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

[Annihilist]

What it would be doing is changing a fundamental aspect of a classic character. It's like casting Superman as black. Would you really get cries of "racist" when people protest to a black superman? This kind of PC bullshit annoys me a lot. If a female actor wanted the role of a popular male character (lets say, Batman, Superman, or even Harry Potter), would we deem it sexism if it were denied? We wouldn't, or at least we shouldn't.

Equal opportunity is a good thing, but you can't expect someone incapable of fulfilling a particular role to fulfil a particular role.

 

[metaphyzxx]

I don't see any reason to have a problem with it. I just look at it in the sense of Samuel L Jackson is the iconic Nick Fury now, though for 60 years, he more or less looked like John Wayne with and eyepatch. The character added a certain amount of 'gravitas' to the role. And no one has said anything since, more or less.

Having MBJ play Johnny doesn't necessarily have to change anything about the core of the character, what with his essence being a hothead who is prone to act first and think later, but is also capable of great intellectual insight. Not to mention, if they DON'T make Sue black, but instead do something like make Johnny adopted or something, it could add substance to the character's impulsiveness... Maybe a need to feel that he 'measures up' to the Storm family or something. It's far from uncommon to have extra media change cannon (Mr Freeze origin change, or the aforementioned Nick Fury).

Now, if the change to Johnny is solely to 'make him black', then that's patronizing and the casting itself is racist and pandering in the first place. MBJ, however, is a good actor (I loved him in Friday Night Lights, and still think of him as Wallace in The Wire) and he's more than capable of actually playing the role. So I say let the actor be 'Johnny Storm' first... then let him be "Black Johnny".

 

[KrossBillNye]

Don't know if anyone has already mentioned it, but claiming the 'source material should be adapted correctly' thing bugs me. Does anyone stop to think that virtually all the primary superhero characters are white? Do we think about the reasons behind that? These characters were created in times when no one would even think to make them different ethnicities, and if they did it would have been a maaasive deal. Sure there are a few exceptions to the rule, but for the most part these character's ethnicities were just unthought default choices, like a racial equivalent to heteronormativity (theres probably a word for it...).
The choice for caucasian characters was not a calculated decision, but just standard 'this is what heros look like'; a basic and unthinking reaction due to the general ideology of the times. So, claiming that 'we must be true to the source material' is simply supporting the general ideology of the 60's.
Do you really think if these characters were being created now that they'd all be white? The reason why people kick up a fuss nowadays when POC characters are cast as white in adaptations is because they are rare enough as is, without converting them to just more white characters (Think Last Airbender and the Inuit, Tibetan etc whitewashing. The diversity on the show was pretty cool and the movie decimated that).

Pretty much, if the source material is a product of a (intentionally or not) racist mindset, then why claim it as something that needs supporting and faithful adapting?

While I do agree with you Gennaroc that the Source Material shouldn't be set in stone I.E. Johnny being white forever. They should stick to an idea of making both Johnny and Sue Black. Marvel has multi-universes I believe as much as DC does. It is possible in one universe Sue and Johnny were born from a black family. Go on from there. No issue with me.

But a Black Johnny and White sue doesn't feel right to me personally. I have NOTHING against the color of a person's skin. But if they stick to the idea that Johnny and Sue are brother and sister, shouldn't they be the same colour? I know there are step brothers/sisters but I haven't found anywhere that Johnny was adopted. If someone can find the source to that please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

As for the 'Last Airbender' That movie had MANY flaws. One of it was because it wasn't sticking to the source material. A LOT of people that watched it were fans of the tv series and for it to change so much ruined the experience for a lot of people. That is why so many people hated it, while people new to the franchise seemed to like it. EVEN the creators of the show dismissed the movie and said it never existed. To me, changing something like that without the creator's blessing is basically flipping them the finger and being very rude to them.

There are times where changing a plot/character can be beneficial to a movie or game. I.E.: Nick Fury because that person or plot isn't well known to many.

I don't think a lot of people knew who Nick Fury was prior to the new Marvel Movie adaptions which is why it was easy to make a black Nick Fury.

But sometimes changing something: 'Like Vampires in Twilight' who in ancient stories and fictions as blood thirsty creatures of the night that fed off of people and used them as food/slaves, into sparking vampires in sunlight who chose to only eat cattle... well... yeah.

Nick Cage (Power Man)

I believe you meant Luke Cage. As far as I know, Nicolas Cage is not a super hero.... Otherwise whoever took his Chocolate cake is in some major trouble.

 

[InfinityProject]

hes just going to admit hes adopted. BAM. problem solved. Now if he sucks at acting, it could totally overshadow anything and everything else about him as a person. It always comes down to talent.

