If you have a good actor, like Jordan, who wants to take on a role. Why tell him no?
As far as Shaft goes, I don't know enough about the lore to say one way or another if another ethnicity would fit the role.
Michael B. Jordan as the Man Of Steel?
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If you have a good actor, like Jordan, who wants to take on a role. Why tell him no?
As far as Shaft goes, I don't know enough about the lore to say one way or another if another ethnicity would fit the role.
They were only white because whiteness is seen as the default in society. Which is due to a lot of racism throughout history and deliberately erasing people of color, women and LGBTQ people from our culture until recent history. For many people, the very idea of a black superhero was unthinkable for most of history and even now faces some opposition. Defending that because that’s what you’re used to is defending a form of racism whether you understand it or not.
You do realize that the original Tidyman Shaft was a white guy, right? You completely blew over every single one of your strawmen by yourself.
Good job.
So someone that wants Superman to stay the way he has been depicted is somehow defending racism of 70 years ago?
No he wasn't. He was a black character written by a white guy. You just made a complete fool of yourself.You do realize that the original Tidyman Shaft was a white guy, right? You completely blew over every single one of your strawmen by yourself.
Good job.
My point stands. Shaft should always be played by a black man and Superman should always be played by a white man.
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So someone that wants Superman to stay the way he has been depicted is somehow defending racism of 70 years ago?
Which depiction? He's changed quite a bit over the years.
My attitude to race-swapping characters is “does their race play a factor in their character or persona?”
So applying that test, you couldn’t have a white man as Black Panther. Shaft literally is described as a black private dick in the title song. He is a detective in 1970s Harlem, distrusted by other residents because of his association with the law, but not trusted by the police because he’s black.
Could you have a black James Bond in the 1950s or 1960s or even 1970s? No, because black people back then didn’t advance very far in British society and it’s unlikely that a black man would be as effortless an insider as Sean Connery or Roger Moore, walking into exclusive clubs etc and being accepted and welcomed.Could be you have a black James Bond now? Sure, racism hasn’t been eliminated in the UK, but a black man would be more likely to break into the elite.
Could you have a black Superman in the 1930s? I think it’s unlikely that a black man would be a top reporter in a newspaper like the Daily Planet back then, unless it was a newspaper for the black community. Could you have one now? Again, racism is far from defeated in the USA but there is nothing in Superman’s character that says he can’t be. I do take the point that he might not be as universally welcomed as eg the Christopher Reeve version (look how certain people could never accept Obama as president). But the Superman of the Snyderverse also faced discrimination and mistrust due to his alien status; he was hardly universally accepted either.
So applying that test, you couldn’t have a white man as Black Panther. Shaft literally is described as a black private dick in the title song. He is a detective in 1970s Harlem, distrusted by other residents because of his association with the law, but not trusted by the police because he’s black.
Could you have a black James Bond in the 1950s or 1960s or even 1970s? No, because black people back then didn’t advance very far in British society and it’s unlikely that a black man would be as effortless an insider as Sean Connery or Roger Moore, walking into exclusive clubs etc and being accepted and welcomed.Could be you have a black James Bond now? Sure, racism hasn’t been eliminated in the UK, but a black man would be more likely to break into the elite.
Could you have a black Superman in the 1930s? I think it’s unlikely that a black man would be a top reporter in a newspaper like the Daily Planet back then, unless it was a newspaper for the black community. Could you have one now? Again, racism is far from defeated in the USA but there is nothing in Superman’s character that says he can’t be. I do take the point that he might not be as universally welcomed as eg the Christopher Reeve version (look how certain people could never accept Obama as president). But the Superman of the Snyderverse also faced discrimination and mistrust due to his alien status; he was hardly universally accepted either.
In a nutshell
- Black private dick That's a sex machine to all the chicks
- The man who would risk his his life for a brother, man
- The cat who won't cop out when there's danger all around
- Bad mother....
Superman now isn’t the same character he was in the 1930s and obsessing over his race having to be a certain way is the very definition of racism.So someone that wants Superman to stay the way he has been depicted is somehow defending racism of 70 years ago?
