I find it strange that anyone would think Starfire should be white, and it just shows how people can be blinded by the assumption of whiteness as the default. As George Perez drew the character, her facial features looked to me like they could easily be black or biracial. And despite the odd tendency these days to describe her skin color as "orange," she was always explicitly called gold-skinned in Marv Wolfman's dialogue, and her skin tone always struck me as a sort of golden brown. Although it's telling that all the people who complain about casting black actors on the grounds that it's "inauthentic" never complain about all the brown-haired white actors who've played the redheaded Jimmy Olsen or the blond Barry Allen. They couldn't care less about authenticity, they're just bigots.
There are few things more paradoxical than SF/comics fans who are racist or sexist. "I love stories about people who look and act different from me and are from alien cultures and can do things I can't do -- but only if they're white like me!"
While I can kind of understand this outrage over the black-washing of this orange character, people should chill out. Racism against orange people is totally over now that there's an orange president.
Jesus, those comments are horrific. I try to be a hopeful person and to believe most people are basically good, but then I read shit like this (or, you know, we have an election), and it makes it hard to maintain much positivity. But it also makes it that much more important not to give up.
It's not something I would necessarily yell to her face. "Hey! Hey, you! Yeah, you, you look like a hooker!" It's interesting that Raven looks like a goth girl they didn't put her in high heels and either a swimsuit or a dress consisting of two long flaps of fabric. http://vsbattles.wikia.com/wiki/Raven_(DC_Comics) I'd like to think one can hold one thought without going to the other. They don't necessarily go hand-to-hand, and really, just about any unmoderated comment section is going to contain horrible stuff.
I just did rewatch, and though the trailer is cut to make it look like that's Robin's boot stepping on the guy's head, it's too dark to tell for sure whose boot it is, and trailer editing is often misleading. And he does step on the side of the head -- the bone-crunching sound may be the guy's jaw rather than his neck. It's ambiguous. But I can confirm that when Robin shoots the gun in the previous shot, the bad guys are merely ducking, not being hit.
Good point about the editing, which could also mean that although we see them ducking away in that shot, he might still be shooting them in the actual scene in the show. And yes, the crunching could be the guys jaw. It's a dark scene. Still, to me, it's all about making Dick darker and more sinister. And I'm done with that trope in movies and shows these days.
Except when there's woman involved, and especially if that woman isn't white, this sort of crap comes up very often. I doubt Brenton Thwaites gets messages to quit the show, or gets told to go back to Australia or called fat, ugly or a vegemitehead(I just took a quick look at his instagram, about half the comments are "fuck batman", the other half being "notice me"). This woman is in the trailer for a grand total of 3 seconds in which she doesn't even get to say a single word, and somehow for these people it's all her fault, and this isn't some random comment section where people "expressed dissatisfaction" with something they just saw, these people went after her, specifically. To pretend that these attacks have anything to do with "criticism of the show" is really disingenuous,
Yeah, those are fucked up comments. Who gives a fuck about her race? Its certainly not "wrong" for Starfire. I mean, she should just be painted Orange so in that case I do have a problem with her, you know, not being orange but I'd have the same problem if it was a white actress who was just walking around not looking like Starfire. An actress of any ethnicity can play Starfire, just like it doesn't matter who played Gamora. They're aliens, they're not set to a human ethnicity in the source material. Plus, once again, the actress is just taking a paycheck, so even though that kind of harassment is always wrong, they're not even complaining at someone who had any control over the look of the show. But, its not really their point, I guess. they're just racist shits. For all the problems I have with this crappy, grimdark show, behavior like that is something I'll never understand.
That seems very unlikely to me. It's more likely that a trailer would try to make us think he was killing people when he wasn't than try to make us think he wasn't killing people (but only if we looked closely) when he actually was. The former has the benefit (from an advertiser's standpoint) of shock value and generating controversy (hey, we're still talking about it, so it worked), while the latter seems arbitrarily convoluted. I don't care for it either, but it's the way trailers are done today that they tend to focus on just one aspect of a show or movie and aren't necessarily representative of the overall tone. With movies, often the first trailer is more serious and atmospheric, the second focuses more on establishing the plot, and the third stresses character banter and jokes. So a single trailer can't be trusted to tell the whole story. (Heck, the teaser trailer for Ghostbusters 2016 made it look like a totally serious horror thriller rather than a comedy!) Thus, I'm reserving judgment until I see more. Yes, the trailer gave me a negative first impression, but there have been a lot of things in my life that I got a bad first impression of but ended up liking.
This one was mostly about Raven, so it's no surprise it was a bit darkish, and I suppose they threw in the swearing and the violence to showcase the type of stuff they'll do that they can't do on regular TV, but judging by the reception it got, I suspect the next one will definitely be more upbeat.
I don't disagree with you, I guess I was getting defensive that my statement be implicitly conflated with those other statements.
These comments can only be racist and sexist. They're never thrown in the direction of white actors who don't necessarily look the part. I don't remember any wrath thrown in Grant Gustin's for not being blonde or the actor who plays Arsenal for not being a red head. Now, I do think that comic adaptations do need to maintain certain qualities of the original characters in order to be true to the source material. Raven certainly looks the part in the clip we see--and her costume is probably to come. Dick looks the way he should look. The others we only really get glimpses of so it is hard to really make a judgment. What should Starfire look like? Physically she should have the long hair, green eyes, and have a strong, tallish body--correct? Her skin in the comics looks orange but was originally described as being a gold color. Her original costume showed off a lot of skin and she kissed Dick to learn English--this was later interpreted to be part of a sexually open attitude in her culture but is it essential to her character who is basically a warrior? Also, we have no idea why she is wearing the clothes she is wearing in the trailer or if they are part of her final "look".
I like the way the Tamaranians were portrayed as people who embraced every facet of life wholeheartedly, whether pleasure and sensuality or war and combat. It's a nice departure from the stereotype of "warrior races" who are just grrr, roar, fight, kill, battle all the time. A Starfire who's relentless in battle but really bright and bubbly and fun and hedonistic the rest of the time is more interesting than one who's defined only as a warrior. I kind of suspect the first season is going to have an arc about Dick bringing the team together, so the costumes probably come gradually. I figure that's why everyone but him is in street clothes.
At the beginning of the New 52 though she was just portrayed as this sex-kitten fan boy fantasy. I understand that that has been played down since but I hope this series doesn't go back to that. I always liked Kori and Dick's romantic relationship. It was a good pairing.
I don't think that's directed at the actors so much as at the filmmakers who choose them over the people who should be getting the roles. I think it only gets directed at the actors if they make tone-deaf statements in defense of their casting or fail to understand the problem, like Scarlett Johansson when she got cast as a transgender character -- and there the criticism served a constructive purpose, because it helped her realize she needed to step down from that role, much like Ed Skrein did from his role in the Hellboy reboot.
Even if it’s just breaking the guys neck, still makes Robin a fucking monster rather than a hero. The guy was down, what is the point of breaking the guy’s jaw at that point? For fun? Vengeance?