Well I first mentioned the news of a brand new Supergirl movie on another thread but figured it probably deserved its own thread so here it is.
Since the first announcement there's been an explosion of related articles. Apparently the movie is not scheduled to be released until 2021 but people are already speculating who will be cast in the title role.
Some people are favoring Melissa Benoist who's currently playing the role on the CW TV series. Other people are generating lists of new people they'd want to see. Still others are already claiming that the role MUST be given to some kind of non-white minority person or they'd consider it a social injustice of the worst kind. There are even those who are saying this is a move to replace Henry Cavill as Superman because apparently everyone hates him so much that we need a different person to be the "official Super-person" in the movies. ;)
One thing I did read in one article stated that the movie would definitely showcase a "teenaged" version of the character. Back when the Supergirl TV series started a few years ago there was some quibbling about "retconning" the character to be in her mid-twenties. While generally speaking I believe that has worked out for the setting of the TV show it'll be good to see the character "reset" back to the timeframe she's generally depicted at in most of the comic books. Based on this age thing alone it would seem that casting Melissa Benoist (who's just shy of 30 IRL) as the movie version of Supergirl would seem incredibly unlikely.
Anyway I suspect there's at least a couple of reasons they decided to green-light a new Supergirl movie. One is that they saw how well Wonder Woman recently did so maybe they feel a little more comfortable with letting another female superhero headline a movie (after the relative disasters of movies like [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catwoman_%28film%29]Catwoman[/url]) and they also probably hope that she'll be a counter to the upcoming release of MCU's Captain Marvel.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Melissa can't act. No. Also, if they were going to do that, they should've started with CW Flash for the movies :p
That said, I haven't read Supergirl since they changed her on me in the New 52. That just wasn't the same Supergirl.
DC explicitly wants the movies and TV shows to be independent from each other. No crossover like Marvel does. So if you play a character on a TV show that pretty much disqualifies you from playing that character in one of the movies (to avoid confusion).
Consequently you end up with a second-rate Flash in Justice League.
Sadly I thought Ezra Miller's Flash was one of the "better" parts of the Justice League movie despite agreeing that Grant Gustin does a much better overall job with the role on the current CW TV show. Oh well.
Anyway I'm pretty sure Benoist's relative age would be enough to disqualify her from doing the movie regardless. Not that being 30 makes her an "old hag" by any means but it would mean that she'd be roughly twice the age IRL of the "teenaged" character she would supposedly be playing in the movie. Even for Hollywood that'd be pushing it.
Maybe they could figure out a way to let Benoist have some kind of cameo in the Supergirl movie along the lines of what Stan Lee does in the MCU movies. For instance it might be funny if they let Benoist play an "random innocent victim" that the new Supergirl quickly rescues in during a fight with the villain of the movie.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
They had Christopher Reeve and Margo Kidder both doing cameos in Smallville (RIP both of you) and Helen Slater who was the original Supergirl in the 1984 film played Kara (Clark’s biological mom) in that same series so DC isn’t above that kind of thing.
On a side note, I recently got to meet Tom Welling in real life. He’s a really nice, down-to-earth guy just like he appears on TV.
Yeah the "ex-superpeople" actors seem to get recycled quite a bit. For instance the two people who currently play Supergirl's adoptive human parents on the CW TV show are Dean Cain (Superman of the Lois & Clark show) and Helen Slater. Basically if Melissa Benoist is passed over for an appearance in the new Supergirl movie it seems pretty likely that she'll eventually play the character's mom or some other relative in some future show/movie. :)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
With lots of other cameos.
Teri Hatcher as Mon El's mom.
Erica Durance as Supergirl's mom (recasted to her)
Lynda Carter (terrible character though)
The VA for Martian Manhunter played MM's father.
That's just for Supergirl.
Who doesn't love seeing John Wesley Shipp as Flash's dad and as Jay Garrick? :)
I really try to not listen to any more DC movie announcements although it is next to impossible because they are everywhere. I really wish they would just wait until they have something a little more substantial before throwing out an announcement. I mean really, how many other announced projects have fallen to the side? Suicide Squad 2, Harley Quinn stand alone, Joker/Harley, Flash, Batgirl, Black Adam.
Oh sure there's always a good chance that any "initial movie announcement" will turn out to be vaporware. It's not just something that they do with the DC movies - I would guesstimate roughly half the movies I've ever read about never actually became real movies. Still waiting for Rose McGowan's Red Sonja movie...*shrugs*
But given that the Supergirl character does have an "arguably successful" TV show on the air right now probably gives her movie prospects a few extra bonus points. Also the fact that they just gave Ruby Rose the role for Batwoman means they are on a roll for "female superheroes". I would say the chances for a Supergirl movie as of today are perhaps 70% that it'll happen.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Though it seems cheesy now the old Flash show was pretty decent for its time. And I just like John Wesley Shipp in general as an actor.
Yep, typical studio thinking. "Wonder Woman worked. More female movies!"
While I don't agree with a lot of typical studio thinking, because it is general thinking like that. Not just in "Female hero movie worked! Let's make another!"
Instead of "What made this movie work?" They just look at the simplest reason for all movies and then if it fails they wonder "Guess the fans don't want it!" :p
I know I want a Supergirl movie. :) I want a Spider-Woman movie!
I agree. Supergirl or Spider Woman would be great. I just don't get that excited at announcements anymore. When there is casting and a production start date, then I will be pumped.
Now Sony is all over the place. Silver and Black is now going to be two separate movies. Then they also announce Morbius, Kraven, with the possibility of Silk down the line.
Silk was a recently made character, do they have the rights to her, even though she wasn't part of Spider-Man until much much later?
Seriously?
I would think giving the role to the best actress for the job would be ideal, not pushing some BS SJW agenda. The hell is wrong with people these days?
Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.
Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction
Give Supergirl to the Thor team and id buy a ticket opening night without seeing a single preview or knowing any of the cast.
current DC movies... going to pass unless i see glowing reviews from fans.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
Yes I'm totally serious about this. I read an article where the writer was literally saying things like the only way this new Supergirl movie can be "fair" and "socially responsible" is for them to cast a person of some non-white ethnicity and/or cis gender orientation. Apparently in this writer's world view it's completely impossible to create BRAND NEW minority superheroes so the only way there can be social equality is to forcibly retcon the existing heroes to cover "all the bases" so to speak. This person then went on to list like 10 'actors' (representing various minorities of all kinds) that they thought would be "socially acceptable" for this movie.
I have absolutely nothing against there being superheroes of all sorts of "flavors" and if people want to make tons of books/shows/movies based on those various characters then more power to them. But to be brutally honest I don't think it helps -anyone- to arbitrarily reimagine existing characters just in a vain misguided attempt to make everyone happy. I get that like 50+ years ago practically all superheroes were white heterosexual males and it certainly was not "fair" for the world to have encouraged that. But the solution to that is not "pretending" all those characters don't exist - the solution is to have new characters be introduced to level the playing field.