 

[lordmardok]

I've seen this complaint here already so I'll just add my two cents. My main issue is that Johnny and Sue are brother and sister, and no level of suspended disbelief will make me look at Michael Jordan and think, 'yeah, one of his parents could've been white.' So if they change Sue's race too then it shouldn't be a big deal but being blood-related is a vital part of their characters so if they change THAT then it will have crossed over from 'odd casting choice' to 'bad casting and directorial choice'.

Also, why the buck would they cast Michael Jordan. I legitimately have not seen him act in anything since Space Jam. Secondly, no offense to mister Jordan, he looks good for his age, but the whole point of Johnny Storm's character is that he's a 'hot-headed young man with a lot to prove'. Michael just... doesn't look that young anymore. He'd actually make a better Ben Grimm to be honest but, personally, I'm still holding out for Ron Perlman for that role.

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Meh, as long as the race isn't critical to the character, and he plays the part well, it doesn't matter in the slightest.

Never understood why people get up in arms over changes to the source materials, adaptations tend to work best when it twists the source material in ways to their advantage. Try to adapt one medium into another without changes and you get the 500000000 bad book based movies or movie based games.

 

[Edguy]

Also, why the buck would they cast Michael Jordan. I legitimately have not seen him act in anything since Space Jam. Secondly, no offense to mister Jordan, he looks good for his age, but the whole point of Johnny Storm's character is that he's a 'hot-headed young man with a lot to prove'. Michael just... doesn't look that young anymore. He'd actually make a better Ben Grimm to be honest but, personally, I'm still holding out for Ron Perlman for that role.

I believe you're thinking of the wrong Michael. Not the 50 year old basket star, but rather the 26 year old actor, Michael Bakari Jordan, from The Wire.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I've seen this complaint here already so I'll just add my two cents. My main issue is that Johnny and Sue are brother and sister, and no level of suspended disbelief will make me look at Michael Jordan and think, 'yeah, one of his parents could've been white.' So if they change Sue's race too then it shouldn't be a big deal but being blood-related is a vital part of their characters so if they change THAT then it will have crossed over from 'odd casting choice' to 'bad casting and directorial choice'.

Also, why the buck would they cast Michael Jordan. I legitimately have not seen him act in anything since Space Jam. Secondly, no offense to mister Jordan, he looks good for his age, but the whole point of Johnny Storm's character is that he's a 'hot-headed young man with a lot to prove'. Michael just... doesn't look that young anymore. He'd actually make a better Ben Grimm to be honest but, personally, I'm still holding out for Ron Perlman for that role.

I think it's a different Michael Jordan, which is why the article specifies his middle initial -- just like Michael J. Fox, who had to add the middle initial because there was already a Michael Fox in the Screen Actor's Guild.

Ron Perlman as Ben Grimm would be, at least physically, pretty darned awesome. The only question is, can he do a convincing Brooklyn accent?

 

[Sixcess]

People are forgetting the true issue right now and that is they didn't cast a Native American as Warpath in Days of Future Past. Now that's a problem.

Johnny Depp being cast in The Lone Ranger suggests it really isn't.

Not saying that's okay. Just saying that Native Americans don't have enough clout in Hollywood, or anywhere else, to make it a problem.

 

[InfinityProject]

the only reason its a problem is because theyre related. why cant he be adopted and then that wraps it up into a neat little package.

 

[thehorror2]

I think the supposed "double standard" here comes from the fact that there absolutely are characters who are (in part or in whole) defined by their race. Someone born a minority (whether that's a rare black person among white people, a white person among black people, or any of a hundred other possibilities) will by definition have their character shaped by their race. Johnny Storm is not one of those people. You don't change anything about the Human Torch by giving him mildly darker skin when he's not on fire (I hasten to point out that HE IS ON FIRE A LOT OF THE TIME.).

So yeah, there's a different standard for actors of color. To touch on the whole Avatar controversy: no, none of the characters in the cartoon were really defined by their race (assuming they mapped to real-world races anyway) but given that the change took acting gigs away from non-white actors who would have had more trouble finding work than the white actors that ended up getting the roles. Moviebob has a video on this (sparked by the Thor/Heimdall thing, no less) that goes into greater detail, but suffice to say there are few enough roles for definitively non-white actors than there are for white ones, so losing one of those non-white roles to a white actor is that much more damaging. Is it fair? No. But things aren't "fair" for anyone non-white (and a lot of white people, too) right now, so being a bit unfair in the other direction is one of the only ways to start balancing these things out.

 

[KrossBillNye]

the only reason its a problem is because theyre related. why cant he be adopted and then that wraps it up into a neat little package.

To play devil's advocate, why does he need to be black?

To touch on the whole Avatar controversy: no, none of the characters in the cartoon were really defined by their race (assuming they mapped to real-world races anyway) but given that the change took acting gigs away from non-white actors who would have had more trouble finding work than the white actors that ended up getting the roles.

To be fair the ethnicity of the characters in The Last Airbender was the least of the major issues of that movie.

