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

[O maestre]

Imagine what would happen if people made a Spawn movie with white Spawn. People would probably blow a gasket. I though he was Sue's brother so are they both black? Because if not now you're changing more origin stuff than just race. I personally hate Fantastic 4 so I don't care what they do. It's probably just a publicity stunt anyway.

lol I wish I had seen your post before I committed mine, Spawn was precisely the example I used. How does being black define Spawn? the character could work just as well as a white guy.

Also I sincerely doubt that the "bleaching" of characters has ever caused major multiple gasket blow outs, it always seems to be the other way around right, or am I mistaken?

 

[bug_of_war]

The actual biggest problem here are the "black fanboys."
And yes i can say that since they call whoever sais they need to keep that Storm guy white a "white fanboy"

Ok, so before i get a warning for trolling / flaming hear me out.

You can't say it is a bad idea, with legitimate reasons, without being called a racist. Seriously, just no.

The best reason i have seen as to why it is a bad idea, is that you also have to change Sue Storm to black since they are family and all. And to me, that just seems... off.


But what is it with all these roles of white characters being, with lack of a better phrase, taken over by black people. I don't mind it, but it just seems more and more that they do it just to be politically correct than actual talent.

It's tough because I can kind of see both sides of the arguments as being legitimate.

On the "He should be white side" it does make sense that an already established character should keep the basics of who they are there, and there is always the possibility (no matter how slim) that it may have a chain reaction effect that could change other characters story lines unintentionally.

However, white people have played other ethnicities in other movies (See Andrew Garfield in The Social Network, multiple actors in Cloud Atlas etc.), and comics have multiple universes where many different versions of characters can be found, so why not just assume that in this dimension the characters are black, or Asian, or native American, or any other race that pops into your mind.

I'm seriously on the fence about this topic because both sides (when being rational) make very good points.

 

[WanderingFool]

Now, I have only one question:

Will the Fantastic Four movie be any good? Cause as far as im concerned, it doesnt matter who has the role of Johnny Storm, if the movie is gonna suck, its still a waste of time...

 

[Keymik]

I didn't agree with it but I could at least understand the argument for Heimndal.. He is a Norse god, I don't think the Norse knew that people of color existed.

They actually did. Called them "Blue men" for some reason. Brought some back as "souvenirs". My ancestors where horrible as well as colour blind

Heheh yeah, Vikings weren't exactly the best at naming.. *cough* Greenland *cough*

OT: I think other people have explained it better than I could ever do.
But I agree that if they want to make him black then Sue should be black aswell.. It only makes sense and changing their entire background story and dynamic by only making Johnny black just seems silly.

 

[Mister K]

People didn't seem to get butthurt over the film adaptations of the Mandarin

Woah-ho-ho yes they did. On many forums (I do not remember if Escapist ones too) I've seen people complaining not only about white actor playing asian magician overlord, but also changing him into arabic terrorist.

I think Brad Pitt should play Luke Cage. What? It will "add new depth to the character", or some other bull****.

how would that add new depth?
just curious how this works in your head.

Oops. Forgot to add *jokingly* at the end. Bad VMK, really bad.
What I meant, actually, is YOUR actual question. Such changes to characters are made to simply stir controversy, to add awareness about movie + to show that we are all "Oh so freakin' tollerant". They add nothing. They do not add depth, or change anything important.
And that's why I mentioned Luke Cage and Brad Pitt. Such change would be made just for the sake of the change + mentioned controversy.

Why the hell not? if Brad Pitt fits the role best, then why not? Although they probably would have to change the setting from the ghetto to a.... trailer park?(?). Perhaps a better example would be Spawn who's ethnicity doesn't really matter in regards to the character and the world he inhabits.

Why the hell not??? Because I personally do NOT want one of the coolest black superheroes to be played by white Hollywood prettyboy. I do not dislike Pitt, but still, look at this picture

You really think that this phrase would sound better without deep, black voice (like in videogames), acompanied by serious and handsome masculine black face? Of course not.

And I bet many people wouldn't like such change, no matter their etnicity.

