The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[AwkwardTodd]

I definitely agree with you but when it comes to replacing a character, is there a descrpency to consider if it alters his continuity? For example I was fine with the idea of Donald Glover playing spider man, there is no real reason why the origins of Spiderman can't be fulfilled with a black actor, but what about making Thor non-Nordic?

 

[Mangue Surfer]

Does anyone else think that black superman is a great idea? Cause I sure as hell do

Would be damn cool!

 

[kickyourass]

I think this is one of the few times I've really disagreed with Bob, at least on one point. When he brought up the fact that the changed the races of characters in the Airbender and Dragon Ball movies, I don't think that as many people would've really noticed if the actors and movies in question weren't completely horrible.

With Thor and Robin Hood, both the actors and the movies (Or TV show in the case of Robin Hood) were really good, so it's not really that big of a deal. But with Airbender and Dragon Ball the actors and the films were horrendous, so it became far more noticeable that, for example, Sokka and Katara were white as the driven snow. Something they were most definitly NOT in the TV show.

In fact that's something I've noticed alot in movies, whenever they change a white character into a non-white character (At least in my experience), they do it in a movie that's really good, and use an actor that's really good. But when they do the opposite, movie is usually a MASSIVE piece of shit (Again, that's just my own experience), anyone else find that kinda funny?

 

[btenkink]

As a Non-American, bringing up the issue of race with my American friends is like bringing up the topic of masturbation in a convent...everyone instantly just gets super-WEIRD!

I like US television shows, and THOR all-out rocked, but some of the US culture is just plain perplexing.

 

[badmunky64]

There are some characters that I believe should stay white, mostly those that lived in a white community or something. Most characters however, are racial interchangeable. That dude in Thor is, Superman is not. If a black alien baby was found in the southern states back when the comic was originally written, I guarantee that Clark Kent would be a different person altogether due to culture.

Also loved seeing MLP whenever Bob said perfect world, and I would love to see an episode on Samurai Pizza Cats

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

So... to put up with a double standard from Hollywood...we have to put up with a double standard from Hollywood?

I'm failing to see how Joe, Joshua or Jeremiah Q Public even gains any ground in this debate. We're getting Samuel L Jackson in a film to make it cooler for the black kids in exchange for having Mel Gibson in a film to make it cooler for the white kids?

How about, and this is only a thought, we cast towards character type and not to a damn chronomancy scale?

If we're trying to pay amends for the past, then how about it starts at the very place that the media-saturation started? In Hollywood.

Let's see what Safi Faye could do with Spielberg's budget. Let's give Star Wars racial castings to Samira Makhmalbaf.

Saying "Suck it up because your family did some bad things to get you where you are today" just creates another national debt, and boy, have we had enough of one.

 

[drunkenduck]

I disagree that the history of racism is relevant, as such. It's only the racism that exists in society now that matters. However, that's just a minor quibble.

In general, though, surely the main thrust of the argument is so blatantly obvious so as to not be worth saying? It's always staggering that entitlement can blind people to reality so thoroughly.

But it's only because of the history of racism that racism is still prevelent today, like Bob said, not a perfect world.

You can only learn from the past, and hopefully not repeat your mistakes in the future. This is a small step, but one that I feel is working towards a (hopefully) less stupid future.

 

[Bobic]

You remove the double standard by changing the standard: best actor gets the part. Unless it is a period piece about Victorian England, everything can be justified via creative license. Trying to compensate the horrors of slavery through movie roles is ridiculous and unbecoming. Best actor gets the job unless race is integral to the story being told. If Elcor can do Hamlet, then may the best man by Heimdall.

But the comparison can kind of be drawn between this and Victorian England. It just makes more sense for a Nordic god to be Nordic. Race is kinda integral to that part. I know this isn't quite the same, the Nordic god's don't actually exist and all that. But still, I'm sure most of the detractors wouldn't have a problem with, say, Spiderman being black. Or hell Nick Fury's change from a white guy to a black guy. Race isn't part of their roles. It is the part of a Nordic god's.

 

[Shameless]

You didn't mention the casting of Kingpin of the Daredevil movie, Michael Clarke Duncan gave a believable performance.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I find any accepted ?double standard? to be a bad thing, no matter how noble.
It may have good intentions, but we all know what those pave the road to.

That being said, this was a good episode, traces of white-guilt not withsdanding. This was the best way to tackle the issue.

Bob, I disagree and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Ponyville is NOT an ideal world. It's a facade for the collectivist, fascist rule of the Solar Federation, as warned about by the prophets we know as Rush in their work 2112.

Quoted for truth.

