The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[JDKJ]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

Comic books aren't historically accurate?! Git outta here!

 

[internetzealot1]

I don't think that we today should be concerned with making up for crimes of the past. The existence of slavery does not justify the double standard mentioned in this video. Not that I really care in this instance. I haven't seen Thor yet, but that guy looks supremely badass in all the pictures I've seen.

Also, is it objectionable to cast Goku as a white guy when he looks like a white guy? You said it yourself once, Bob, that even though anime comes from Japan, all its characters look Caucasian.

 

[JDKJ]

i gotta say i totally disagree. (please insert "it's all my opinion" disclaimer...)

feeling sorry for minorities is just as racist as hating them. you're not gonna fix bad things that happened in the past by doing the opposite, you're not gonna fix them at all - they happened. even if the opposite is less harmful, it's just as bigoted. the best thing to do then is, if you ask me, just not to do them, move on. don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be forgotten, by any means, i just think it should simply be treated as past. horrible past, yes, but still past. how can we ever move on if we keep acting this way about it?

i'm not at all against them casting a black man in a white role, not even if it goes against continuity. it's just the fact that they obviously did it for the simple, pointlessly bigoted reason that they thought there weren't enough black people there.

i agree this is an imperfect world, and there are many things we can't change. but pointless bias is something we can change. so why don't we?

Because that "bais" isn't pointless. It serves the purpose, as you claim, of ensuring that there were some blacks cast in the movie. That's pointed, not pointless.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

Comic books aren't historically accurate?! Git outta here!

I am assuming that is sarcasm

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

Also I hope everyone knows that Heimdall was a black man in Thor: The Mighty Avenger #6

So this is even less of a big deal...

Spoiler:

 

[Gralian]

I believe the show Merlin here actually cast a black woman as... Guinevere, who i think was meant to be someone historically real. ( Arthur's lover, i think? ) Anyway, i remember noting my parents' reaction after they'd seen the show. "How can they cast a black woman as Lady Guinevere! She was historically white" and even "Black people weren't even around at the time of Arthurian legends". I didn't understand why they were so up in arms. After all, i doubt they had make-up or American Crew hair gel either, but the actors are still all sporting it anyway. I thought she did an apt job of filling the role and didn't really get why her race was such a big issue. Where it might be an issue is if the thing they're portraying claims to be a factual portrayal. "This IS how this character would have looked back when they were alive", like in the Thor movie, if they claimed that the Heimdall they choose to portray would look like the exact Heimdall that people used to worship and speak of in legend. I take it as the director's choice of portrayal rather than factual representation. If they want to choose to portray Merlin as a weedy teenager, they can. If they want to choose to portray Heimdall as black, they can. It's entirely up to the director how they interpret the source material they're given and how they want to portray it and inject their own vision into it.

That said, regarding the whole "black people were slaves and we should allow double standards because of it" needs to be put to bed. We can't keep bringing that issue up forever and i think people have or are rapidly getting to the stage where we really don't need to keep bringing it up because racism isn't really tolerated publically anymore. You will still get racists, of course, but from what i see they mostly keep themselves to themselves. Should we start giving casting privaleges to women and homosexuals too? They were oppressed as well, after all. How about Japanese? Or Russians? You know, to make up for the McCarthyism period.

My point is that the world has put its nasty past behind us and we should accept that. We don't pick on Germany for starting two world wars, even though the last one ended only 66 years ago and we shouldn't be apologetic because slavery ended 146 years ago. I suppose you are right though, ideal world and all that. Until Hollywood drops its Caucasian-centric preferential treatment there isn't really any wiggle-room. I have to ask though, is it purely this Caucasian centricism, or is there a genuine lack of good actors of an ethnic minority? For example, is there one good black / asian / other minority actor for every ten white actors purely because ethnic minorities don't often choose to try and get into Hollywood? It'd be really good to see some actual figures and sort of 'survey data' on this to see.

 

[Android2137]

Haven't seen the movie yet myself, but the primary reason why my eyebrows raised upon hearing the controversy over casting was simply because I was under the impression that all Norse Gods are Caucasian... Y'know... Being from Norway and all...

Don't get me wrong. I have no issues with racial changes. My eyebrows had little reaction over Nick Fury's. (Admittedly I didn't know much about Iron Man prior to the movie, but I don't know anything about Marvel's Thor either.) But the fact is that Nick Fury is a mortal man in modern America. "Gods" implies immortal (and thus being there since the beginning of time or at least creation of the people weaving the folklore), and Norse means from Norway. I'm sure he's a good actor, but it was beyond my suspension of disbelief.

Oh well. Maybe if I see the movie, the borders of my suspension of disbelief will expand.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

It doesn't matter that they're in a comic, they're still Norse gods.

Marvel sure can cast who ever it likes. Casting a black person as an ancient European god isn't even the strangest thing they've done to them. That doesn't stop them from being Norse gods though.

Like I said in my previous post. The casting isn't going to sway me either way on the film. I'm just pointing out why it's bugging some people.

