The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[Lawbringer]

From the images ive seen said black actor looks good. The only thing I'm having trouble getting my head around is the explanation as to why this particular double standard is ok. "its fine because we wronged them generations ago" feels like a loose connection at best. But then this might just be because over here aussy "natives" are still using that excuse for every little thing under the sun and we just keep paying up.

Just saying, feels odd to see that particular defense brought up over a movie

Absolutely agree with this. Fair enough if you want to argue about unfairness in today's society, but things that happened hundred(s) of years ago are meaningless when it comes to entitlement.

Let me make my case in another way, using Britain (my homeland) as an example.
In 1807, Slave Trading was made illegal.
By 1833 all aspects of slavery were outlawed in Britain and her holdings.

Now....I will accept giving money, privilege, apologies and prima nocte on every white woman in Britain to the first black man that comes to me who was born before 1807 and was brought to Britain.

No-one? Anyone?

Well that's strange...I'd assumed there'd be a huge rush from all the people that were directly affected by the slave trade and had been living with the horrific memories ever since.

/sarcasm

The fact is that I've NEVER met an 'ethnic minority' that has EVER used that argument as to how hard life is for non-whites. It tends to be white people trying to show their racial sensitivity by bringing up a meaningless case. History is littered with the weak being shat on by the strong and it really boggles the mind why we still hold onto this one. Bob's opinion appears to be 'white people today owe all black people because we, today, each had some personal hand in helping to perpetuate the slave trade'. And there I was thinking it was 180 years before I was born. Silly me!

Spoiler: TL;DR

Giving movie roles as some sort of 'apology' for someone's ancestors being a shit to someone else's ancestors, however, is as insulting to the memory of their suffering as it is ludicrously illogical.

The final part where he says it shouldn't *matter* what race the actor is, is bang on the money. I can't say I care WHO plays what character as long as it's feasible (A New York Noir story populated by only Japanese actors would be suspending disbelief a little too far...!)

 

[Zyxx]

It always does sort of bother me when something as noticeable as a character's race is altered from the original source, mostly because it makes me adjust my previous mental image, which was invariably better than this newfangled one (sarcasm). This Heimdall isn't a problem for me, since I never read the Thor comics and don't have a clear image of what Heimdall's supposed to look like.

But I get what Bob's saying about these kinds of changes being necessary for minority (? right word?) actors to get any decent roles, especially nowadays when everything's a reboot or knockoff of a reboot of properties from less... let's say "diverse" times. Hopefully, at some point, that simply won't be an issue any more, as there will be plenty of material which is genuinely diverse not out of some sense of political correctness, but because that's really how things are. (Hey, a guy can dream.)

The problem I have - and this isn't with Bob's stance, but something which always seems to come up when discussing these issues - is the belief that so many people seem to hold that we're playing some sort of racism board game, and that the "scores" can eventually be balanced out. If, for example, a period of slavery is worth negative six hojillion points, while an affirmative action student admission is worth one point and changing a character in a movie is worth maybe three, then sooner or later we'll be even again.

But this won't happen, because a hojillion isn't really a number, and there's not some sort of official scoreboard. It's a fallacy to think that we can somehow atone for the sins of the past by sinning in the other direction: it will never come out even because it can't be properly measured, and it doesn't solve the underlying problem anyway.

I hope I'm looking at this wrong, though. Maybe these sorts of things are just the symptom of a going through some kind of race relations puberty, a swing of the pendulum before it stabilizes.

(Who do I think I'm kidding?)

 

[Saluki_princess]

Am I upset about a black guy being cast in a white role? Nah. Don't care really. ESPECIALLY if he was as awesome as everyone says. I think they are allowed to change a character, especially through if they are modernizing it.

My only issue is that we shouldn't be allowing double standards at all. Sure, slavery was one HELL of a double standard that puts the "movie role" double standard to quintuple shame to the power of infinity, but a lesser injustice is still an injustice, and should not be allowed. Me robbing your store doesn't give you the right to step on my son's foot.

Am I being idealistic? Not exactly, because I'm not saying we shouldn't tolerate double standards, or that the only acceptable situation is when there are no double standards, only that we should constantly be aiming for as few as possible. We should not give free passes to a group who was fucked over centuries ago, simply because as long as they get that free pass, we as a society will never truly move on. It will continue to haunt and hurt both sides and I'd prefer we work towards that no longer happening.

