The Big Picture: Skin Deep

[lead sharp]

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

Icon

 

[ayvee]

How are so many people missing the point of this video? It has absolutely nothing to do with "white guilt."

In any case, excellent video, Bob.

 

[DearFilm]

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?

My issue, I suppose, is that I don't think we should be writing for minorities, I think we should just be writing them. Pandering and condescending are not the answer here. We need real characters, grounded and informed by their own racial identity, not by the supposed identity of those we want to buy their comics.

My concern about the gods is that they are now members not only of a godly pantheon, but of a historical canon. I actually wrote a massive essay about this for my personal web site. I would link to it, but I have been yelled about posting links on this forum before, so you can just click my name to go to the site and look for it.

As for the aliens thing... I often try not to think about that. It brings up all kinds of biological questions I don't think I have the answers to involving romances like those with Louis Lane and Jane Foster.

I agree, but the fact of the matter is that we aren't writing minority characters. In a perfect world (Insert Ponies) we would be , but for now my choices are either the pandering that you refer to, which I wouldn't label all of it as such, or next to nothing. Some people are writing good minority characters, Generator Rex is one of my favorite cartoons and it stars a hispanic teenager, but many are not, so people are taking what they can get.

I did read parts of your article, but I missed what you might refer to as historical canon. I'm assuming that it's do to the connection between the Norse people and their supposedly (I don't know if they made pictures of or had racially descriptive stories of them) gods. But seeing as we are discussing a myth within a myth (Inception) I'm not sure how seriously we can take it from a historical standpoint.

Also, you have to think about the alien thing, it's at least as big, if not a bigger, a part of this conversation, and marvel canon. Still, it's funny how people will ignore their extraterrestial status, but become philosophical when it comes to their 'race'.

I suppose my main argument in this is that instead of spending energy changing characters, we should spend energy creating them. As I said, on Earth there was one black character, who only served as a brief fighting foe. This was a great opportunity to create and introduce a new and interesting character to the Marvel universe.

My initial statement regarding aliens was more of a joke, and I actually had wished they would talk more about this.

For instance, we have aliens that look human, eat foods named after and resembling human food, and who ride horses. Did they take these things from earth for their home world, or did they bring them to earth as gifts? Or are they a parallel yet advanced form of humanity?

These are questions the movie should have better answered or addressed, rather than just giving us more paper-thin SHIELD stuff.

Also, hope you found the article at least not-terrible.

 

[DearFilm]

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."

As a comic book fan, AND someone who is incredibly adverse to changes (Often the smallest incongruities between a book/comic and movie is enough to downright piss me off; it's just me), I'd much rather have a inconsequential character have a race lift rather than an entirely new character introduced into a years-long continuity.

So did you take umbridge with the inclusion of Lucius Fox or Rachel in The Dark Knight?

 

[SanguineSymphony]

I think changing the race "just because" is silly in all forms. I don't like when a cast is white washed any more than when the change one character to token black dude. I have no interest in making up for my ancestors bullshit. I have enough of my own to deal with.

I did like Sam Jackson as Fury but I think doing the same thing with an Norse God is imbecilic and slightly more offensive. I do tend to take Classic Mythology more seriously than others and as such am not likely to see Thor anyway.

 

[JDKJ]

I was born after slavery, Jim Crow, etc and I reject the idea that I owe some sort of historical debt.

If you're white and American, then you benefit from that history of slavery, Jim Crow, etc. Why shouldn't you owe a debt?

Because I didn't do anything. The fact that I benefited is not my fault and I cannot make the benefits go away.

You're benefiting at the expense of others.

You could argue that all of humanity benefited from slaves (not just African slaves, but any slave going back to ancient times).

No, but you can (a) recognize the fact that you have benefited and (b) don't claim that you don't owe that benefit to the burden of others.

JDKJ you are surely a troll. I bet you are sat there right now with your gleaming troll face smile, nice and fat from all the feeding that every one has given you this evening?