 

[Playful Pony]

Unless the race of the character is significant to his personality or the world he exists in, I cannot see why. For example, it wouldn't make much sense to cast a black man as a Nazi General, but I see no reason why the modern James Bond couldn't be a classy black gentleman. You couldn't have Django be white, and in a movie about Red Khmer you wouldn't cast Will Smith in the role of Pol Pot!

When it's not important in context with the world, I don't care which race a character is. I would like to see some more female action heroines though! Of course these too only when there isn't a good reason for the character to be male...

 

[Keymik]

Perhaps a better example would be Spawn who's ethnicity doesn't really matter in regards to the character and the world he inhabits.

Spawn's skin is sort of rotten and ghoulish looking.. So you're right race wouldn't even matter to him xD

But what if they changed the skin color of his ex-wife? It's sort of a cop-out with Spawn as he wears a concealing outfit and is sort of decayed.

I personally wouldn't want them to change that, I liked the characters as they are and would feel oddly put off if suddenly they were all white. Not saying it couldn't work but it would definitly make me cautious as if I actually wanted to spend money to watch the movie if they were changing things up like that.

 

[Panorama]

Who cares, let them take the it in a different direction to the source material that is not a problem ,as long as its not crap. I'm happy.

 

[Peace Frog]

So yeah,
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/will-chronicle-star-michael-b-jordan-be-human-torch-fantastic-four-88881
Michael B Jordan is considering being The Human Torch in the Fantastic Four reboot. Frankly, I think there's no problem here at all. A role, as far as I'm concerned, has nothing to do with the look of the character, but how well the actor can capture or interpret the character, but the comic book community is complaining all over the internet. Seriously, check the comments. It's not good stuff.

What does the Escapist make of this? Do you guys care about the race of a character in an adaptation?

So you wouldn't have a problem with them changing the gender of a character either? Most stories could work just fine with all the genders reversed but I don't think it's a good idea. It's just changing details for no reason.

Like having a white Goku was jarring (though that DBZ film was shit for plenty of other reasons)

 

[Allevil]

I liked Idris Elba as Heimdall (and think he would probably be a pretty good Bond if given the chance)
I thought Donald Glover would have been a great Spiderman
I, broadly speaking, have no issue with this kind of change

In the cases of Heimdall and Spiderman, the actor fit with the character well, and the change in appearance from the comics was an acceptable sacrifice for the sake of improving the movie.

But with Johnny Storm, why bother? I find that hard to buy that it's a rare actor who can fit the character - all they need is a douchey, self-absorbed party boy. That's like... 95% of actors. *Some* of them are bound to be talented. One expects that they could find one that more closely resembles the character.

To people crying how objections are racist - It's not unreasonable to want what's on the page up on the screen. In fact, that's sort of the point.

 

[Gearhead mk2]

Well, Johnny's not black in the comics, but his race isn't a big part of his character so it wouldn't really matter, and... frankly, given how goddamn racist the moviemaking business can be sometimes, I'd say if he has the skill and wants the part, let Micheal have it.

 

[O maestre]

Why the hell not??? Because I personally do NOT want one of the coolest black superheroes to be played by white Hollywood prettyboy. I do not dislike Pitt, but still, look at this picture

You really think that this phrase would sound better without deep, black voice (like in videogames), acompanied by serious and handsome masculine black face? Of course not.

And I bet many people wouldn't like such change, no matter their etnicity.

Ill admit I have very little knowledge about Luke Cage, so like I said if being black is a definition of the character then I agree that the ethnicity shouldn't change. But if you take my Spawn example, I really cannot see why ethnicity even matters in that specific case. So Luke cage is probably a bad example and not analogous... which I kind of stated in my original post in regards to them changing the setting.

I did not notice the Mandarin or Bane outrage it must have been very quite a lot more silent in comparison to the Heimdal outrage.

 

[Sneezeguard]

You know I've been thinking about this and I was annoyed by this change, But I didn't know why.

People will always be annoyed when they don't follow the source material or do something different from the source material. But it's always changes to appearance that elicit the most hate usually even more so than changes to backstory.