I think the main issue is that there are so few characters of color in movies in comparison to whites, especially in quality movies (percentage-wise).
So it's not really fair at all to have white actors (who have thousands of roles available to them) playing colored characters at the same rate as colored actors (who have a handful of roles available almost always based on racial issues and/or stereotypes) playing white characters.
That would be like a 250 pound wrestler punching a baby in the face because the baby punched him.
No, blacks are no longer slaves. They are no longer lawfully segregated. The Civil Rights Movement is over (Though I should note that that was less than a century ago). However, Hollywood does not treat them or other minorities equally when it comes to casting roles. azz azq

 

[engineermk2004]

I must say that the justification that Bob uses here does not stand. The last slave owners of America and the slaves that they owned are carbon-based residue now. I don't like being guilt tripped by freeloaders and race hustlers. My family arrived in America in the mid 20th century about 100 years after emancipation, so we don't have any blame there. I feel very much maligned for my melanin content, especially while my ancestors were likely servants to European mini-tyrants of some sort. That being said, Bobs "ideal World" slide doesn't seem to fit either, especially after events such as the parasprite infestation or the Grand Gala fiasco.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Am I upset about a black guy being cast in a white role? Nah. Don't care really. ESPECIALLY if he was as awesome as everyone says. I think they are allowed to change a character, especially through if they are modernizing it.

My only issue is that we shouldn't be allowing double standards at all. Sure, slavery was one HELL of a double standard that puts the "movie role" double standard to quintuple shame to the power of infinity, but a lesser injustice is still an injustice, and should not be allowed. Me robbing your store doesn't give you the right to step on my son's foot.

Am I being idealistic? Not exactly, because I'm not saying we shouldn't tolerate double standards, or that the only acceptable situation is when there are no double standards, only that we should constantly be aiming for as few as possible. We should not give free passes to a group who was fucked over centuries ago, simply because as long as they get that free pass, we as a society will never truly move on. It will continue to haunt and hurt both sides and I'd prefer we work towards that no longer happening.

I think the main issue is that there are so few characters of color in movies in comparison to whites, especially in quality movies (percentage-wise).
So it's not really fair at all to have white actors (who have thousands of roles available to them) playing colored characters at the same rate as colored actors (who have a handful of roles available almost always based on racial issues and/or stereotypes) playing white characters.
That would be like a 250 pound wrestler punching a baby in the face because the baby punched him.
No, blacks are no longer slaves. They are no longer lawfully segregated. The Civil Rights Movement is over (Though I should note that that was less than a century ago). However, Hollywood does not treat them or other minorities equally when it comes to casting roles. azz azq

I'd say it is more like a 250 lbs boxer punching a 150 lbs boxer in he ring because he wanted a boxing match. Then your answer is to chop off his legs so that he weights as much as the 150 lbs boxer.

There are things in life that are not fair, but the answer to that shouldn't be to make things less fair for another group so they are on equal footing. Rather than work to bring down a group to the lowest common denominator (at which point said group will fight back, making the matter worse all around), you should work to bring the lesser group up fairly. Writers that care about this can make a point to include roles for more than just one side, and get it to the point that you don't NEED to change roles in order to find some sort of balance.

 

[honestdiscussioner]

Am I upset about a black guy being cast in a white role? Nah. Don't care really. ESPECIALLY if he was as awesome as everyone says. I think they are allowed to change a character, especially through if they are modernizing it.

My only issue is that we shouldn't be allowing double standards at all. Sure, slavery was one HELL of a double standard that puts the "movie role" double standard to quintuple shame to the power of infinity, but a lesser injustice is still an injustice, and should not be allowed. Me robbing your store doesn't give you the right to step on my son's foot.

Am I being idealistic? Not exactly, because I'm not saying we shouldn't tolerate double standards, or that the only acceptable situation is when there are no double standards, only that we should constantly be aiming for as few as possible. We should not give free passes to a group who was fucked over centuries ago, simply because as long as they get that free pass, we as a society will never truly move on. It will continue to haunt and hurt both sides and I'd prefer we work towards that no longer happening.

I think the main issue is that there are so few characters of color in movies in comparison to whites, especially in quality movies (percentage-wise).
So it's not really fair at all to have white actors (who have thousands of roles available to them) playing colored characters at the same rate as colored actors (who have a handful of roles available almost always based on racial issues and/or stereotypes) playing white characters.
That would be like a 250 pound wrestler punching a baby in the face because the baby punched him.
No, blacks are no longer slaves. They are no longer lawfully segregated. The Civil Rights Movement is over (Though I should note that that was less than a century ago). However, Hollywood does not treat them or other minorities equally when it comes to casting roles. azz azq

I'd say it is more like a 250 lbs boxer punching a 150 lbs boxer in he ring because he wanted a boxing match. Then your answer is to chop off his legs so that he weights as much as the 150 lbs boxer.

