Color-blind Thor casting sparks hate-group outrage

[seanfingh]

Honestly...it's that kind of attitude that makes it "OK" for an entire generation to think that Spider-Man has always had organic web shooters or that Jim West was always a black Secret Service agent.

 

You know, you are right. When I think of things that bode poorly for me as an old man, trembling in fear at the days when the younger generations are running things, it is their lack of slavish adherence to pop culture relevance that keeps me up at night.

 

C'mon dude, don't be that way. Why is it so terrible that I crave some fidelity to the source material?

 

Because you clearly are a huge comics fan. You have a ton of enthusiasm and a ton of great books. If you continue to let little things keep you from enjoying all the comic related stuff, it will be a real shame.

 

I mean, hell, enough of it is going to suck on its own merit anyway.

[Mr 9.8]

As long as they never get a female to play Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, the world will be okay with me...

love,

JJ

[Boozad]

All this kerfuffle over a bloody film.

[Logan510]

As long as they never get a female to play Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica, the world will be okay with me...

love,

JJ

 

That annoyed me...I know you're not surprised

[MrBedrock]

there is only One True God.

Jimi Hendrix (thumbs u

[Logan510]

Honestly...it's that kind of attitude that makes it "OK" for an entire generation to think that Spider-Man has always had organic web shooters or that Jim West was always a black Secret Service agent.

 

You know, you are right. When I think of things that bode poorly for me as an old man, trembling in fear at the days when the younger generations are running things, it is their lack of slavish adherence to pop culture relevance that keeps me up at night.

 

C'mon dude, don't be that way. Why is it so terrible that I crave some fidelity to the source material?

 

Because you clearly are a huge comics fan. You have a ton of enthusiasm and a ton of great books. If you continue to let little things keep you from enjoying all the comic related stuff, it will be a real shame.

 

I mean, hell, enough of it is going to suck on its own merit anyway.

 

True, if I were 14 again I know I would be eating all of this stuff up with a spoon. I would've killed to have all these comicbook movies coming out on a pretty regular basis.

[Logan510]

All this kerfuffle over a bloody film.

 

To be fair, I wasn't planning on seeing this in the theater anyway, strictly Netflix material. Having a black dude play Heimdall doesn't change that either way for me...more of a minor annoyance.

[NewEnglandGothic]

Do you think the Japanese got all twisted up when Kurosawa's Yojimbo was redone by Bruce Willis as Last Man Standing? Of course not.

Actually...

There was a lawsuit once upon a time in the west.

[Sentinel Angel-migration]

Same here, which is why I won't be seeing this film. If the ethnicities of the role and the actor were reversed, we all know what kind of outrage would be unleashed from groups like the NAACP. The anti-white racism inherent in the double standard at play with this film and with those defending the choice of actor for this role is indefensible.

[Sentinel Angel-migration]

One last note before I (no doubt) get banned: These comic book characters are based on deities from a religion that is still active. So to a pretty sizable number of people, this is not a "minor" thing. There's no legitimate reason to cast a black actor -- regardless of his talent -- in this role, and a whole lot of reason to not do it. Imagine if some studio "bought the rights" to Malcolm X and produced a film with Denis Leary playing the title role. It's wrong, it's offensive -- maybe deliberately offensive -- and it's just plain stupid. So is defending it.

[sborock]

Same here, which is why I won't be seeing this film. If the ethnicities of the role and the actor were reversed, we all know what kind of outrage would be unleashed from groups like the NAACP. The anti-white racism inherent in the double standard at play with this film and with those defending the choice of actor for this role is indefensible.

 

I see films based on good acting and good story. Could not care less about the casting based on skin color. Comic book movies, IMHO, especially ones based on super heroes, do not have to follow the the comic storyline perfectly to be good.

[sborock]

One last note before I (no doubt) get banned: These comic book characters are based on deities from a religion that is still active. So to a pretty sizable number of people, this is not a "minor" thing. There's no legitimate reason to cast a black actor -- regardless of his talent -- in this role, and a whole lot of reason to not do it. Imagine if some studio "bought the rights" to Malcolm X and produced a film with Denis Leary playing the title role. It's wrong, it's offensive -- maybe deliberately offensive -- and it's just plain stupid. So is defending it.

 

This thread is going down hill quick............

[Logan510]

One last note before I (no doubt) get banned: These comic book characters are based on deities from a religion that is still active. So to a pretty sizable number of people, this is not a "minor" thing. There's no legitimate reason to cast a black actor -- regardless of his talent -- in this role, and a whole lot of reason to not do it. Imagine if some studio "bought the rights" to Malcolm X and produced a film with Denis Leary playing the title role. It's wrong, it's offensive -- maybe deliberately offensive -- and it's just plain stupid. So is defending it.

 

This thread is going down hill quick............

 

Hi Steve

[Comicdey]

I do see a good banning upcoming.....

[VintageComics]

One last note before I (no doubt) get banned: These comic book characters are based on deities from a religion that is still active. So to a pretty sizable number of people, this is not a "minor" thing. There's no legitimate reason to cast a black actor -- regardless of his talent -- in this role, and a whole lot of reason to not do it. Imagine if some studio "bought the rights" to Malcolm X and produced a film with Denis Leary playing the title role. It's wrong, it's offensive -- maybe deliberately offensive -- and it's just plain stupid. So is defending it.

 

This thread is going down hill quick............

 

 

In an absolute sense, he has some validity to what he is saying.

