SinisterDeath said:
MrGalactus said:
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?
To me, this depends on.. how much are they going to retcon everything? Johny Storm is Susan Storm's Brother... ergo, if he is black, thus she should be to. If they show her in it, as a white girl, than... how are they going to play the brother/sister thing? (pretty sure in the comics, they had the same parents to...)
That said.
What would people think, if they Rebooted the movie Shaft, with a white man playing shaft?
Or a Chinese guy, playing Al'Capone in a Mobster movie?
I think a point that's being missed is that a lot of these characters that are being turned black are from comics that originated in a time where there weren't many black people in media. There still aren't many. See Moviebob's vids "Skin Deep" etc.
I don't agree with the examples of Shaft or Al Capone at all just because they are of a specific race or time period/culture that's actually really important to their characters.
Shaft, is a black detective. He's all about blaxploitation and if you take that away he's got no point. Unless you wanted to make the the rest of Shaft's world black and have Shaft be a white guy. Then maybe that would work. But otherwise, not really.
Al Capone is all about his time period and was born to Italian immigrants. Change his race and you'll have to change how he grew up, how people treated him when he walked down the street or even when he tried to get a drink. It wouldn't make sense.
I think people miss the point a lot about some characters and why they are what they are. In comics this is more true than anywhere else. White is the default, and it's not a bad thing, but when someone is a different race it's usually for a reason to give them different values, a different look or culture or upbringing, etc. Their different race is usually a selling point for the character.
With a white character, it's usually everything else that's the selling point. Hawkeye, isn't necessarily limited by his race unless of course you specify that he's Irish, same with many of the X-men, Hawkman/Woman, or even the Flash (though he is iconic as a white guy).
Characters that would have a harder time turning into another race believably would be the larger mainstays, like Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, whose back stories are pretty concrete which kind of effects how well it can be pulled off if you change their skin color, imo.
Sure you can turn Supes' black, but how would you do it and do it well?
ETA and OT: It wouldn't bother me if Johnny was black. If they wanted to they could make him Adopted. Them being blood siblings wasn't really a big point was it? Part of the fun of changes is enjoying the new stuff that comes with it.