There are things in life that are not fair, but the answer to that shouldn't be to make things less fair for another group so they are on equal footing. Rather than work to bring down a group to the lowest common denominator (at which point said group will fight back, making the matter worse all around), you should work to bring the lesser group up fairly. Writers that care about this can make a point to include roles for more than just one side, and get it to the point that you don't NEED to change roles in order to find some sort of balance.

 

[B-Lavaunit]

I dont know if anyone has said it yet, but bob...PLEASE do the episode on Samurai Pizza Cats. Fuckin loved that show when i was a kid

 

[Shoqiyqa]

I don't tolerate litter building up in my garden. I get rid of it.
I don't tolerate drakes raping ducks in my garden. I chase them off, and am getting closer and closer to shooting one of the bastards.
I don't tolerate pigeons, grey squirrels or rats. I shoot them. (Yes, "*boom* headshot" and all that.)

We are forced to tolerate that the count of assault and rape has skyrocketed the last 20 years thanks to asylum-applicants from countries like Somalia and some other north-east african countries and middle eastern countries. I can't tolerate women being raped on their way home from a party.

Seems like you and I agree on most of that, really. The difference is that you see human rapists as distinct from litter, avian rapists, introduced squirrels and introduced rats, and I don't.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

I remembered two words: White. Jesus.

Casting white people as Yahweh? Casting black people as Yahweh? Sure, why not.

As I posted earlier, mDNA analysis suggests that the best choice for someone who made the first humans in his or her own image would actually be {insert disclaimer about me not knowing which terms are offensive to whom here} San / Bushman of Africa.

Jesus? There's absolutely no argument as what race his earthy form was. Yet even in the 21st century we have him being played almost exclusively by Caucasian actors.

If you wander around enough of the world, you'll find Nativity scenes painted as murals and frescoes in cave churches and so on with, in effect, local actors in each scene. The spreaders of Christianity were pertty adept at modifying it to fit what the locals already did or believed to make conversion easier.

 

[hyperdrachen]

No amount of us tolerating silly double standards will right the wrongs committed on people long dead, nor clear their oppressors of their ignorance and greed. But what the people of today can do, is work together, colorblind, to create a better and fair world where people are judged by merits instead of superficial traits. If your telling the true story of someone of a particular ethnicity, particularly if their ethnicity was relevant to the story(see Amistad) then you need to cast ethnicity accurate actors. But if we're telling the story of aliens that look like humans and turn into giant apes, and shoot fireballs, or Magical Technology gods shooting lightning from hammers, and riding unicorns on rainbows, just cast who nailed the part in the auditions.

The elephant in the room is that people seem to divide into two absurd parties on this race thing.

The one that thinks racism is just over, and minorities have gained all the ground they lost from over a century of systematic and legally backed racism, and the ones that believe DNA carries responsibility for action.

Your both wrong, and while I as a white male did not commit, these injustices, and am not evil because of my ancestors, I do acknowledge the damage they've done, and that there has likely been at least one time in my life where I was given an opportunity, a job, or something beneficial due partly to race based preferential treatment.

Sometimes there's injustice in the world, and those of us with power can choose to work against that injustice. But "white man guilt" double standards are not going to fix anything, and simply continue breathing life into the cartoonish ideas of race.

The colorblind casting of Heimdal was great, I truly believe it was colorblind. That's what makes it great. They cast the person who nailed the part, I doubt very much they did it for the now ludicrously defined "PC points". More of that, is what heals the wounds of racism, hire the best person, cast the best actor, give the hardest working student the scholarship(ok aware that due to economic factors this ones gonna take a while to settle in).

 

[Grigori361]

Samurai Pizza cats episode?


Oh Hells yes.


PS to guy above me, I doubt either one of us is first considering how long this bloody comment line is.

 

[Saluki_princess]

What's funny is that I was not going to send that reply at all, because I didn't find the answer adequate but was too tired to work on it. I left it up on my laptop overnight and somehow, it sent by itself.

But now that it's out in the world, I'll say that I get your point, and agree with you that one group shouldn't be dragged down because another isn't equal to it. However, this is more about how society feels about the situation than about who gets what. This is not something lawful, like, say, affirmative action. Nobody is forcing every tenth white character to be played by a character of color. I would protest that until the day I died, because it would be ridiculous and unfair for everyone.