Anyway yes there has already been that kind of reaction to the Supergirl movie news. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Honestly if a long established character has to have their gender, sexuality or race retconned in order to not offend a portion of the population there is a problem. That tells me the project in question cannot stand on it's own merits and should not be funded in the first place.
Heroes get remembered, but Legends never die.
Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction
Uh... just in case you misunderstood the person who wrote that very unique article about how "Supergirl can't be a white cisgender female" was apparently some very zealous third party talking head. I don't think they had anything to do with the makers of the movie and/or studio at all.
Sure I might agree that if a "long established character [b]had[/b] to have their gender, sexuality or race retconned in order to work in 2021" that they might want to reconsider the entire idea. But since I personally think it's absolutely laughable to even [i]entertain[/i] the idea in this case I'm perfectly comfortable calling the person who wrote that particular article an "insane looney" and have a good laugh at their expense.
Again the way you fight the very real social injustices in the world of comic book characters is NOT by arbitrarily reimagining decades old characters. The people who would care about this kind of thing ought to have the courage to create their own new characters and have them complete for the acceptance of the audience at large just like every other character did. If a character can't be successful based on their own natural popularity then they shouldn't exist based on artificially forcing the masses to accept them on the basis of being "fair".
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
You know. I went into Fan4tastic accepting Michael being cast as The Human Torch and as a side note thinking it was funny that they thought themselves progressive for casting a black actor for Johnny but were obviously afraid to cast a black actress as Susan and found the movie to suck.
I don't blame this on Michael. Just thinking of a movie that switched things up and it didn't do well. I believe some still think that may have been the reason (besides it just sucking, but people didn't really show up to it to see if it sucked).
So, if they don't cast someone who looks like the Supergirl I bought the comics of, I just won't go. :p I'm just one ticket for sure, but that's just not going to work for me.
To be clear I don't think I'm strictly in the "Supergirl [b]MUST[/b] always be played by a cisgendered white female" camp. But I sure as hell know that I will [b]never[/b] be in the "Supergirl [b]MUST NEVER[/b] be played by another cisgendered white female" camp. Taking an absolutely contrarian position like that is simply ridiculous.
All things being equal I will openly admit that, for the sake of 60+ years worth of precedent if nothing else, I would [i]prefer[/i] that they cast a "white teenaged female" to play the role of a "white teenaged female superhero" in this upcoming movie. But for the sake of argument if they found say a young Latina actress who was otherwise so completely perfect for the role in terms of personality and acting ability I would not be instantly against the idea. As far as I'm concerned such as person would truly have to be "beyond perfect" to justify changing the core foundation of the character, but again if such a person existed I would be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
All things being equal I'm simply assuming such a hyper-perfect alternative does -not- exist. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
At this moment, I feel the issue, is it's not about who's the best actress, but rather something akin to what was posted.
I was for Zendaya being MJ if they would just color her hair red and I don't care if they renamed MJ to Michelle, we know what they were trying to play it off as :p
I'd be down with a non white Supergirl. I mean she is an alien after all. The only importance the color of Supergirl's skin has is she can pass for human... That's pretty much it.
On the subject of Fan4stic; that movie was terrible. No matter who got cast in it it wouldn't have saved it. Hopefully Disney & Marvel can do something good with the license.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
What does alien have to do with it? Her look has changed over the years, but there are some constants.
May as well say, "Power Girl is an alien, so I don't care if she's played by a flat chested actress, as she's an alien."
These character's aren't in a novel written about and never said what they look like. We know what they look like.
Yes, sometimes we make exceptions and willing to make those exceptions, but it should never be because "Oh. I'm offended that I don't have a hero with a more popular culture because I was to lazy to get one that was the way I wanted, more famous."
Well the very idea that Kryptonians conveniently have two arms, two legs, a head and otherwise look 100% identical to human beings (instead of like Andorians or even Jabba the Hut) is a bit of a joke to begin with. Not that comic books were ever supposed to be "realistic" but seriously the chances that an "alien" would look 100% identical to us is, well, astronomically low. Heck even Spock had to wear silly hats to cover his ears on planets where a humanoid with pointy ears would have been too shocking to deal with. ;)
Anyway I just don't have much tolerance for the idea of "change for change's sake" when it comes to things like this. Supergirl was established looking like a young white girl. I know people will argue by saying things like, "Well in the last few hundred years people have run countless Shakespeare plays where all the characters have looked radically different from one production to the next". I would counter that by saying that no one really knows what the very first Hamlet or Macbeth LOOKED like because their images were not enshrined in hundreds of comic books, shows and movies. The existing body of evidence points to the immutable fact that the creators of Supergirl created her to look like a young white girl. I'm not really seeing the overwhelming "advantage" gained by changing that either narratively or culturally.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This is turning into the Starfire / beastboy argument all over again.
Though most people with those two were mostly mad that beastboy isn't green and starfire isnt orange.
The faster they destroy the SJW agenda in superheroes the happier I will be. It nearly never is done for a reason that isnt a determent to the character.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
Super heroes are an SJW agenda.
The X-Men literally fight for social justice. One of Superman's first acts in comic form was stopping a guy from hitting his wife.
Anyway back on topic.
Supergirl being white has nothing to do with her character. It's part of her design, like her costume, and it can be changed, like her costume.
Character design is constantly changing. Origins get updated. But most fans don't seem to care all that much for those. Suddenly when changing a characters skin color comes up you have to be true to the source material.
Having a non-white Supergirl would definitely garner the movie attention and how many other non-white female superhero movies do you see around? Like none? But it would be a DC movie still and that means regardless of the actress they get to play Supergirl the movie will likely suck. Unless they get the same team who did Wonder Woman then it might actually be passable.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Well I would have you consider that the reason why when you "suddenly change a character's skin color" it becomes a "big deal" is because it IS a big deal at least to most people. It's at least a bigger deal than a random costume tweak at any rate. Did you see how many people had a cow when Black Widow decided to go blonde in the last Avengers movie? And we're only talking hair color there...
Again I'd like to think that I would still give a "non-white Supergirl" a reasonable chance. I'm not going to sit here and categorically assume that it would be a horrible mistake sight unseen. Still I can comfortably admit that all things considered that is one "element" of the character that does not NEED to be changed just for change's sake.
As for the fact that it would still be a DC movie regardless there's probably nothing that could fix that curse at this point. ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Mostly the hair color thing was because it was confusing for the audience, it was hard to tell it was supposed to be Black Widow. And with hardly anyone using her name that helped compound the confusion.
But pretty much any change to anything relating to comic books results in certain fans frothing at the mouth.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Turns out I'm going to "hijack" my own thread because I just read another new article that's very similar to this original point I made about the Supergirl movie which was people in general getting bent-out-of-shape over applying SJW mindsets to the casting of superhero characters.
Case in point apparently Ruby Rose, the "gender fluid" actor who was recently signed up to play Batwoman has dropped off Twitter after receiving a shit-storm of criticism from people who were claiming that she's both "not gay enough" and not "Jewish enough" to play the character. As it goes (in case you didn't know) the character concept behind the latest version of Batwoman is that she's supposed to be a "Jewish Lesbian" among other things.