But they aren't Norse gods. They are comic book character's based on Norse mythology.

Also Hemidall was black in an issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger...

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Bob is for Pony?

And only one way to fix all racism, forever:

Spoiler: You ready for this?

Black Batman

Oh yeah.

 

[Wieke]

While I'm well aware that we don't live in a perfect world, shouldn't we seek to achieve it? Also allowing racism against one race for the sake of fairness (or eye for an eye) is quite hypocritical.

That said swapping the race of non-Caucasian characters to Caucasian is worse that the opposite because it homogenizes our culture. An increase in diversity would be nice, after all change is spice of life. (But I'm not sure it should be increased at the cost of our suspension of disbelief.)

 

[JDKJ]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

It doesn't matter that they're in a comic, they're still Norse gods.

Marvel sure can cast who ever it likes. Casting a black person as an ancient European god isn't even the strangest thing they've done to them. That doesn't stop them from being Norse gods though.

Like I said in my previous post. The casting isn't going to sway me either way on the film. I'm just pointing out why it's bugging some people.

But they aren't Norse gods. They are comic book character's based on Norse mythology.

Also Hemidall was black in an issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger...

I often wondered how Marvel's Tarzan survived the African sun without being lathered from head to toe in SPF 110. Now I know: it's bullshit!! "Lord of the Jungle" my ass.

 

[Sean951]

The slave card takes your otherwise fantastic argument and weighs it down considerably. A double standard of the past is irrelevant. The continued impacts of slavery (though considerably more notable down in the States) are relevant but slavery itself is not. No one here has ever owned a slave, nor has their father or their grandfather; they may have racist parents or grandparents but never slave owning so there is no guilt to be had. The slave card makes your argument sound more petty and puerile, which is too

Europe got brought up because someone mentioned how Europe has "moved passed" racism and colonialism helped the former colonies. Yes, America did terrible things to the Native Americans, but I wouldn't call it genocide so much as mass corruption. The Supreme Curt ruled the Cherokee Nation an independent country, but that was ignored. Factor in ignorance of the others culture on both sides, and you get a decades long conflict that ended with the Reservations where local officials would take much of what was intended to be distributed and sell it to make money. I'm not saying the government was blameless, but it was far less a genocide than some people make it out to be.

Also, Europe may have banned slaves in Europe, but they sure as hell still had them in the colonies. Hell, the Dutch Congo was a hell hole until the early 1900s if I remember correctly.

Well I'd have to agree with you Sean if it weren't for the fact that the Native American's (a nomadic culture with little to no farming expertise and a religious belief that ran in the face of the idea of farming) were put on reservations, punished if they left, had their main food source and cultural base (the Bison) hunted to near extinction. It goes on and on. But pointing the finger at people for who committed the worse atrocity is pointless because there are pros and cons for every thing and who knows what the world would be like now if it weren't for those horrific acts.

Not all tribes were nomadic, that was limited to the plains Indians. The coasts and parts of the Southwest had a very sedentary lifestyle that included farming and trade with the Meso-Americans and the new Europeans. I agree the final treatment was terrible, and it depresses me to say this, but had we not put them onto the reservations, then the settlers would have sparked an all out war, which happened anyways over the Black Hills. I think the Simpson's made a good tribute to our treatment when they have a Thanksgiving Day parade and the Native Americans built a float made entirely of broken treaties.

 

[NickCooley]

TALENT trumps ACCURACY. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. And from what we've seen Idris sweats the stuff. Keep your realism cry babies, I'll be here enjoying things.

Besides the dudes a GOD. I would have thought changing skin colour would be child's play to a god, ever think this universes Heimdall just got bored of being white? Makes more sense than Valkyries, Fimbulwinter and Yggdrasil at any rate.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

It doesn't matter that they're in a comic, they're still Norse gods.

Marvel sure can cast who ever it likes. Casting a black person as an ancient European god isn't even the strangest thing they've done to them. That doesn't stop them from being Norse gods though.

Like I said in my previous post. The casting isn't going to sway me either way on the film. I'm just pointing out why it's bugging some people.

But they aren't Norse gods. They are comic book character's based on Norse mythology.

Also Hemidall was black in an issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger...

I often wondered how Marvel's Tarzan survived the African sun without being lathered from head to toe in SPF 110. Now I know: it's bullshit!! "Lord of the Jungle" my ass.

He survived because it was a comic book. Are you trying to be clever? If so it isn't translating well.

 

[Agayek]

Skin Deep

Sometimes embracing a double standard is the right thing to do.

Watch Video

I don't know about the rest of the thread, and don't particularly care, but I do have two things to say about this video:

1) For the most part you are correct, double standards are a fact of life and we're almost certainly never going to get away from them. That said, that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. The way I see it, the people who were victimized and actually put under aforementioned heinous double standard(s) are long dead and trying to make "reparations" of any sort (because that's what accepting new double standards as you suggest is) to those who never had to deal with it is more than a bit ridiculous. Feel free to disagree, because that brings me to #2.