 

[RJ Dalton]

I'm not sure where I stand personally on what Bob said here. I think he makes a fair point, articulates a viable opinion that is worthy of discussion, but the only thing I can say I agree with for sure is that Hollywood is fucking stupid and needs to stop putting Black people in shitty roles. All the rest . . . I haven't though much about it in the context of the "double standard" thing he's talking about.
See, comic book characters get reinterpreted all the time, giving them different back stories, different abilities, sometimes even different races (and once, I think there was a comic book character that actually changed sex, but I'm not certain). It never bothered me for this movie for that reason.

 

[Zerbin]

The Tyler Perry dig was beneath you, sir. Otherwise, a solid, defensible position. Good show.

 

[AgentBJ09]

Hmm. The double standard points make the most sense in this episode, but as a counter to that, and the issue of Tyler Perry movies, I have to ask these two questions...


1. - To what extent are claims of minority glass ceilings, and past/current grievances affecting them in the present day, legitimate? When do they cross from reasonable into abusive, or downright leeching?

I'm of the opinion that if you flaunt a grievance that does not directly affect your own chances of moving up in the world, as a means of moving up in the world or getting an advantage you do not deserve, then you have no one to blame but yourself for making yourself look bad, or giving your race a bad name.


2. - There are good writers within and without Hollywood who are black/asian/hispanic/ect. Why don't these people write their own works, and work to bring it to the world?

Who said you NEED Hollywood to make a movie, or write a script, or produce a film, long or short, for others to enjoy? We now have blip.tv, Machinima, YouTube, Vievo, and a host of other video sharing sites.

Even better, if these folks embrace the Internet, like the crew of TGWTG or other such regular video producers, they can make films without wasting time with Hollywood's big budgets and red tape.

 

[Draconalis]

One African tribe capture another African tribe and sold them to the Spaniards who treated the captured Africans worse than any slave holder.

That's all I really have to say about racism in history.

I do, however, acknowledge the fact that there aren't alot of minority roles, and thus taking what there is, away, isn't fair. It's not an aspect of the argument I had thought of before, but it makes sense.

 

[GGZeta]

I have to agree whole heartedly and I can't say it any better than Bob did. So instead I will just say that a black superman is a totally awesome idea and I'd love to read about it if it didn't days and days (not to mention tons of cash) of comic back reading to understand what was going in the story.

Oh! Also, considering he is playing a GOD I don't see why anyone has any say as to what the colour of a God's skin would be anyway. Gods and Goddesses are always the product of the society that dreams them up. Norse people created Gods that looked like them just like all the other cultures of the world that decided anthropomorphic personification was a good route for worship. If you wanted to be technically accurate to establish mythological facts (hilarious statement that it is) then Norse God/ess should look like Norse men/women. But this is a story happening in a fictional universe that includes supermen, magic, robots and even dinosaurs all running around and being crazy.

But if a God/ess did really exist I don't see what stops him/her from changing their appearance whenever they darn well feel like it and infact they do exactly that in lots of stories.

 

[DearFilm]

The idea of allowing slavery to serve as a justification for future "correction" to modern day disparities in popular culture is that it makes slavery a kind of law, a defensive legal precident that can be applied to certain situations. By never allowing the spectre of slavery to recede, and in fact encouraging it to remain, we are both keeping old wounds from healing, and creating a situation wherein sooner or later someone will have to ask:
If we are not allowed to forgive the horrors of the European slave trade of Africans organically, at what point should the statute of limitations be put into play.
Will we, for all hypothetical millenia to follow, always be yoked to the distant sins of those who came before us?
And what of people like my family, the Italians and Irish who came here in the early 1920s, who never had any part in America-based slavery? Why am I being yoked to the crimes of the same culture that killed my father's ancestors?
By allowing the past to dictate and rule our present, we are denying ourselves the chance to naturally heal from the wounds inflicted in that past. We are instead turning everything into a fabrication, a balance which we are constantly adding tabulations to.
Not to mention, by keeping slavery in the fore of our race relations consciousness, we are failing to address more modern problems like educational and economic disparity. We are so busy trying to earn forgiveness for the crimes already done, we are failing to effectively prevent those crimes still being perpetrated.