How is your life affected by him being a different color? You aren’t losing anything and if you really aren’t racist then him being black shouldn’t make you uncomfortable. It doesn’t erase any of the comics or media, it’s just another take on a story that’s been told countless times in different ways. So what is your problem?
Bale and Affleck have something to say to you: Leave the blading, short, out-of-shape-grumbler to Batman parodies, that is not a serious Batman adaptation.
In a nutshell
- Black private dick That's a sex machine to all the chicks
- The man who would risk his his life for a brother, man
- The cat who won't cop out when there's danger all around
- Bad mother....
SHUT YOUR MOUTH!
Yeah, they'd probably agree with me that Adam West was an iconic Batman.
Serious or not, the 1966 Batman was a seriously great adaptation. It's still talked about and loved by a whole lot of people.
Superman
- Sent to Earth as an infant after the planet Krypton is destroyed
- Found and raised by the Kents
- Discovers he has powers beyond that of a normal man
- Decides to use those powers in the cause of justice
- As Clark Kent becomes a reporter at the Daily Planet
- Befriends coworkers Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White
I'm just talking about Shaft.
At the time, Batman 66 was accurate to the comics. If anything it was more realistic take given all the weird shit going on in the comics back then. Batman didn’t become grim until the 80s and they weren’t even meant to be canon.
And serious doesn’t make it good. I’d rather watch West’s Batman than Affleck’s especially since Snyder didn’t understand any of the DC characters on a fundamental level. It looks cool, but it’s style over substance like his brain dead take on Watchmen.
Meh. It happens on a daily basis.
I'm grown-up enough to admit when I get my internet Apocrypha wrong. Here's your problem though: the quote you linked demonstrates how or why a character's skin color and or background might matter to a character's conceptual genesis. So your argument is still a strawman unless you can also demonstrate with equal quantitative merit and affirmation why Superman must be a white guy.
Not a massive fan of Keaton’s Batman (though I appreciate it more than I did at the time) but IMHO the balding comedy actor was a much better Batman than the square-jawed heartthrob George Clooney, however much the latter may have resembled the Batman from the comics.
There’s also a major difference between turning a black character white and a white character black. There are countless white characters and very few black ones. Pretending things are equal is willful ignorance.
Batman 66 was "accurate to the comics" at the time only in a couple of respects. "Aunt Harriet" appeared in both the TV show and comics; she'd been introduced as a new character to replace Alfred during a period in which he was supposed to have been dead. And Batman was wearing that little yellow disk behind his bat emblem - these were little innovations by Julius Schwartz and Carmine Infantino to try to spruce up and modernize the book.
Tonally and in terms of content Batman 66 didn't have anything to do with the comics being published at the time it was introduced. Some of the camp elements that made the series successful were retro-fitted into the comics after a while, but that was pretty short-lived.
Tonally and in terms of content Batman 66 didn't have anything to do with the comics being published at the time it was introduced. Some of the camp elements that made the series successful were retro-fitted into the comics after a while, but that was pretty short-lived.
Have we given up on the idea of this alternate earth Superman who is black? Plus what about human who gets his powers or their are some interesting new takes but I do know their will always a desire for the nostigic classic look/version but I don't see why you can't do both. In fact your going to see that in the arrowverse. Jason
No, not really.. I have most issues of Batman and Detective Comics of the period where readers sent in letters blasting the TV series, and hoping the comic never embraced what was seen as the worst of the show.
Batman in the comics reacquainted itself with its darker roots in the late 60s, starting with writer Frank Robbins and artist Irv Novick's run, with plots involving such serious issues as capital punishment, murderers setting up the innocent, organized crime (and not in the exaggerated Cagney/Robinson tradition that had become the default portrayal for decades up to that point). Of course, Adams and O'Neil's collaboration to follow was legendary for endless reasons, chief among them, the grim, darker Batman and equally dark themes, including gothic horror on occasion. So Batman's return as a serious comic book character was well established before Miller's '86 opus and the period where Burton made his 1989 film. Before '89, when the concept of bringing Batman to the big screen went from one writer / production team to another, the strongest constant shared by various talents was that it was going to be serious--not like the Dozier TV series, as that was not real Batman, and not what fans wanted to see.