So now we have SJWs who don't like a "queer" actor because they aren't "queer enough" and we have other people who are flabbergasted that a non-Jew might be taking a job away from a fine young Jewish actress on a TV show.
These criticisms are even more ridiculous than the "Supergirl must be a minority actor" statement because at least a random person (like Ruby Rose) can always ACT gay or ACT Jewish as the character requires.
Have people simply forgotten what "acting" is? Do all actors now have to embody every last character trait their characters possess IRL?
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
So..... hair color being off confuses the audience...
but totally changing the race/gender/skincolor/backstory... thats not?
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
I thought the Batwoman controversy with Ruby Rose made it the funniest thing. First the cast her because she's gay. Not because she's a good actress, because she's not. In fact, the best she's acted has been in The Meg. They casted her, because the SJWs were all "Gays should be used to play gays!"
Though, the idea of a straight person being used to play a straight person is like a slap in the face.
She got blasted by those she was always for! It was just funny to me.
Have to agree with Lothic.
Amazing how people say changing the race of a character isn't a big deal and means nothing...but only when the character is white. Either the original creation of the character matters, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, I want to see a white actor play Black Panther. Then treat the role exactly like they would if it was a black person playing the role. Including a scene like Nick Fury in Civil War "It's a lease." :p
Correct.
You see in the previous movie Black Widow had shorter red hair, then in Infinity War she has long blonde hair, couple that with hardly anyone saying her name and the audience, who don't pay super close attention, don't know who this blonde woman is.
Where as starting a new series of movies with some changes doesn't confuse the average audience mostly because your average movie going public has no idea who these characters are. You introduce them to a black Supergirl they have nothing really to get confused about.
Take something like X-Men. Most people probably know Wolverine... And that's probably about it. You could do absolutely anything to the rest of the characters and your average person wouldn't know it's any different in the comic (those who know that they 1, come from a comic and 2, know that said comic is ongoing).
Same as no average audience member commented on Drax not being green. They don't know Drax. They had no idea who he was before the movie and they don't know or care how comics accurate he is.
So in summary. Making drastic changes to a character between movies, confusing. Making drastic changes to a character for their first movie (or reboot) not really confusing.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
This is because white people are over represented in media and minorities are severely underrepresented.
You change a character from white to a person of color there are many more roles for the white actors to play. You change a Latino character white you have taken away one of the few roles for Latino actors. That's pretty much it. And if you can't understand that then there's really no helping you.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
And I told myself I wouldn’t get involved in this crap anymore...
One of the main reasons a comic or any written media gets turned into a movie is because of how much it is liked typically as written. Changing the race of a character just because some minority’s not getting as much representation as the one from the actual story doesn’t do any justice to the author/creator whose work is what the fan base wants to see made into a movie. Whether the moviegoers that are unaware of the written work know anything about the races depicted in the movie or not has nothing to do with it. It is insulting to the writer whose original work garnered convincing producers to make the movie as well as the fan base. In the case of the MCU Feige was initially known for trying to keep as close as possible to the stories as they were written with as little straying as possible. All of these reasons suggest issues of getting a member of some race/quasi-gender/etc in the movie just so they can get representation in a work that never included them in the first place is flagrantly dismissive of the authors of the work, which is what the movie is all about and supported the opportunity to make the movie in the first place.
If you don’t want to watch a movie or series of movies because it isn’t mutually inclusive of every race/quasi-gender/etc you see fit then don’t watch it but don’t expect anyone else to think the story should be changed for you’re personal reasons. .
And there is a difference between confusion over a change of hair color from one movie to the next of an existing character the audience is already aware of versus changing the race of a character at the onset of the movie from the written work. Of course the latter won’t be as confusing if the moviegoers aren’t already aware of the character in the first place. This is just an argument in support of changing a character in general which is insulting the writers work which again is how the role came to exist in the first place.
This would be akin to seeing Harry Potter played by a Hispanic or Asian or some other gendered actor/actress. Wouldn’t really be the same story anymore...
Instead of striving for representation of ethnicities that aren’t a part of the original work why not support other work, thus gaining awareness for original content that supports your preferences. Perhaps it will gain enough popularity that it can grace the big screen itself on its own merits. As opposed to riding the coattails of material that has already won the support to grace the big screen on its own.
If such material doesn’t exist then perhaps create it yourself but changing existing characters really should remain in the hands of the property creators.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
You had me up to this line. I think it is a poor example, because I don't recall ever seeing, not once, any mention of Harry's race or creed. Author J.K. Rowling was writing about a boy growing up in suburban England. So while a reader may assume a lilly-white protagonist, his stature as an orphan allows any movie-maker the freedom to grant him any race or mixed heritage he could desire. Bad example.
Others have mentioned that using comic books as source material, however, does mean that the appearance of characters has already been established by their creators. So your argument has merit, just not with the argument you presented based on the example you used.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
I would agree with you except that the author held great control over the production of the audiobook renditions if her books which depicted him as a he was rendered in the movies. There were no ethnic accents, slang, or any other cultural tells depicting anything other than what we see, heard, and read.
Had there been it would have significantly altered the background of the main character within the story. Moreover all you had to do was look at the cover of the book and see it was a pasty white kid.
That aside I suppose it wasn’t a great example.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
The problem with your argument here is that we're not talking about a brand NEW character here. If Supergirl had never existed up until now and this upcoming "Supergirl movie" was literally the first introduction of the character to the public then sure you could make her any ethnicity or gender orientation you wanted because no one would have any legitimate expectations for her.
But Supergirl specifically has been in the comic books for 60+ years, has been on several relatively recent TV shows (including a current one) and has already been in the movies (the 1984 film) and in ALL of those media she's always been portrayed as a YOUNG WHITE GIRL. In effect your idea that the character could be trivially retconned into being another ethnicity would be something like if they had decided to recast Luke Skywalker as Filipino guy in Star Wars VII and VIII. According to your argument since those newer movies are from a completely different trilogy of movies (decades after Star Wars IV, V and VI were made) people should have no problem with that. Yeah right...
Bottomline you can't just "etch-e-sketch" a character that's been one thing for decades into something else "just because".
Yes but even this logic doesn't always turn out to be correct even or helpful to the supposed "victims" of the given situation.
For instance you might recall there was a big SJW uproar over the fact that Scarlett Johansson was cast to play Motoko Kusanagi in the recent Ghost in the Shell movie. But as it turns out the idea that a "white woman" would play the role wasn't actually that upsetting to the average native Japanese audience (or even actors). The [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell_%282017_film%29#Casting_criticism]wiki of the movie[/url] summed this up best by saying:
So once again we see another example of SJWs getting a bit too over zealous for their own good.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Does Supergirl need to be white? The answer is no. If the only reason for her being so is that she was created that way then that is a poor reason. Remember comics often change a lot of things about characters like their origins (Donna Troy, Power Girl), their powers (Power Girl, Guy Gardner), or their designs (any costume change). But somehow changing their race away from white is some sort of sacred cow that cannot and should not be done, even when it is an entirely new version of that character? Hmm. I wonder what the reason for that could be.