 

[xdiesp]

Guys, they are making Johnny black because they are so out of ideas that they are literally going after anything that could net them some publicity, good or bad. They could very well make Johnny a girl, if they suspected it could make them more money. If you want to have a saying in this stuff, just don't spend your money on such trash movies... have higher standards.

 

[themind]

I don't really get it. If you don't like how they reboot a movie or a TV show, than don't watch it. I didn't watch the Hugh Jackman X-Men movie reboots because Wolverine without the yellow and black suit, regardless of how silly it may look in the 21st century, was moronic in my eyes. It would be like Superman without a cape or Batman without a cowl, sacrilege, imo.

If enough people in the target audience don't support it, than the next time it comes up, they will stick closer to the original if that is what fans and paying members of the public want.

I don't like the Fantastic Four, so white or black or purple Johnny Storm, makes no real difference to me, but if people want characters to remain exactly like their comic counter-parts I don't see that as racist, it's just a passionate plea by members of the community to buck the trend of "modernizing" everything, and update something classic with some panache without having to rewrite the entire character.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

People do realise right that the only reason these characters are all white in the original source material is that they were created in an era of institutionalised racism, where no-one could base a comic around a black character and expect it to be popular?

So yeah... I really don't consider this one aspect of comic book 'authenticity' to be all that sacred. If Michael B Jordan is good in the role, just as Idris Elba and Samuel L Jackson were, then nobody has any rational reason to give a fuck about the change of colour.

That is the stupidest shit I have ever heard. Johnny was white because most of the population, and the consumers where white. Blacks aren't a giant consumer in any market unless it is marketed towards them.

Why thank you for just proving my point. The vast majority of the consumers were white. Therefore, the characters had to be white because the consumers were never going to accept a character that had a different superficial skin tone to them.

Sounds a little bit like those consumers might have been racist, wouldn't you say?

 

[Buccura]

Unless they are going with the actor strictly because he's black and not because they think he would actually play the character well, I don't see any reason to get upset over this.

 

[Crispee]

I don't get it, race isn't integral to his character so there's no difference to me. It's like in Thor when they cast a black actor as a Norse God and he played the character really cooly because he had a scary voice.

Michael B Jordan is an excellent choice in my opinion, just watch the film Chronicle, his character has the exact same personality as Johnny Storm and he plays the character really well. Smug, overconfident, self centred and just bursting to use his powers, but also undeniably not a dickhead despite assumption you could make.

But yeah, if you don't want a black actor to play a previously white character, that's not caring about continuity, that is probably more likely to be racism. If people cared about Johnny Storm's appearance being consistent with the source material, then they would have been annoyed back in the previous Fantastic Four film when they cast the Brown Haired, Green Eyed mid 20's Chris Evans as the previously Blonde Haired, Blue Eyed, 18 year old Jonny Storm.

 

[CaptainChip]

Personally, I'd rather see more original black superheroes instead of just changing the race of white ones.

Speaking of which, has Luke Cage ever been in a movie? He's quite the badass.

 

[AgentNein]

Come on guys, no ones being weird about this! They just want the character to look like he does in the comics! It was the same when they cast a dark haired Johnny Storm to play the traditionally blonde character in the last set of FF movies! Oh wait... no one actually cared all that much about that did they?

Seriously, being white informs exactly zero percent of this character, and having him be black will change absolutely nothing significant about him.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I think the supposed "double standard" here comes from the fact that there absolutely are characters who are (in part or in whole) defined by their race. Someone born a minority (whether that's a rare black person among white people, a white person among black people, or any of a hundred other possibilities) will by definition have their character shaped by their race. Johnny Storm is not one of those people. You don't change anything about the Human Torch by giving him mildly darker skin when he's not on fire (I hasten to point out that HE IS ON FIRE A LOT OF THE TIME.).

So yeah, there's a different standard for actors of color. To touch on the whole Avatar controversy: no, none of the characters in the cartoon were really defined by their race (assuming they mapped to real-world races anyway) but given that the change took acting gigs away from non-white actors who would have had more trouble finding work than the white actors that ended up getting the roles. Moviebob has a video on this (sparked by the Thor/Heimdall thing, no less) that goes into greater detail, but suffice to say there are few enough roles for definitively non-white actors than there are for white ones, so losing one of those non-white roles to a white actor is that much more damaging. Is it fair? No. But things aren't "fair" for anyone non-white (and a lot of white people, too) right now, so being a bit unfair in the other direction is one of the only ways to start balancing these things out.

But wait a minute. If being a minority can in part define a character, how can being a member of the majority not? If by no other method than marking them out as /not/ a member of that minority? And how does changing that character to a member of a minority not change him?

The people calling "racist" in this thread are displaying a fascinatingly contradictory mixture of color blindness and ethnic awareness, and I mean that from a sociological standpoint.