different race. That's right, things aren't the perfect utopia of equality idiots tell you it is, and as far as I'm concerned, it's okay to get rid of some of all the goddamn whiteness.
People like yourself forget that these characters are important to a lot of people. I'm gonna go all the way back to the black Spider-man thing here, which I didn't want to do because I got fucking sick of that.

These characters have been around for a long time. A lot of people grew up with them or found them at certain points in life. peter Parker was like looking into a mirror for many social outcasts and still is. Black AND white, by the way. So the continued to read about these characters and fall in love with them. It's what built our community, for crying out loud.

So you can go ahead and call those people sad and pathetic but they're not. They're seeing characters they love, characters who represent who they are (Spider-man) and who they desperately want to be (Human Torch) and I think wanting nothing about them to change is perfectly valid. That's the fucking problem. They see characters having ethnicity changed because of no reason at all and they don't like it. I'd probably count myself among these people a little, although, these two characters never had a big impact on me. But there are characters who have. And I'd fight anybody who tried to change them. It's needless change for stupid reasons. Also, people like myself are sensitive to being called racist because we have a preference. That adds a lot to the fighting.
But facets of personality don't change because of race! If you think they do, then I'm sorry, but that IS racist. Human Torch can still be a wisecracking doofus even if he's black! If you're also unable to connect to someone just because of skin color, then I apologize again, but I think you got some issues...

And don't talk to me like I'm some pleb who knows fuck all about comics, kay? I've got favorite heroes,just like you. If a Green Arrow film was being made, and it turns Ollie Queen was Spanish this time around, I wouldn't give a damn.
I don't have issues with race, trust me. I was defending SOME fans hatred towards change, not race. I didn't say all fans were like that at all. A lot of racism, I think, comes from not wanting ANY change at all. It's easy to sound racist of race is what's being changed. What if they wanted him wearing pink frills as a costume? Pretty sure they'd have the same complaints. 'Kay?
 

RJ 17

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MrGalactus said:
There is definitely something racist about refusing to consider an actor or actress based purely on the colour of their skin, regardless of how well they actually play the character.
So going back to my example, would you consider it racist for a film about Muhammad Ali to NOT cast a white actor as Ali if said actor gave the best audtion? Edit: That is, would you consider the ensuing "WTF?!"ing from critics and audience members at the fact that they got a white guy to play Ali to be racist?

I'd argue no, it isn't. Why? Because Muhammad Ali was black..that's a fact. Just as Johnny Storm is white, that is also a fact.