Now your Luke Skywalker example doesn't work because it may be a new trilogy but it's still a sequel. If they Rebooted Starwars there is no reason Luke needs to be white. None at all. Him being white has no bearing on his character, so he could be any race. They'd need to match it up with Leia, but that's about it. Same as Han Solo wouldn't need to be white in a reboot, neither would Obi Wan. The empire might still need to be a bunch of white men because they're based on the Nazis.
Let's look at some of the language of that quote there? Hm? "they had already assumed that a Hollywood production would choose a white actress." Gee, I wonder why that could be, maybe because Hollywood does this all the time. Oh and there's also the tidbit of "many Japanese Americans may find Johansson's casting in a Ghost in the Shell movie distressing" perhaps if the movie was a Japanese made movie for a primarily Japanese market then the casting choice wouldn't be so bad. But as an American made movie for a primarily American audience they sort of dropped the ball. Oh here's another good part of that "They felt the appearance of the protagonist was immaterial due to the franchise's themes of self-identity and the blurring of artificial and natural bodies" so according to that the race of the actress doesn't matter, and they could have been asian, African American, middle Eastern, Latino, anything really... But the studio defaulted to white.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Obviously when they created the character she didn't NEED to be white. But it [i]was[/i] the ethnicity they [i]did choose[/i] for her. Perhaps I simply feel more comfortable keeping things the way their original creators intended when there's no OVERT reason to change them. *shrugs*
Yeah you've totally made an assumption here that's completely false and accusatory of a racist intent.
For me if they had originally decided to make Supergirl an [b]African American[/b] girl 60+ years ago and kept that ethnicity the same throughout all the comic books, the 1984 movie and the recent TV shows I would [b][i]still be arguing that she be kept the same today[/i][/b]. It's not that I'm upset that she would be changed FROM WHITE to something else. It's that I don't think she should be CHANGED AT ALL because [b]precedent matters[/b].
Again you're missing the point, or at least doing your best to confuse the issue. When a character has been established as something for decades you really -do- need a reasonably legitimate reason for why you're bothering to change it more than "just because we can".
And here's where some of your ignorance on this subject shines: You do realize that people of different ethnicities can be "nationalists" and/or "fascists" don't you? Take the rise of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva#Criticism_and_support]Hindutva[/url] and the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh]RSS[/url] in India for example.
They assumed this because it was an AMERICAN movie, not a JAPANESE movie. When the Mongolians make a movie I don't automatically expect to see Norwegian actors in it do you?
They [color=red]MIGHT[/color] have found it distressing because they've wrongly PRESUMED the native Japanese would find it annoying to see a white actress in the role. Turns out their possible "distress" was unfounded because the native Japanese DID NOT get upset. As I said it's another case of American SJWs ASSUMING there was a problem here when there wasn't.
Again it turns out that overly-sensitive snowflake Americans once again ASSUMED there was going to be an outrage amongst native Japanese because they are constantly (now-a-days) jumping the gun on ASSUMING everyone's going to be outraged by these kinds of things when it turns out they aren't.
Well I'd say they "defaulted" to a bankable star actor that was suitable for the role. But then again you're the one here implying that everything related to this issue is driven entirely by racism. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
there is zero point in arguing with Project_hero
either they are arguing their stance just because, or they really dont see the hypocrisy that US ethnic minority characters should stay a minority, but white characters can be changed whenever people want for no reason other than to do it.
You dont see the Indian Bollywood market having a tissy over inclusion, or the Asian markets either, or the Russian movies... Only American.
If you cant respect someone elses creation and honor the character how it was intended to be... you shouldn't use it.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
You do know such things as casual racism and racial bias exist, right?
And on the Star Wars thing, yeah, I'm aware other fascist movements exist but the empire is literally based on the Nazis. Sure in a hypothetical reboot they could change that, but that likely would have a bunch of negative racial connotations.
Onto the ghost in the shell stuff. It's an American made movie, yes. But America isn't wholly white, the fact they assumed they'd cast a white actress is because Hollywood has a tendency to cast mainly white people.
From the quote they find it distressing and native Japanese don't. Not that they presumed that native Japanese people would. Japanese Americans may find it distressing because that was a part that Japanese Americans could play.
See, it's not a bad thing because a select group of people don't find it bad. Who cares about all the Americans who find it troubling? Who cares about any Japanese Americans who might find it troubling, this group of people who are in the majority in their own country don't find it troubling! Like seriously it's like if they made a movie in India that had a white character recast as an Indian, guess what? White people in America and Europe wouldn't care! But white people in India might.
Sweet Christmas, try viewing things from someone else's perspective once in a while.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
its casually racist to suggest a white character being white doesnt matter but a black character being black does.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
No. Because white people do not have a history of discrimination in North America.
Edit: If all things were equal then yes, but they're not.
Edit 2: If all things were equal it wouldn't matter who plays what character. But we do not live in that world yet.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Sure, and when those things get around to applying to this situation we can talk about it if you'd like. I'm merely talking about maintaining established precedents of decades-old characters - you're the one who's desperately bringing up "racial issues" here.
So changing the race of the "facists badguys" in a movie might raise a "bunch of negative racial connotations" but randomly tinkering around with the ethnicities of main characters would have absolutely no ramifications?
They assumed they'd cast an AMERICAN. It's not anyone's fault that lots of Americans tend to be white. Once again you're the one who keeps (forgive the pun) "coloring" this topic with racial innuendoes and dog whistles. *shrugs*
It was the part the SWJs [b][i]inserted[/i][/b] themselves into to because they presumed they needed to "sound the alarm" and defend a group of people (in this case Japanese Americans) who didn't need defending in the first place. Discrimination in this country is a bad thing, but equally bad is a bunch of people with "white guilt" who think they need to be offended for the sake of everyone else when it's NOT warranted.
Again it's simply a case of SJWing doing TOO MUCH and not knowing when they've gone too far for their own good.
OMG that's entirely the problem I have WITH YOU about this whole thing lol.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Considering racial bias and casual racism permeate pretty much everything in the USA it's more or less always relevant.
That is correct. Casting a minority as the defacto badguys has a number of xenophobic and racist connotations that casting the majority as the bad guys doesn't. Changing Superman to a Black Man doesn't have any negative connotations, infact it enhances his immigrant that came to America and became the best American themes.
Sure, because to the rest of the world American isn't synonyms with White, right?
No, those two things are not equal. Using a position of privilege to defend others without that privilege is not the same as defending the status quo that maintains that privilege.
They've gone too far? Did they send death threats or something because a bunch of shitty white male nerds do that when they don't like a thing.
And as for your last point "Oh, won't someone please think of the white majority!?"
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
If you say so. Frankly I think that "mixing race into everything" is part of our "collective problem" now-a-days.
I think it's quaint that you think this. I wish things could really be that simple.
I don't know... It's possible many foreigners consider us a "melting pot" and presumably consider that a good reason to want to come here.
Maintaining the ethnicity of a long established fictional character has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do maintaining (or fighting) social inequalities in society. Talk about making mountains out of falsely equivalent molehills...
