Kaulen Fuhs said:
Shadowstar38 said:
Because Johnny is white. In every form of media he's in. What are you not understanding?
What relevance it has. Is his "whiteness" central to his character? If so, in what way? If not, then who cares?
And no, "he's white" does not speak for itself in terms of relevance, unless he's a Neo-Nazi or something..
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?
You two are not looking at this from a creative and/or literary perspective. Because "he's white" does speak for itself in that sense. Creators of a characters, doesn't matter if the characters embody it or show it, make characters look the way they do for a reason, the reason is because that is what they chose for them to look. Beyond core reasons, that is how they wanted the characters to look.
It has nothing to do with race, it has to do with aesthetics. Even if the character doesn't show it in how they act, a character's appearance still makes up what they are, especially if continuity wise through multiple views from the audience, the character has been taking in that way through the mind as described or visually if represented visually.
Granted the creators of the character in this instance haven't said anything.
But if I was, I would.
If I created a character, granted I'm a writer so my characters get their look by how I describe them:
First off I would find a way to have majority control/say in how that character is used in all media.
Let's say the character is a fair skinned woman with long flowing red hair. I described the character as such, "Fair skinned, woman, flowing red hair"
From then on out, if that character is used in other media, granted that people would have to come to me to get permission to use the character for making the story for which that character was already in, that character would have to be depicted as such, no matter if the character didn't have the air of being as such when interacting with other characters.
If that character was used to make a movie adaption(and first movie adaption always has to portray the character exactly as was made in the first place) of the story she was in, I would expect the actress to be fair skinned and have long red hair, if an actress with fair skin was found that didn't have red hair or long hair, she would be expected to dye her hair red for the part and grow her hair or get extensions, or she wouldn't get the part. Of course all non-fair skinned people would not be able to audition.
But to flip the coin to the other side, if I created a dark skinned character, I would expect the movie adapted character to be dark skinned.
Outward image of the character is just as important as the personality of the character. Again, the outward image of a character was made that way for a reason, even if the reason didn't pertain to the core/personality of the character.
OP point:
Besides, these people making this new movie, don't understand how to make the most money when making a movie, if they are changing the characters look. When creating an adaption of a franchise, you make the characters look how they were originally depicted, that way you bring in all he people that grew up with the franchise or experienced the franchise whenever they experienced it, because that is the core of the viewership for such a movie.
Now people have been pointing out that there is such a thing as alternate universes in comics and really any fiction in general.
The problem is, will the people that create this new movie point out that it is alternate universe, and no, not just say it to the people that are angry, but they have to add it into the movie somehow.
In the end, if you don't get what I am saying, then you don't understand the core creative concept of "character image". A concept that is well taught in creative writing classes. Outward image is as important as inward image, because even though it may not be important to the core story, it will be important to the audience that is experiencing the material, because it is a part of the aesthetics of the world of the story.