(a) He did recognise that he benefited - "The fact that I benefited"

(b) He actually went so far in the other direction to what you claim he is claiming... right that is hard to understand. To clarify, you seem to think that he doesn't think he owes any one for the "benefit" when in fact he says that every one owes the "benefits" to every one. He transcends the whole Black & White relationship extending the "racism and slavery is bad" to a much wider spectrum of social status and race. - "You could argue that all of humanity benefited from slaves (not just African slaves, but any slave going back to ancient times)"

I do not think I owe anyone for slavery (since I'm not a slaveowner and I never fought to keep slavery legal etc.). However if we're going to start doing this why stop at African slaves? Why not go back to the slaves of ancient times?

It's not that simple. If you're white and American, the long and, arguably, still continuing history of repression and oppression of racial minorities by the white majority better positions you to compete for scare resources and opportunities (e.g., schools, jobs, etc.) than the minorities who have historically been kept from the field of competition.

1. Yes but that is different from slavery, yet slavery is still invoked as a debt that all white people share.

2. Also in the past, before my time. That is last millennium's business. Not my responsibility.

No need to repeat yourself. I long ago understood your position on the matter and had stopped responding to you.

#1 is not repetition and a continuation from discussion from previous posts. You said I benefited from slavery, but what describe above is distinct from slavery.

Actually, what I said from the very get-go is "slavery, Jim Crow, etc." Which speaks to a historical continuum that extends beyond slavery (the Jim Crow era post-dates the era of slavery) and one that arguably continues to this day. It doesn't neatly stop at just slavery nor did anything I said attempt to limit it to just slavery. You're the one attempting to end the history of racial oppression and marginalization at slavery. So you can neatly say "that was yesterday, it's got nothing to do with me today." And, frankly, if that's the best you can come up with, I can't be bothered discussing the issue with you.

 

[JDKJ]

Okay for one, why the hell is Tyler Perry hated? Why?

Because he sucks at what he does? Have you seen "For Colored Girls?" If not, I'd advise that you don't.

 

[Kartoffelmos]

I'm Norwegian, and I'm not angry that a black man was casted as Heimdall as I don't really care about the movie, but I do find the choice extremely odd. In norse mythology (and I can only speak for the mythology itself as I haven't read the source material of the film), Heimdall is referred to as "the whitest of the Gods". His name translates to "The one who illuminates the world". Every depiction of him ever has been a white man. Having a black norse God is just not done, it's not logical when thinking about how this is an old Scandinavian belief. It's just silly. So why the change? For political correctness? To make up for crimes this generation was not actually a part of? Or just because hey, why not? It seems rather unnecessary and weird that they would make that kind of choice.

 

[TheRealCJ]

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."

As a comic book fan, AND someone who is incredibly adverse to changes (Often the smallest incongruities between a book/comic and movie is enough to downright piss me off; it's just me), I'd much rather have a inconsequential character have a race lift rather than an entirely new character introduced into a years-long continuity.

So did you take umbridge with the inclusion of Lucius Fox or Rachel in The Dark Knight?

You mean the Lucius Fox that has been part of the Batman canon since the late 70s?

 

[Harbinger_]

I think I would have been actually raging at Marvel if they did what they did for the movie and then claimed that it was completely true on a mythological standpoint. Otherwise yes for a movie they did an excellent job in the casting, the art direction, the script, literally everything was done well. I would have preferred a few more fight scenes but you can't have everything.

Also did anyone else look at the character of Loki and the way his actions and mannerisms were and think: He'd be perfect in Slytherin!