Like there aren't stupidly obnoxious people on both sides of any issue.
Again the fact that you're desperately trying to elevate this into being a "racial" issue is sad and frankly uncalled for. I've already told you I'd be equally pissed if we were talking about making a 60+ year old "black Supergirl" white. I don't how I can explain that this discussion literally has NOTHING TO DO with race any better than that. *shrugs*
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
There are stupidly obnoxious people on both sides. And those that take things too far, like the aforementioned sending of death threats.
Supergirl doesn't need to be white. Every iteration of her doesn't need to be white. Because here's the thing. When they make a new thing of an established superhero they're not making a translation of the 60+ years of that character. Especially when that character has already been rebooted several times already. So changing the characters race is no different than changing a costume or tweaking an origin.
Man of steel Superman can fly, original Superman couldn't. I don't see MoS using any of the dumb powers Superman spontaneously had in the silver age either. It's almost as if they made him a new sort of amalgamation of previous Supermen and current ones.
Gee, when they make a new version of a character it seems like they can make some changes. One of which can be a white character's race because usually their race doesn't have anything to do with them as a character.
Do you complain about any little difference between a comic version and a movie/TV version? Does it matter if Supergirl has curly hair or straight? Does it matter if she blonde? Does it matter if she wears a mini skirt? Does she have to be from an offshoot of Kryptonians that lived on a chunk of krypton that was blown out into space and then lined with lead?
Cause I don't think most of that stuff matters.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I really don't see how you can seriously think that in the so-called "racially charged" world you said we live in why changing an established character's ethnicity is a trivial matter with zero repercussions. That idea will continue to boggle my mind every time you repeat it over and over again.
Again I've never said Supergirl NEEDS to be white. As you aptly pointed out nothing about the character directly "relies" on her "whiteness" to define who she is.
But the fact that she doesn't -need- to be white is not the really the point to all this. The fact that she doesn't -need- to be white DOES NOT mean that she [b][i]must[/i][/b] be non-white either.
If the color of her skin truly doesn't matter as you say then it wouldn't really matter if she remains white for eternity would it? Apparently you're claiming that her skin color DOES matter because of your implied implications that changing it would somehow be of some "social benefit" to some group of people.
You can't have it both ways.
Funny story but it turns out I created a thread on this forum a few years ago to specifically talk about the CW Supergirl TV show. I assume it's still out there somewhere.
Anyway I was generally positive about the show itself but the one quibble I had was that to this day I still hate that she wears those dumb dark tights with her super outfit. The basic reason is that the character has never worn tights in any other incarnation and they simply look silly because their color doesn't match with anything else she's wearing. I got into my specific "dislike" for the tights with Redlynne and we had a fun time arguing the merits of that particular sartorial detail. ;)
A particular triumph (for me anyways) was that about a year ago I managed to find a very cool statue of Melissa Benoist as Supergirl and either by accident or on purpose the people who made the statue did -not- paint her legs with the color of the tights but instead as the color of the rest of her skin (as God and Nature intended). ;)
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The only repercussions from changing a white character to non-white would be angry white people (most likely men).
Changing her from white to a person of color would give non-white girls a superhero movie. Having more diverse superhero movies (and movies in general, let's be honest) in would be good.
She doesn't need to be white also means she doesn't need to remain white. In a world where minorities are well represented in the media her skin color wouldn't matter at all. But this is an opportunity to do some good and make a change that can be seen as positive. Leaving her white appeases the general white need crowd, changing her can garner her appeal with audiences that traditionally don't usually care about such movies.
After googling, the pantyhose (which is what those 'dumb dark tights' are) look fine. Though like Wonder Woman she should just wear pants.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Then why do it if it would upset "anyone"? Seems like the status quo would likely "upset" the least number of people in this case.
Why can't you create a new superhero to do all these wonderful things you're implying a "more diverse" superheroine could do? Who knows, maybe in 50 years no one will remember "white Supergirl" in favor of this new superheroine who's supposedly going to be so much more "socially appealing" to everyone. *shrugs*
Beyond answering that you're still effectively saying both that "her skin color doesn't matter" and that "her skin color does matter". Again pick a side because you can't have it both ways.
Actually they are likely the same kind of high quality "stage tights" that are worn by Hooters' waitresses and the like. But that point really doesn't matter - what's important is that no other Supergirl before her ever wore anything like them. Change for change's sake is ultimately pointless.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
There are plenty of black superheroes, you have zero need to change a white character into another race
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_black_superheroes
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
Create a new hero? Oh yeah, that's simple. So first they need to come up with an idea, then they need to get in the industry, then they need to pitch it to their superiors, then it needs to be approved, then they need to ensure the project doesn't get cancelled before it goes to print. Then they have to sell it to a majority white male audience in an industry that doesn't advertise to non white males.
Simple.
Strangely there's a fair number of webcomics that have PoC and LGBT superheroes, but the likelihood of them making a movie or TV show out of one of those is pretty slim.
So yeah, they could just make their own, too bad that's a monumental undertaking.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
How big is the list of white Superheroes? How many times greater is it than that list?
I'm going to say it's probably a lot bigger.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
So what if it's hard? It's more morally pure and socially relevant to say "Here we have our own hero that stands on her own to represent our ideals and values" than to say "Well we couldn't really come up with our own hero so we just co-opted an existing one and Frankenstein'd it to suit our needs". Yeah, that's the kind of second-hand hero I'd want to look up to for sure...
If you claim there's such a "market demand" for a something "just like Supergirl except black" then somebody, somewhere needs to stop whining about how hard it is to do and just do it. I'm sure a bunch of people were against Black Panther before he came out but now that "relatively unknown" character has proven himself. Let a brand new "black Supergirl clone" do the same thing without having to rip down another character to do it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
The question really is how many have tried and been passed up?
For all we know there could be multiple creators working at big comics companies pitching ideas and just getting passed over.
The saying of "Well just make your own thing" trivializes the difficulty that's involved with that process and is just used as a way to try and shut people up who have differing voices. Same as they usually want people to go and make their own thing so that that thing can then be ignored by the person saying it.
"They shouldn't have made Iceman gay, they should have made a new character (that I can then easily ignore)."
This is the subtext of those arguments. Changing an established hero, or making a new version of that hero can't be so easily ignored.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
So? the list of black heroes is so large you were not even willing to sit there and count them. Are you trying to say that in that list none of those heroes are good enough for black people to be represented so you need to change a white hero black?
Changing the race on a hero does affect its popularity... it decreases it.
That list literally offers over 100 movies with a different black superhero as the lead. In every single thread like this you seem to insist that white people don't deserve their own heroes but every other race does.
Meanwhile almost every other person is going "everyone deserves heroes, even white people." and "there are good quality minority heroes who have stories, you dont need to race/gender/sexuality bend an established hero." and "Arbitrary changes for the sake of diversity to a hero devalues that hero and the intent of that hero by the creator."
your argument is a giant hypocrisy statement. It reads as not valuing anything or anyone white. It does not read as an equality argument. It doesn't read as "social justice" as actual justice, it reads as social justice just to pee on white characters because lets take something made by white people, popular mostly with white people... and make it not for white people. That isnt justice, thats co-opting.