For the most part I don't think the hate is racially movitated and to paint it as such is to straw man the opposition.

"We changed a character don't like it? racist!"

No, I've seen seen this hate before, I remember when people were angry at James Bond as a Blond. I have friends who are still bitter about it (I mean really, they could of just dyed his hair to keep with in our perception of Bond!).

I raged when they white washed Avatar the last air Bender and Zuko was not played by someone of Japanese orgin as I had always perceive the fire nation as based on 19th century Japan during it's industrial revolution.

And why? because they weren't the characters I had come to know and like.

We form an identity of a person mainly through appearance it is how we catergorise and differentiate people the only people who do not are the blind. We form strong bonds to outside apperence because of this.

And that's what bothers me about this. I have a preconceive idea of who Johnny is and he does not match that. He is not Johnny but he's pretending to be. He is not the character I've come to know and like he's just some random guy.


To put it another way if someone you knew or loved got involved in a horrible accident and their brain was transplanted into a new body of a person of different race, gender, hair colour just completely different would to you be able to easily connected to them?

Most likely no. Because you would already have an perception of who that person was and they would not match it. They would feel like a stranger.

 

[Hippopotursus]

My concern with having a black Johnny is largely related to also having a black Sue. The concept is fine, but to stay at least nominally true to the backstory they should be biological siblings, and for purposes of identification, the same race. You don't look at two characters of different races on screen and immediately think 'oh, they're related' - and when told they're related, you question it instead of accepting it.

The problem that stems from that, though, is one of identity conflation. Because although you have a shiny new look for Johnny, suddenly his sister is a superpowered black woman named Storm... and Halle Berry springs into everyone's heads.

 

[Toilet]

Instead of Johnny Storm being played by a black character why not have a black guy play The Thing, I don't think people would be that mad.

 

[SultanP]

I don't necessarily think it's racist that people don't like a man of a different skin colour to be cast in the role. If I go see a movie where I already know how the characters are supposed to look, I notice if even the hair or costume is wrong, and to me, the same goes for skin colour. That's not racist, that's just wanting them to stick as closely as possible to the character. In this case, I don't care a whole lot, because it's just the fantastic four, but crying about racism when that's not necessarily what's going on, isn't helping anyone, it's just cheapening the debate on racism. Mind you, I haven't read these comments about the issue, except for parts of this thread, but my point still stands. Being anal isn't the same as being racist.

 

[puff ball]

am i the only one who would love to see them cast him and then still cast his sister as white and then just not mention it at all in the movie. no throw away lines like, oh this is my half brother/sister or adopted brother/sister just leave the unanswered question hanging.

 

[RootBrewski]

I thought Don Glover should have been seriously considered for the role of Spider-man so I have no problem with this. His Ethnicity is not really part of the character, so in my opinion it shouldn't matter.

 

[FoolKiller]

This is not about racism. This is about being accurate to the source material.

Aang, Katara, and Sokka aren't white.

Bane isn't British.

Johnny Storm isn't black.

These are not hard things to avoid fucking up.

Also, Famke Janssen had to die her hair red to play Jean grey. So this would would logically...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiteface_(performance)

Yeah...fuck no.

But why is it a fuck-up at all? Why does it matter?

Because Johnny is white. In every form of media he's in. What are you not understanding?

Did you hate all the other Marvel movies because Nick Fury is supposed to be white? Because if not, then your argument is incorrect. They redesigned it for Samuel L. Jackson (in the Ultimate universe) specifically and wanted him in the role for the future movies.

But I do think then that Sue Storm should be black too although personally I liked it when Chris Evans played Johnny.

 

[RevRaptor]

One does have to wonder why Jonny. From what I remember the torch is a vain self obsessed party boy. Pretty much the poster child for a rich spoiled white kid. changing his race really doesn?t matter but it still feels kinda off.

Reed Richards on the other hand, now that?s doable and is likely a much better choice if you want to push racial diversity.

check this out:

idris elba

Reed Richards

I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain why that would be awesome