 

[DTWolfwood]

perfectly reasonable. sorry white man, you've had it good for too long. time for some double standards! lol

and Heimdall was very commanding! as a gatekeeper should

Now that i've seen Idris Elba as Heimdall, im having a hard time imagining anyone else playing him :O just like Samuel L Jackson with Nick Fury. these actors completely own the character now XD

 

[JDKJ]

I'm Norwegian, and I'm not angry that a black man was casted as Heimdall as I don't really care about the movie, but I do find the choice extremely odd. In norse mythology (and I can only speak for the mythology itself as I haven't read the source material of the film), Heimdall is referred to as "the whitest of the Gods". His name translates to "The one who illuminates the world". Every depiction of him ever has been a white man. Having a black norse God is just not done, it's not logical when thinking about how this is an old Scandinavian belief. It's just silly. So why the change? For political correctness? To make up for crimes this generation was not actually a part of? Or just because hey, why not? It seems rather unnecessary and weird that they would make that kind of choice.

To pay the Norwegians back for participating in Himmler's "Lebensborn" program would be my first guess. Pay back's a *****.

 

[Hive Mind]

Why does this matter to anyone? Just let it go.

This is all a bit too much. It's like that guy who points to his black friend at a party and loudly exclaims 'see, I'm not racist!' Or those people who make a point of Obama being black - as if it mattered any more than him being the first president with a thigh freckle exactly 5mm big.

Stop going around talking about race like it means anything. It doesn't. No one cares what skin pigment your mother had, and no one cares what land mass your grandfather happened to live on.

/rant

 

[Hive Mind]

The ideal, theoretically logical thing to do would be to make every role either culturally correct or completely interchangeable. But in practice, the latter ensures that no artistic liberty can be taken that doesn't suit all races (a white Malcolm X?) while the former makes an outstanding number of roles skewed toward the ethnically dominant. The imperfect concession that we make is to allow ethnic minorities to play traditionally white roles, because there just aren't that many roles they're suited for.

I still disagree. If I were to go to a country that was 90% black, and 10% white (somehow through the power of magical hypotheticalness there are no other minorities), I would not start demanding they change roles simply to suit "white people". I also wouldn't demand they keep roles within gender bounds either. I'd demand (or perhaps merely suggest) they go with what works. In the Thor example, it seemed to work quite well. There was nothing about the story that required him to be white, they are magical freakin' gods.

I believe in meritocracy. Roles should be given to whomever can play them the best, irrespective of race. That goes both ways.

Would you have raised an eye-brow if Thor was depicted as a seven-year-old Asian girl?

 

[Dracain]

Boy I got in on this one late, and I am not reading 16 pages of replies, so if I'm being repetitive, sorry.

First off, I don't buy any of the "paying for the sins of our fathers" crap. My direct father did a lot of idiotic things that quite honestly I never want associated with, and I sure as hell am not going to right his wrongs, of feel I have to be for the ones that he might have wronged kids or grand-kids. It's idiotic say that the past gives them the right to a double standard. I can feel for them all I want, but when collages lower standards for this, and for what? Slavery itself was ended more then a hundred years ago and while segregation held on far longer then it should have, no one under the age of 40 have much experience in it.

Now I'm not saying that racism is gone, after all, making stealing illegal didn't stop that so thinking someone is going to accept others just because it's not legal. The funny thing is that as I go about my life, I've noticed that at this point there are segments of all the races that have a permanent looking down for other races and I get tired of being the only one that it's considered bad.

As for movies, I do think that diversity isn't a bad thing, especially for ones based on material that started when segregation was still about, or at least the mentality of it was still a lot more common. The examples in the Marvel movies prove this well. Hell, I wasn't one that was bothered overall by the idea of casting a black guy for the Spider Man Reboot. There is a lot of far more important things I think of for a super hero then there race. It's far more important that Spider man is a nerd (well, Peter anyway), Nick Fury is a bad ass and... arg.. can't remember the name of the guy in Thor, but for him, it was that presence of don't mess with me (and alot of that is in the eyes). Those are the traits I think of, not there skin color.