Not once have you stated a single character that should stay white. I have not read a single statement by you defending the origins of a white character, but you constantly have gone to bat for non white characters. Kinda comes off a tad racist.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
If you have to co-opt/retcon an established existing hero to get to the type character you want how worthy is that new character in the first place?
Again I don't care how "hard" it is. Either somebody makes it work or it's not worth the effort to begin with. *shrugs*
It's taken Supergirl 60+ years to earn the level of "media exposure" she has now for us to even be talking about a brand new big-budget movie for her. If it takes decades for a new "minority version of Supergirl" to get to the same level of popularity then so be it.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
A lot of those on the list are from comics companies I have never even heard of. I'm sure a movie of one of them will do well. Hell Amanda Waller and Wonder Woman are on the list for DC characters. Amanda Waller isn't even a superhero.
In comics yeah, maybe it does decrease it. Probably because their target audience is white men and they only advertise in places those same white men frequent and those same white men generally make the place pretty unapproachable for anyone not a white man. Gee, I wonder how, with all those contributing factors, changing a character from a white man to anything else could possibly impact sales.
White people have their own heroes. Freeking tons of them. Share your God damn toys.
White people have everything. Like over 90% of the media is white. Letting there be a version of a character that's not white takes nothing away from that.
I wonder why I haven't defended any character's whiteness. Maybe because it's never important to the character and there are literally thousands of them. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. I haven't defended the origins of a white character because most characters being white in a place with a white majority is nothing to defend. It's not special, it's not meaningful. They're just another white person in an overwhelming group of white people. What is there to defend?
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
A non-white Superman is a pretty interesting concept. Having to deal with racism, hate, being other, and then still becoming the kind caring Superman who helps everyone.
See, if they just made a new hero that was Superman but black people would complain that he's just a rip off of Superman.
There is no winning this for people of color.
Like, have you watched Justice League God's and Monsters? They change up the characters and it works super well, the story ends up being rather pedestrian but the characters are interesting.
Cause the thing about superheroes is they don't have to be one thing. They can be anything. What they stand for and who they are as people is what's important. Not what they look like or what costume they wear. I like Superman. I like multiple versions of Superman. I like Superman when he acts like Superman. He could be any race or even any gender because what he stands for is important. And I think comic book fans need to be a bit more like their heroes and less like their villians.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Why does anyone have to share when everyone can have their own toys? The more the merrier as they say.
One more time I have NEVER been against there being more characters to enjoy. But this has never been a zero-sum game - you don't have to tear down an existing character in order for there to be a new one, even if that new one is effectively just a "non-white" version of an existing one.
One of the hallmarks of diversity is INCLUSION. It should be a goal of diversity to have as many "flavors" of Supergirls as possible. One more time you shouldn't have to kill one in order for another to exist. Is that concept really so hard to accept?
Sure it might not be an easy thing to accomplish. But nothing worth having is ever easy.
Wow that's a pretty defeatist and hypocritical conclusion right there. Remember if they just retconned "the" Superman to be black then [b]everyone[/b] could still complain that it was just done as a "gimmick". Some white people might be "racist" about it but there'd be plenty of black people who'd just see it as some kind of "white guilt appeasement" and never really accept it either.
I'd think the only kind of fictional superhero I could "enjoy and respect" would be one that was always true to his/her foundations instead of one that was simply frankenstein'd to pander to my particular demographic.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
By that same token, simple math would tell us, there's likely more white actors.
61% of the US population is white. So, we likely have more white actors by that very fact.
Then there's adding in Canadian's and British who seemed to be pretty active in Hollywood, so take their percentages in as well.
Now, go with Hispanic 18% and Blacks 12%.
Simple math explains so much! Unless you think the number is in the 90% for white roles (it's not). For superheroes? It's not. For the current movies with one character having a name in the title? Sure. Doesn't mean change Supergirl, it means "Fight for a Misty Knight movie!" Oh. Yeah. Amazing. So simple! Don't change characters, just make movies of other characters!
Oh. I get it. No one might want to see a Misty Knight movie, but everyone knows Supergirl! :p
Not to mention, that doesn't matter. Either it matters or it doesn't. Obviously, for some those who say it works one way but not the other, are liars when they say it doesn't. However, lots of people are liars when they strive to get what they want.
As for the whole "Well, there's only so few roles for latinos." To that I say BS. They could've for instance cast a Latino as Ross in Friends. Had him play the exact same character. How exactly is there few roles for Latino or hell Black character and have him act just like Ross?
Of course, if they had a black actor play Ross, as Ross was seen, probably would've got some "He's not playing black!" Nevermind, it's called acting and playing the role. :p
Except, you know, she lied and you're wrong.
Inside the books and the covers had artwork of the characters that were ok'ed by JK. She back peddled on it, because of the play.
She even spoke about how Radcliff was exactly how she pictured Harry.
However, it being a book that never really got into the races, it's a bit different.
However, going by a comment made by Samuel L Jackson, it would seem being black and british is pretty much being white and not like a black american at all.
Gone over this before. Name me a Japanese actress that is popular enough to headline the movie and is between the ages of 20 and 35. You can't.
Japanese make up less than .5% (<---that's less than half a percent) of the US population. Half female, so .25% Then have to be between the ages mentioned. You know, instead of going outside of Hollywood. However, then we still lack name recognition.
Now, let's look at that .5% of the population. How many of that percentage do you think was crying about it? My guess, less than 1% of that population, but let's be generous for the sake of being generous. Let's assume that a quarter got upset about it.
Is that enough people to really care? We have a bigger percentage of American's split by politics. Maybe it's time to stop all politics as they upset WAY more people. :p
They did this. It's called Handcock.
Truthfully, I thought maybe it was because you were a bit hypocritical when it came to race. It's either offensive/racist to change race or it's not. It's either okay or it's not.
If it's okay. I want to see a white actor play some of these black superheroes. Not because I'm for it mind you, just because I want to see the reaction of those who say "Oh, it's okay."
Comics are a visual medium. Fans know what their characters look like. Fans are willing to accept some change, but they're not going to accept all change and they really don't like the change when it's politically motivated.
Also, you obviously need to read more comics, just because you can't tell there's more black heroes than you can notice. I'd say there's less hispanic/asian than black, which has a lot of representation in comics.
Let's make a Storm, Maggott, Night Thrasher (<---I'd love this one), Bishop, Spawn (better than the first), Misty Knight, Luke Cage, etc just to see a black super hero's name as the title of the movie, which is obviously the real argument.
You only know the popular white super heroes, and didn't get into it enough, maybe didn't even care enough to get into it, now that movies are being made, you'd like to change things because you have a limited knowledge in the area.
We also just got Cloak & Dagger on Hulu for two leads who aren't white males!
They're not going to do a Misty Knight movie while she's still a secondary character on a Netflix show and not even a superhero yet.