 

In the real world, there is more to life than meets the eye.

 

Change is not a bad thing, it's a necessary thing.

 

[Sentinel Angel-migration]

I do see a good banning upcoming.....

 

A ban to silence reasonable opposition reasonably offered is not a good banning.

 

Just like change isn't always a good thing. When it's necessary, yes. It's not necessary in this case, so it's not a good thing. It's change for the sake of change only. Progress is moving forward -- regression is moving backward -- forward and backward, though, are independent of the concepts of improvement and harm, but they're both change.

[shadroch]

So you have no issue with caucasion actors playing the King of Siam, Moses,Jesus, Richie Valle, Cleopatra,Charlie Chan, and the tens of thousands of other roles they have been cast in, but cast a person of color in the role of a fictious godling and you get upset enough to make up a fictious account.Hokey-dokey.

[He11blazer]

"Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection." -United Nations CyberSchoolBus.

 

The trend of color-blind casting in Hollywood is certainly not without precedent, if one considers the lack of discrimination in other areas such as creed, religion, national origin or sexual orientation.

 

Color-blind casting is just more noticeable.

 

For an example, how many people complained about a Quaker playing a prominent Hindu leader when casting Ben Kingsley as Gandhi? Hollywood has cast many Christians playing Jews in such roles as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice.

 

For decades Rock Hudson played the role of a romantic leading (straight) man despite many people close to him knowing his correct sexual orientation. Neil Patrick Harris plays a straight man on television and no one seems to mind.

 

I guess it’s easier to accept stuff like that than the obvious black on white.

 

dis•crim•i•na•tion

 

2. Treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.

 

 

Yes, this is all very good, but I think it is valid to object to racial miscasting at times.

 

Personally I'm fine with a black Heimdall. I wouldn't be watching Thor for an accurate portrayal of Norse mythology, and he's a god - he can look like whatever he wants. All I want from a Thor movie is entertainment, and if the actor is entertaining in the role, then it's good casting.

 

I think it can be offensive to change race when the character in question has race as a defining characteristic. One of the main points about Luke Cage or Black Panther is that they are black. It's a defining characteristic. They don't just 'happen' to be black, it's part of their reason for being. Not so Spiderman. Stan Lee didn't say "Hey I've got an idea! How about we create a white superhero! He could fight crime and do commentary on white issues at the same time!".

 

An example that offended me was the casting of Earthsea. The whole adaptation was beyond atrocious, but that's beside the point. When Ursula LeGuin wrote A Wizard of Earthsea she deliberately designed the lead character, and most of the people in the world of Earthsea, as 'non-white'. He is described as copper skinned, something like native Americans. She did this because she felt the fantasy genre was invariably a whitewash, and she wanted to create something that someone other than white kids could relate to for a change.

 

The racial makeup of the people of Earthsea is important to its author, and to many fans who felt empowered by the book (it was published in 1968). So, when the horrible TV adaptation came along and whitewashed Earthsea, it rightly offended many people including LeGuin.

 

Interesting. If Idris Elba could play Hemindal in THOR, could he also play a Nazi captain in a World War 2 film?

 

I guess that depends on whether it was a serious attempt at portraying the era, or something a little off the wall like Inglourious Basterds or The Producers. Hmm, OK, not Inglourious Basterds, that would've been distracting, but you get the point.

 

I can understand why a few devoted Thor comics fans might be a little irked by the change in race of a supporting character, in the same way I was a little irked when I heard about black Kingpin or female Gabriel (Constantine movie), but it's no big deal.

 

On reflection, black Kingpin was one of the better elements of that unfortunate movie, and female Gabriel (played by the superb Tilda Swinton) was fantastic. She almost single-handedly saved the movie from complete disregard.

 

Oh and by the way, on the subject of movie/comic inaccuracies that upset fans: Organic webshooters were a significant improvement over the original concept

[goldust40]

One last note before I (no doubt) get banned: These comic book characters are based on deities from a religion that is still active. So to a pretty sizable number of people, this is not a "minor" thing. There's no legitimate reason to cast a black actor -- regardless of his talent -- in this role, and a whole lot of reason to not do it. Imagine if some studio "bought the rights" to Malcolm X and produced a film with Denis Leary playing the title role. It's wrong, it's offensive -- maybe deliberately offensive -- and it's just plain stupid. So is defending it.

 

This thread is going down hill quick............

 

Yep. Very specious if not ludicrous reasoning - casting Denis Leary in the role of a historical figure whose life was focused to a large extent on race and political issues would certainly be misguided and insensitive to say the least, whilst a minor comic character's skin color in a genre film is immensely trivial in comparison. Apples and oranges, basically. Claiming that such casting is "deliberately offensive" screams agenda.

 

And Odinism is scarcely a religion in the proper sense of the term. It has seen a small fringe revival in recent years, and is basically focused on an Aryan tribal overview.

[He11blazer]

Same here, which is why I won't be seeing this film. If the ethnicities of the role and the actor were reversed, we all know what kind of outrage would be unleashed from groups like the NAACP.

 

No, we don't. If a hypothetical superhero movie were adapted from a comic that featured an all black supporting cast, and changed one of those unimportant supporting characters white, nobody would give a toss (well, nobody worth mentioning anyway).

 

Did you create a shill account because deep down you know that YOUR views are indefensible, and you don't wish to burn bridges?

 

Or are you a first time poster, so profoundly incensed by this issue that you felt the need to create an account? If so... wow.