But in the above case, the impact is different. Like calling an overweight person fat and calling a slim person skinny. Slimness is more accepted, and the slim person is more likely to be bashful and playfully deny it (while secretly feeling good about it), while the heavy person is more likely to be deeply hurt. So society says that one is more or less okay to do and the other is not. It's not so much a double standard (which implies that it's completely unfair and uncalled for) as it is one group isn't really hurt by this while the other is.

I guess, at the end of the day, I would compare the situation to something like this:
Group A has 5 magic stones. Group B has 50,000 magic stones. Everyone gets upset when Group B takes a couple of Group A's 5 stones, but doesn't really mind when Group A takes a stone or two from Group B. Here, we can see a clear reason for this. Group A hurts because it had so few stones to begin with, while Group B has a ton of stones where those came from. We might also want to consider which group is in charge of the stone distribution in the first place, and why that is.

Oh, and on the subject of writing scripts, I would say it's more the director's job than it is the writer's. I've taken a class in script writing, and we were cautioned against giving unneeded details to characters (which can include race in a movie, like Thor, that's not really about that), because it limits who can potentially fill that role.

However. It's not anyone's job to give any "disadvantaged" group more roles, and they should definitely not be forced to do it because as you mentioned, it just makes people bitter. As Hollywood (and media in general) becomes more multicultural, the problem should fix itself.

 

[Saluki_princess]

Am I upset about a black guy being cast in a white role? Nah. Don't care really. ESPECIALLY if he was as awesome as everyone says. I think they are allowed to change a character, especially through if they are modernizing it.

My only issue is that we shouldn't be allowing double standards at all. Sure, slavery was one HELL of a double standard that puts the "movie role" double standard to quintuple shame to the power of infinity, but a lesser injustice is still an injustice, and should not be allowed. Me robbing your store doesn't give you the right to step on my son's foot.

Am I being idealistic? Not exactly, because I'm not saying we shouldn't tolerate double standards, or that the only acceptable situation is when there are no double standards, only that we should constantly be aiming for as few as possible. We should not give free passes to a group who was fucked over centuries ago, simply because as long as they get that free pass, we as a society will never truly move on. It will continue to haunt and hurt both sides and I'd prefer we work towards that no longer happening.

I think the main issue is that there are so few characters of color in movies in comparison to whites, especially in quality movies (percentage-wise).
So it's not really fair at all to have white actors (who have thousands of roles available to them) playing colored characters at the same rate as colored actors (who have a handful of roles available almost always based on racial issues and/or stereotypes) playing white characters.
That would be like a 250 pound wrestler punching a baby in the face because the baby punched him.
No, blacks are no longer slaves. They are no longer lawfully segregated. The Civil Rights Movement is over (Though I should note that that was less than a century ago). However, Hollywood does not treat them or other minorities equally when it comes to casting roles. azz azq

I'd say it is more like a 250 lbs boxer punching a 150 lbs boxer in he ring because he wanted a boxing match. Then your answer is to chop off his legs so that he weights as much as the 150 lbs boxer.

There are things in life that are not fair, but the answer to that shouldn't be to make things less fair for another group so they are on equal footing. Rather than work to bring down a group to the lowest common denominator (at which point said group will fight back, making the matter worse all around), you should work to bring the lesser group up fairly. Writers that care about this can make a point to include roles for more than just one side, and get it to the point that you don't NEED to change roles in order to find some sort of balance.

What's funny is that I was not going to send that reply at all, because I didn't find the answer adequate but was too tired to work on it. I left it up on my laptop overnight and somehow, it sent by itself.

But now that it's out in the world, I'll say that I get your point, and agree with you that one group shouldn't be dragged down because another isn't equal to it. However, this is more about how society feels about the situation than about who gets what. This is not something lawful, like, say, affirmative action. Nobody is forcing every tenth white character to be played by a character of color. I would protest that until the day I died, because it would be ridiculous and unfair for everyone.

But in the above case, the impact is different. Like calling an overweight person fat and calling a slim person skinny. Slimness is more accepted, and the slim person is more likely to be bashful and playfully deny it (while secretly feeling good about it), while the heavy person is more likely to be deeply hurt. So society says that one is more or less okay to do and the other is not. It's not so much a double standard (which implies that it's completely unfair and uncalled for) as it is one group isn't really hurt by this while the other is.

I guess, at the end of the day, I would compare the situation to something like this:
Group A has 5 magic stones. Group B has 50,000 magic stones. Everyone gets upset when Group B takes a couple of Group A's 5 stones, but doesn't really mind when Group A takes a stone or two from Group B. Here, we can see a clear reason for this. Group A hurts because it had so few stones to begin with, while Group B has a ton of stones where those came from. We might also want to consider which group is in charge of the stone distribution in the first place, and why that is.