JK Rowling oking art and saying Daniel Radcliffe is how she imagined the character doesn't change the fact that HP's race doesn't need to be white and judging from her favorable reactions to the black Hermione Granger in that play, I'd say she's pretty ok with people reinterpreting her characters. Leaving your main character a little vague in some details in a written medium can help audiences better imagine the main character as like them.
The ghost in the shell movie could have been used to make a Japanese-American actress into a household name. There's not very many well known ones in North America because they're very rarely given roles.
The Hancock movie has a lot of problems. And isn't really like Superman other than in superficial ways.
It's offensive and troubling one way and not the other. In case you have noticed there's quite a history of your country not being kind to minorities. This isn't a difficult prospect. Let's explain this with cookies. Let's say you have ten friends and one of them is allergic to peanuts. You decide to make ten cookies and make one of them peanut free. Now if one of your friends who doesn't have a peanut allergy eats that specific cookie there are no cookies for the person with the peanut allergy. This is essentially the problem with taking a minority role away and casting a white person instead. Same as changing a minority character (of which there are relatively few, and fewer still prominent ones) into a white character, your country especially the entertainment industry hasn't had a good history of casting white people in the roles of minorities. Where as taking an established majority (white/straight/male) character (of which there are many) and changing them to a minority increases, drastically, the amount of representation minorities have in that medium.
It's not hard.
So there are two ways to go about it. Cut down or change the amount of majority characters so that pre-existing minority characters can be come more prominent, or make, I don't know, about a hundred or so more minority characters and give them prominent roles.
I know a fair number of heroes. The general public... Not so much. Before the Black Panther movie the most prominent character of color most people knew about was probably Storm, thanks to the 90s X-Men cartoon, X-Men merch, and the fox X-Men movies. And that would be it. One character next to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Cyclops, Wolverine, Spiderman, Hal Jordan Green Lantern, Captain America, the Hulk, (maybe) The Fantastic Four, (possibly) Iron Man and Thor, the Flash. You know the Superheroes average people know about and what's common about them why, they're all white. So before black panther where were the heroes for black people? Where are the heroes for Asians? Hispanics? For anyone who's not white? In comic books, mostly made by white men, for white men, and sold in places that are generally toxic to anyone who's not a white man.
Oh, but they got Hancock, a story about a dangerous drunken jerk who needs white people to make himself better. Great message.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Spawn - Black guy 1997
Blade - Black Guy 1998
Meteor Man - 1993
Blank Man - 1994 (Fits the kickass style superhero movie)
Storm as a lead since 2000 in the movies. Team leader in the comics since ..... 1975
Hancock - 2008. if you want to omit heroes with flaws the only white superhero left is superman.
Black Panther - 2018
Steel - 1997
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - 1995
I have seen all of these except Steel, because I am not a basketball fan and shaq can't act.Can you say the same? Are you supporting the minorities in comic movies?
Most of the :"white guy" superhero movies were remake... after remake.... after remake of the same 3-4 heroes.
Batman, Superman, and Spiderman over and over and over is still only 3 heroes.
The average person in America is white... so the average person in America knowing a white character makes sense.
The average white person doesnt know very many Anime characters beyond what... Goku, maybe Naruto. You seem to be in that group since you don't know any of the Asian superheroes.
Asians have an entire market for them by them. I watch a lot of their movies, with subtitles... because i like them. Americans dont have to make those movies because the Asians already are. Just because you dont go watch them doesnt mean Asians dont have superheroes to watch.
Now we can get into a real fun set of information...
the original Wonder Woman — Lynda Carter — was of Mexican descent
the new wonder woman Gal Gadot is a Ashkenazi Jews......... a recognized race..... able to be traced as distinctly different from European "White"
So if we want to argue that minorities should have more roles... and Jews are a minority... and then we count how many Jewish Actors and actresses get roles in movies... Non Jewish white people are actually... under represented.
Just a fun fact from a Euro Mutt who has a bit of that ethnic native american and Ashkenazi blood in him but looks Mediterranean/Greek despite being mostly French.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
Misty Knight was just an example. The point is, there are lots of non white male super heroes. Make a movie of them, don't change the white male ones, just because you think only the white ones are awesome. Which is really the message being sent "Non white male heroes suck so make the white males one something else!"
As for JK, I had no problem with the casting in the play, just that JK is lying when she said "I left the characters open to interpretation" She decided what they looked like the minute she ok'ed the art for the books. Even the newest covers to the Harry Potter books have them as they were :p New art, where they could change it up, and they didn't.
Proven there's lots of minority superheroes and they're just not being made into movies. Who's fault is it? The people not buying the comics. Those whining to get them changed are those who weren't picking up the comics. Imagine if every black person bought the Luke Cage comic, he'd be a MCU movie instead of Netflix show.
But, let's do some math. Minority...
Black population of the US is 12-17%. Over 32 million population.
1-20 American's are blonde. That's 5% of the US population. However, let's subtract 25% (we'll go with 75% of the US being white for easy math, it's less) so 1-15 are blonde. So, 7% of the white population is blonde. So, roughly 16 million Blondes. That's less than the 37 million black community. Now, figure 17% of them have blue eyes, that's just under 3 million. So, you want to take away a hero that 3 million (1.5 million if we go with 50% female) get to identify with as being just like them. So, racist and sexist against white blonde blue eyes women.
I mean, you did say minorities and the math show's there's less of that one group than the other. Let's go with red heads. They just took a group that makes up 2% of the population and changed a popular well known character who is KNOWN for her red hair and got changed it (MJ). As a red head myself, can I be offended? Could this be red hair erasure?!
Or the third option is for those who want the non white male superhero characters to get a movie, and just buy the comic. You know, how they got Twilight and 50 Shades made? They got made because people bought the books! Those complaining aren't going out in numbers buying those comics. They're instead, just complaining about the white male ones.
As for Hancock, so you're saying they could just as easily cast a black actor as a Kansas black family farmer who acts EXACTLY like the Superman everyone knows and loves? You've said multiple times, that being black would make them totally different and that race matters. Not to mention, back to how it's great you put race into everything (white people making things better).
If race matters, then the characters being white matters, it is a race after all. If race doesn't matter, then changing a black character to asian, white or latino doesn't matter.
Face it, it's the racists who want to change things. It's fans who want things to stay the same, but get called racists by the racists themselves.
You know, my favorite super hero is Spider-Woman and I could totally see her being cast as Asian. She hails from England and her mom was a blond, but I could see making her half Asian.
That said, I think it goes back to the fans. Fans want their character. Non fans want what they never went out to get just so they can say they got something they didn't even care for.
Mine is Colossus. I would be epically pissed if he wasn't a giant Russian dude. I am not one bit Russian.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
or maybe the studio defaulted to the actress that could put butts in movie theaters. Scarlet Johansson fills theaters, and people invest money into these projects to make money. Some roles it doesnt matter who plays them, but others are pretty well set in stone. A remake of karate kid with mr Miyagi played by a latino or other non asian? not gonna work. The MCU has been pretty spot on with their casting. When casting a part in the movie, you should be picking the actor that best portrays the author/directors vision. If they had cast anyone else as Iron Man, it wouldnt have worked nearly as well. The same with the black panther. They did an awesome job with that. And allowed a lot of minority actors a chance to showcase their talents, which will go a long way onto getting them into some good parts in future movies. That will do a hell of a lot better job of giving opportunities to under represented minorities.