I think that the only time that I'd be bothered by a race change would be if it's a movie about a real person. For an example, I'd be wondering what the hell if they put a black man to play Andy Kaufmen in Man on the Moon, no matter how well they auditioned. I'd say the same if they had a white guy play Ray Stevens in Ray as well. Biography pics should go for what is as close to the subjects that there talking about, and this should include race.

In the end,like said in the video, it's not a perfect world and nothing is going to change it, so it's more just dealing with things as they come.

You just said pretty much the exact thing I wanted to say, so I am just going to add one thing. SAMURAI PIZZA CATS MUST BE DISCUSSED!

 

[hecticpicnic]

That prince of Persia movie annoyed me because there was no need to use Caucasian actors as Persians(and so use so much dam fucking CGI!) i mean ayn't 30% California's population Hispanic.I no it may seem really racially insensitive but ayn't they like the same colour as Arabic's?

 

[JDKJ]

During the time when Odinists existed there were white slaves.

Black people worked as slavers in Africa.

We don't have slavery anymore.

No-one forgot that it happened, there's no need to act condescending and pretend they have.

Finally, Odinism was a real religion. If we were to depict Mohummed (AT ALL) as a white guy, or an Asian guy there would be outrage. Even though the Middle East had (and has) slavery and was never oppressed in the same way. The double standard isn;t as miniscule as you suggest.

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Good on the guy for delivering a good performance. My issue is with the decision makers.

I don't know who the "we" that doesn't have slavery anymore is, but it ain't South Asia where more than half of the underage girls who work in the sex trade there are just that: slaves.

Matter of fact, I was on a peek-a-boo site this morning and I would swear that I caught a brief glimpse of an ankle shackle locked to the bed-post.

 

[Fumbles]

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."

Oh my God....Someone actually agrees with me.
But you must remember according to our society it is not okay to be proud to be Caucasian, Where there is a Black History Month, Asian/Pacific Month, Latin Week/month.... there does not exist anything for us.

 

[hecticpicnic]

During the time when Odinists existed there were white slaves.

Black people worked as slavers in Africa.

We don't have slavery anymore.

No-one forgot that it happened, there's no need to act condescending and pretend they have.

Finally, Odinism was a real religion. If we were to depict Mohummed (AT ALL) as a white guy, or an Asian guy there would be outrage. Even though the Middle East had (and has) slavery and was never oppressed in the same way. The double standard isn;t as miniscule as you suggest.

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Good on the guy for delivering a good performance. My issue is with the decision makers.

No there would be outrage depicting him at all.We'll if they did a movie they would have to be true to life(realistic).I mean there's no problem with displaying Jesus as a Caucasian.

 

[JDKJ]

During the time when Odinists existed there were white slaves.

Black people worked as slavers in Africa.

We don't have slavery anymore.

No-one forgot that it happened, there's no need to act condescending and pretend they have.

Finally, Odinism was a real religion. If we were to depict Mohummed (AT ALL) as a white guy, or an Asian guy there would be outrage. Even though the Middle East had (and has) slavery and was never oppressed in the same way. The double standard isn;t as miniscule as you suggest.

My issue isn't that LIFES NOT FAIR ON ME CUS I'M WHITE. I'm not so foolish. However what I disagree with is the publics willingness to dismantle/misrepresent White cultures for private gains.

Good on the guy for delivering a good performance. My issue is with the decision makers.

I don't know who the "we" that doesn't have slavery anymore is, but it ain't South Asia where more than half of the underage girls who work in the sex trade there are just that: slaves.

I'm referring to 'The West', the same as Bob.

I did reference the fact slavery still exists in my post.

Not to quibble, but I don't see that at all. I see: "We don't have slavery anymore."

And I'm not sure how far "west" you're going, but if it's as far as Manhattan's Westside, I was getting a massage last week at my favorite rub joint (Madame Olga's Massage Emporium) on 10th and 52nd and I would have sworn that the little Russian girl who was attending to my every need whispered in my ear, "Help me, please. I'm being kept here against my will."