2) Would it be at all possible to see one of these gently-considered, long winded academic deconstructions? I'm honestly rather curious what kind of points and arguments you'd make in such a thing, as I tend to agree with the things you say on BP but I didn't on this go round.

Edit: Just to make it clear before someone yells at me, I don't give a shit about the cross-race casting or whatever else issues come up with. I really don't give a flying fuck if they painted him bright blue and said he was one of the Na'vi. The only thing that really bugs me about it is the finding of double standards to be acceptable. It's really not, even if it is a practical impossibility. We should always strive for the ideal, even if we can't reach it.

 

[JDKJ]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

It doesn't matter that they're in a comic, they're still Norse gods.

Marvel sure can cast who ever it likes. Casting a black person as an ancient European god isn't even the strangest thing they've done to them. That doesn't stop them from being Norse gods though.

Like I said in my previous post. The casting isn't going to sway me either way on the film. I'm just pointing out why it's bugging some people.

But they aren't Norse gods. They are comic book character's based on Norse mythology.

Also Hemidall was black in an issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger...

They have referred to themselves as gods on more than one occasion. They are the Norse gods of the Marvel universe. The fact that they're in a comic doesn't really mean anything. It certainly doesn't mean they aren't Norse gods.

Also, how is the second part relevant? Marvel butcher every piece of outside inspiration they can get their hands on. That's what they do. I'm not expecting an accurate representation of source material when I watch or read something marvel... I think I must have pointed this about about 3-4 times by now. I'm pretty much just playing devils advocate here. I'm pointing out what is annoying OTHER people.

(I have also never been able to find the issue where Hemidall was black.)

Thor: The Mighty Avenger #6.

 

[roostuf]

a very interesting episode, i watched it but i wasn't affected by it.

 

[Nautical Honors Society]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

It doesn't matter that they're in a comic, they're still Norse gods.

Marvel sure can cast who ever it likes. Casting a black person as an ancient European god isn't even the strangest thing they've done to them. That doesn't stop them from being Norse gods though.

Like I said in my previous post. The casting isn't going to sway me either way on the film. I'm just pointing out why it's bugging some people.

But they aren't Norse gods. They are comic book character's based on Norse mythology.

Also Hemidall was black in an issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger...

They have referred to themselves as gods on more than one occasion. They are the Norse gods of the Marvel universe. The fact that they're in a comic doesn't really mean anything. It certainly doesn't mean they aren't Norse gods.

Also, how is the second part relevant? Marvel butcher every piece of outside inspiration they can get their hands on. That's what they do. I'm not expecting an accurate representation of source material when I watch or read something marvel... I think I must have pointed this about about 3-4 times by now. I'm pretty much just playing devils advocate here. I'm pointing out what is annoying OTHER people.

(I have also never been able to find the issue where Hemidall was black.)

It is Thor: The Mighty Avenger #6

Spoiler:

and because they are the Norse gods of the Marvel Universe means that Marvel can do whatever they want to them and not worry about historical accuracy.

Ok I understand you are playing devils advocate, I am just saying why people shouldn't be annoyed that all...we can end this now haha

 

[Professor James]

Well the Hollywood thing is quite worse for asian than for black people. Just point me 3 movies where asian are not supposed to be a gang, a group of martial artists or both?
You are right, however since Thor is not a retelling of nordic culture well... Let it slide. Because if it were about it, than it would be racist. White people did colonialism. BUT not all white the same. You know, my non american forum readers, europeans. Did you get offended if someone mistake a portuguese for a spanish, french for a german, italian from a greek. Point in case.

I can think of one movie called kickin it old skool.

 

[JDKJ]

The NORSE gods are exactly that, fucking Norse. They're the depiction of the archetypal European.

But he isn't a Norse god. He is a comic book character. He is one fictional being based on another ficitional being.

Sure if this was a history channel special then the actor in the recreation should be caucasion, but this is a comic book movie and this guy is not supposed to be an actual representation of a norse god.

Thor is not a representation of Norse mthyology, it is a comic series based upon the mythology, so the characters can be cast however Marvel studios/the director chooses to cast them.

It doesn't matter that they're in a comic, they're still Norse gods.

Marvel sure can cast who ever it likes. Casting a black person as an ancient European god isn't even the strangest thing they've done to them. That doesn't stop them from being Norse gods though.

Like I said in my previous post. The casting isn't going to sway me either way on the film. I'm just pointing out why it's bugging some people.

But they aren't Norse gods. They are comic book character's based on Norse mythology.

Also Hemidall was black in an issue of Thor: The Mighty Avenger...

I often wondered how Marvel's Tarzan survived the African sun without being lathered from head to toe in SPF 110. Now I know: it's bullshit!! "Lord of the Jungle" my ass.

He survived because it was a comic book. Are you trying to be clever? If so it isn't translating well.

And comic book Suns don't cause blistering sunburn? Just asking. I'm no Stan Lee.