I forgot to respond to that part of PH's post, but yes. Casting an unknown Asian actress was not going to help GitS's performance. It needed a bigger name. Which I said earlier, but PH seems to skip over that aspect of the movie.
Instead preferring to think "Well, cast an unknown, the movie bombs, but the actress got recognition" but with hollywood thinking that becomes "She couldn't bring in the people. Skip her." or "People don't care for Asian leads."
Would still need the black hair (I know it's dyed and she has brown) and green eyes. They'd probably ignore the blue eyes, like they've done with Wonder Woman, Batman and Storm, which annoys me!
Of course, I was also annoyed by Psylock lacking a british accent and for Professor X having one. :p
How hard was it for george lucas to make his star wars story into a movie?? Very hard, but it seems to have worked out for him.
Well, the problem with Hero's "They shouldn't have made Iceman gay, they should have made a new character (that I can then easily ignore)." is, that it's not about what people can ignore. It's about those whining about a lack of representation getting off their asses and buying the comic.
If there's this huge market for the gay superhero, why wasn't the gay community buying the Northstar comics? It's representation!
Domino (I buy this comic) was 88th bought comic in July. A non white male comic lead, what those yelling say they want, and not buying. Wonder Woman came in at 41 and it has a popular movie.
Buy these comics people who want non white male superheros. I almost feel as if I'm doing this alone. :p
A very large percentage of those "racist" white guys that buy comics are also heavily into Anime...which showcase a lot of asian women characters. and those reader have no problems whatsoever buying the product. So they cant be as racist as you would like to paint them.
Anime in which the characters look white and often have a fair bit of casual sexism or racism. I mean have you seen depictions of black people in anime? I believe it's getting better, generally, but yeesh, some of the designs.
That and most women in anime are paraded around to tantalize a male audience.
So why would a bunch of casual racists like anime, which often depicts an all, or mostly, white (looking) setting in which women are around solely for the male characters/viewers? You know it's a real mystery.
That's not to say it's not enjoyable, or that it lacks in quality. It, like most things, has some problems and so does the country it comes from. Xenophobia, racism, sexism, and overworking are chief among them.
Anime as a whole has definitely gotten better in more recent years, hopefully it will continue it's upward climb.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
I'm starting to think the forums need more moderation.
Marginalizing a race is still racism, even when they're not a minority, and we really shouldn't be tolerating any form of racism.
[color=red]PR Team, Forum Moderator, Live Response Team[/color]
You can't exactly marginalize the majority. That's not how things work.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
You're -just- starting to think that? ;)
As Project_Hero said I'm not sure how you successfully "marginalize a majority" but I do generally agree that "building up" the acceptance of a minority does not automatically require that you have to "tear down" the current majority. As I said before these things are not inherently zero-sum games.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
This. Right. Here.
This is the most disturbing thing I've read on the internet in a long time, because it confirms a fear I've have had for a while now. The fear that people who exhibit reverse discrimination and racism think those terms don't apply to them if they are considered a minority themselves. This teflon attitude can only make things worse, not better.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
Thank you for capturing far better than I ever could exactly how I feel about this as well.
"A sad spectacle. If they be inhabited, what a scope for misery and folly. If they be not inhabited, what a waste of space." ~ Thomas Carlyle
Never agreed with the term reverse racism or reverse discrimination. First off, it doesn't make sense. If one uses it globally, as if saying "I hate the Chinese." They're considered racist.
Well, let's look at it, who makes up most of the world? Chinese! Who's pretty much even in the world? Whites and blacks. :p
Oh, but say that, then it becomes, we just mean by country. In which case, why do people who aren't American speaking up on issues with Americans? Hell, American's aren't even the biggest nation in the world. :p China and India both surpass USA by over 4x as much.
To quote Wikipedia on the subject of reverse racism...
"There is little to no empirical evidence to support the idea of reverse racism. Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States generally lack the power to damage the interests of white people, who remain the dominant group. Claims of reverse racism tend to ignore such disparities in the exercise of power and authority, which scholars argue constitute an essential component of racism."
And also
"Despite a lack of evidence, belief in reverse racism is widespread in the United States. While the U.S. dominates the debate over the issue, the concept of reverse racism has been used internationally to some extent wherever white supremacy has been diminished, such as in post-apartheid South Africa. Allegations of reverse racism therefore form part of a racial backlash against gains by non-whites."
Strange how a bunch of this stuff always seems to lead to white supremacy some how.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
so you are saying that doing harm to someone based on their race is okay as long as they are the majority race? relativistic morals?
And no, anyone doing harm to anyone for any reason is a thing that is not ok.
That's why there are these things called laws.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
In Project Hero's defense the statement above must certainly be true. In any place where there is a racial backlash against gains by non-[majorities], there will undoubtedly be claims of reverse discrimination. Some of those claims will be just butt-hurt objections, while others will also be undoubtedly true. But just because there are these claims in such situations does not either 1) make those claims false, nor does it 2) mean that there can't also be similar claims in non-supremecist scenarios.
So Project Hero's argument really is a logically baseless plea for the careless ear to conflate correlation to appear as causation.
[hr]I like to take your ideas and supersize them. This isn't criticism, it is flattery. I come with nothing but good will and a spirit of team-building. If you take what I write any other way, that is probably just because I wasn't very clear.
A group of people get discriminated against, then when things are set in motion to attempt to make things more equal the same group of people who instigated the discrimination cry discrimination against them.
That's the long and short of it.
Edit: Essentially it's like a group starting a fight then complaining when their targets fight back.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
white people writing white superheroes isn't discrimination.
asian people writing asian superheroes isn't discrimination.
african people writing african superheroes isn't discrimination.
me going to Japan and insisting them make Goku Black because DBZ lacks diversity is stupid.
You cant walk into my house, and take the stuff I bought with my money from my job I paid for my degree to get... because you dont have it.
Get yo ass a job, take out the loans, get your degree, get your job, and buy your own.
Co-opting someone elses thing just to change it ruins the thing.
The super hero universe in infinite and never ended. There is no rule that says "there can only be 12 characters in our comic book store, we already have 1 black one, NO MORE!
This argument is stupid, in a world where anyone can get access to publishing their idea if they work for it... you dont need to steal someone elses work and change it to claim it as your own.
Supporting how I can, Starting up a DA group for art, stories, and concepts to be collected
http://city-of-titans.deviantart.com/
Please join up if you plan to make or collect CoT related art.
[img]https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/dragonball/images/1/13/Screenshot_%282%29.png/revision/latest?cb=20171020234948[/img]
They did make Goku Black.
Makes for some funny quotes like Trunks saying "Hold your fire, that man is not Black!" Funny in a dark humor way.
"Let the past die. Kill it if you have to."
Pages