 

[trillykins]

I don't agree. And justifying a double standard with something that happened numerous generations ago just adds to the frustration. Sure, it sucked, but clinging to that guilt - guilt that doesn't belong to anyone any more - just prolongs a separation that we should be working to weed out of our society. In fact, the double standard is pretty racist itself, because it makes exceptions based on skin colour. If we keep making exceptions based on something as trivial as skin colour, then we'll never reach the goal because everyone will have their actions judged on the basis of their skin (hyperbole). If it's okay one way, it should also be okay the other way. Do I have to feel guilt for Vikings raping and pillaging the British? What about African-Ameri- black people; do they have to feel bad about all the slavery and so on that happened in Africa before the evil white men arrived? Bad shit has happened all over the world. No one are innocent and hanging onto pre-historic guilt gets us nowhere.

All that said, as long as the roles are filled with the most qualified people, then that's a-okay with me. I don't really care which nationality the guy is. Of course, there's a difference when making something historical. Casting Anne-Frank with Will Smith's son in drag would probably piss a lot of Jewish people off, just like if they let Judge Reinhold portray Malcom X.

And I have friends of all shapes, sizes, heights, colours and genders.

 

[DuelLadyS]

You know, it never even occured to me watching the movie that Heimdall's race could even be an issue... I think I was too distracted by Mr. Hemsworth's chest. Much to my fiance's dismay. But yeah, I'm in the 'these are comic book space vikings and not real nordic figures, so who cares' camp.

Also- please, PLEASE do a Samurai Pizza Cats episode. That would be epic.

 

[rancher of monsters]

So according to Bob, embracing double standards is the only real way to treat our popular culture's derth of interesting or complex minority characters. So changing a Norse god's race was preferable to creating a new character who is black. Thor had an entire Earth-based realm that was set in modern day America, and yet it was less culturally diverse than Asgard.
This strikes me as a kind of racism in and of itself. It is as though you do not trust minorities or those who write them to create a new and unique character on their own, so you have to "gift" them characters who have already been created. You are allowing them to "prove" their racial equity only through the appropriation of another race's character. It's like if a black African chef wanted to prove his worth in a French kitchen, but rather than let him make his own recipe, gave him a recipe already perfected by a white French cook. This betrays an astounding amount of condescention on the part of anyone who argues this way.
Honestly, some characters can be changed and can benefit from said change in the long run. I think Spider-Man as a young black kid from Queens makes a lot of sense and could be interesting because this is the real world, and that character is set to reflect modern ideas and experience. A Norse god, however, seems to resist this change. Instead, we should be trying to create characters grounded in a racial identity, so "appropriation" instead becomes "creation."

I do like parts of your arguement, but I think we'll have to wait a while for any new substantial ethnic characters in the realm of comics, and I tell you why. Many of the most famous comic book characters, the ones the cartoons and movies are made from, are very old, the youngest about thirty years. many of them predate even the earliest days of racial sensitivity, and DC has been known to have vocal racist (as in, edit background characters so that they were white, moved all black people in the universe he wrote in to a segragated island, racist) writing characters. When the first batches of ethnic characters came around in the 70's they were laughable stereotypes, such as Apache Cheif (who's power had nothing to do with his name or Native American garb), The Samurai (who's powers had nothing to do with his name or somewhat Japanese clothing), Black Vulcan (Insert smae bullshit here), and El Dorado (See before). Marvel did better at times, but they were still far from perfect. The Falcon, was a pimp or something at one point and Luke Cage was a jive-talking mercenary.

Now Marvel and DC both hold a major monopoly on the heroes we are introduced to. And it's highly unlikley that they are going to hire ethnic writers solely for the purpose of writing ethinic characters. While minorities could start their own publishing companies to write ethnic characters, that doesn't seem like an idea that is going to do well to me. So for now we're basically stuck with hopeing that whatever white guy (I'm sure they do occasionally have enthic writers, but for the most part, this) is writing are characters at the moment has some racial awareness, and isn't a secret member of the klan.

Now on the subject of Norse Gods, three points can be made. One, nobody is really worshipping Odin anymore, so how upset can we be? It's not like they made Budhha an Inuit Eskimo or turned Jesus gay? Two, Heimdall, to my knowledge, was something of a minor character, I had never heard of him before the controversy, and he only get's about ten minutes of screen time anyway. Three, the Norse gods, as depicted by Marvel, are ALIENS. does it really matter what their norse creators pictured them to be when we've already reduced them to aliens?

 

[kickyourass]

There are some characters that I believe should stay white, mostly those that lived in a white community or something. Most characters however, are racial interchangeable. That dude in Thor is, Superman is not. If a black alien baby was found in the southern states back when the comic was originally written, I guarantee that Clark Kent would be a different person altogether due to culture.

Also loved seeing MLP whenever Bob said perfect world, and I would love to see an episode on Samurai Pizza Cats

Yeah he probably would be, but I for one would be interested to see how something like that would turn out.