Oh, and on the subject of writing scripts, I would say it's more the director's job than it is the writer's. I've taken a class in script writing, and we were cautioned against giving unneeded details to characters (which can include race in a movie, like Thor, that's not really about that), because it limits who can potentially fill that role.

However. It's not anyone's job to give any "disadvantaged" group more roles, and they should definitely not be forced to do it because as you mentioned, it just makes people bitter. As Hollywood (and media in general) becomes more multicultural, the problem should fix itself.

 

[TJF588]

I shall now travel back in time and make the standby comic heroes (and villains...and incidentals) lineup more proportionately accurate to the modern day, such that there will, by now, be no adaptation of established, well-known (or well-receivable) characters, since they would already be "adapted", retroactively.

That, or I'll get a crack team of ace comic bookers to make a proportionately accurate lineup of comic book characters (and their comics; we're not just concepters, here), such that "MC Mangamics" will be the third leg of DC and Marvel's continuing presence in the second half of the twenty-first century. Household staples of popular culture...that grew from a much more properly meshed point in time.

 

[TJF588]

From the images ive seen said black actor looks good. The only thing I'm having trouble getting my head around is the explanation as to why this particular double standard is ok. "its fine because we wronged them generations ago" feels like a loose connection at best. But then this might just be because over here aussy "natives" are still using that excuse for every little thing under the sun and we just keep paying up.

Just saying, feels odd to see that particular defense brought up over a movie

A quick Ctrl+Fing later, I wanna say: The point is not that "we" wronged "them" generations ago, it's that the societal effects of that terrible time and situation are still around. Even if there're no segregation laws here in the States, there still exists some general sense of "black" subculture being largely separate from "white" subculture", and such. Yeah, there's bleedover into these subcultures by those who don't quite fit a given stereotype, but the reason this is around at all if because during the long amount of time that there WAS a distinct line drawn, people were still living, and forming communities, and raising children. We grew into these walled senses of identity, and within those walls, things like comics were also made. And the staple character of those comics are largely white, because that's who made those comics: white people, in the white sub-culture.

Now, I don't really have any stats or know-what to back this up, but to me, this seems the case. And part of getting past that is to allow these previously white characters to be not-white characters. That, or get new characters to catch on in the public consciousness. But that would take a damn long while.

Maybe one of the reasons Spongebob is so popular (especially among black people, or at least young black women in very casual attire (oh please, please don't let me be racist for that)) is because he isn't human, and thus isn't part of any particular race, even though he's almost painfully supposed to be a scrawny, nerdy little white "boy". No roles or expectations are made of him because he's not people. He's a walking, talking sponge, and just happens to have the personality he does. He's not stereotyped, or reverse-stereotyped, or a poser, because we don't have generations-long imposed expectations of a sponge.

Still, I will concede that a black Norse god is a bit of a weird place to take this, considering that those gods were, y'know, "made" by white people. Did the Norse ever even encounter black people? Not to say the role wasn't badass (haven't seen the movie yet...and prolly won't, given my theatrical track record), but still: mythology. At least Nick Fury is supposed to be actual people, and thus whatever the hell ethnicity is alive at that time (because Geico commercials break my suspension of disbelief).

...Have we had an ancient-Egypt-based superhero flick yet? There's a perfect opportunity for mythologically appropriate not-white casting (as in, AT ALL, thank you).

 

[acutekat]

Race shouldn't matter, but it does and it sucks.

 

[ironlordthemad]

Couldn't agree more.
If a white character is played by a person of ethnicity and played better by that actor, who gives a shit about melanin levels.
Question time, who has the charisma and physical presence to play nick fury other than Samuel L Jackson?
I mean sure this guy has the hair but I don't think he could do it without us thinking that Nick Fury is a sleezy double crossing trickster: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0936403/

 

[ProtoChimp]

Fair enough because the black guy who played Friar Tuck was pretty awesome, still havn't seen Thor yet though.

 

[Ericb]

The colorblind casting of Heimdal was great, I truly believe it was colorblind. That's what makes it great. They cast the person who nailed the part, I doubt very much they did it for the now ludicrously defined "PC points".

Yeah, I also got that impression. He really nailed that whole "I can everything, *****" stuff. His acting really resonated a deep wisdom and calmness of someone with such a far sight.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

I'm loving your "Ideal world" there MovieBob. That is all.