Why is batman always black in the films?
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The Thing has been established as Jewish, IIRC. Though I doubt Lee and Kirby originally thought of him as Jewish.I want a jewish superman who observes the sabbath. BTW many of the superheroes had jewish creatorsso it makes sense to have a major superhero as jewish as a tribute to the jewish contribution to the modern american pop culture.
Oh, they pretty much DID think of him as Jewish.
Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents.
Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, where he was raised. His parents, Rose and Benjamin Kurtzberg, were Austrian Jewish immigrants.
The Thing is Benjamin Jacob Grimm. Benjamin and Jacob are both VERY typical Jewish names.
Pretty good evidence that The Everlovin' Blue-eyed Thing was Jewish all along.
I saw a production of Midsummer Night's Dream set in 1968. The fairies were all tie-dyed hippies. A small combo played psychedelic music before, after, and during intermission.
I once saw a fun version of "A Midsummer's Night Dream" that switched the setting to a 1950s high school, complete with period rock songs.
Oberon's line about "Let us rock the ground on which these sleeper lies" took on a whole new meaning!
That's the thing, though. There's no reason why you have to do things exactly the way they've been done before, whether you're talking Hamlet or the Hulk!
Fictional characters are toys to be played with . . . .
(Talk about topic drift! We've gone from the color of Batman's uniform to Shakespeare and Beckett!)
There's a youtube video featuring a re-dub of the original Spider-man cartoon featuring a Jewish superhero, named Spiderman (pronounced spiederman, without the hyphen).I want a jewish superman who observes the sabbath. BTW many of the superheroes had jewish creators
Just because Lee and Kirby were Jewish is doesn't mean the Thing or any of their characters were meant to be Jewish.The Thing has been established as Jewish, IIRC. Though I doubt Lee and Kirby originally thought of him as Jewish.I want a jewish superman who observes the sabbath. BTW many of the superheroes had jewish creators
Oh, they pretty much DID think of him as Jewish.
Stan Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber in New York City on December 28, 1922, in the apartment of his Romanian-born Jewish immigrant parents.
Jack Kirby was born Jacob Kurtzberg on August 28, 1917, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, where he was raised. His parents, Rose and Benjamin Kurtzberg, were Austrian Jewish immigrants.
The Thing is Benjamin Jacob Grimm. Benjamin and Jacob are both VERY typical Jewish names.
Pretty good evidence that The Everlovin' Blue-eyed Thing was Jewish all along.
Benjamin and Jacob are popular names with a lot of people(Ben and Jake even), especially those who's cultural background includes the Judeo-Christian bible. My own name is of Hebrew origin, but I'm not Jewish. I've met quite a few non Jewish Bens and Jakes. Not sure if "Jacob" was even established Lee and Kirby. "Benjamin J. Grimm" is what I remember them calling him. Jacob might been added later as a nod to Kirby.
Grimm is a common German name and dates back to the 8th Century. (Which doesn't discount it being a name used by German Jews.) A lot of the Thing's personality and even one of his catch phrases ( What a revolting developement) were taken from the Riley character played on radio/film and TV by William Bendix in "The Life of Riley". Riley is not a Jewish name.
The Thing's tough guy persona is also stock character, seen in many works of entertainment and given all types of ethnic backgrounds. (Though usually Lower class)
Wow. You really have a racial axe to grind.
Calm down before you give yourself a heart attack.
Nick Fury, who always looked like Clint Eastwood or Charlton Heston, when I was growing up, turned into Samuel L. Jackson in the comics and then in the movies and the world didn't come to an end. We then had Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor and the resultant controversy looked even sillier when his performance in the movie kicked ass. Sadly, the casting of Lawrence Fishburne showed that some people didn't learn from those two episodes.
I can understand how, especially with a visual medium like comics, people are a little disappointed when the movie comes on to the big screen and characters look different. But you're always going to get that. Tobey Maguire didn't look exactly like Spider-man nor Ben Affleck like Daredevil among many others. Hugh Jackman looks like Wolverine to me, but he's a foot too tall. The bottom line is, he captures the essence of the character for me and thus he works.
The way I look at changing the race of the character for a movie is - will it change the essence of the character? Or is there something about this character that means that he simply can't be black or Latino or whatever? And by and large, I'd say that no, there isn't, in relation to most comic book characters.
Now, I would accept that with, for example, Captain America or Batman, having a black version might be incompatible with their history and background. That is, Cap was created during the second world war, when there was segregation in the US Army and black soldiers were treated more poorly than their white comrades. So, if you had a black Steve Rogers, realistically, he would not have been the visual focus for the war effort the way he was in the recent movie, white officers might have been loathe to obey him etc. You would have had an interesting movie but quite a different one.
Similarly, I think that it might not convince people that you could have a black Wayne family, who were scions and patrons of Gotham for years. Are there many wealthy black families, who have been as powerful and wealthy as the Waynes? Would many black families have had an English butler in their service for years? (Okay, there aren't too many white families like that either, but I'd imagine more white ones than black ones). I remember reading that the grounds that became the Batcave were once used as an escape route for runaway slaves, facilitated by the Waynes. Again, this might be interesting if the Wayne family were black, but it does make for a somewhat different situation.
On the other hand, I could see no reason why, e.g Spider-man or Daredevil couldn't be black. They come from poor parts of New York. They're working class heroes. Spider-man is bullied at school - could it be in part down to his being one of the few black kids there? Why not?
Matt Murdock's dad was a boxer - there are more champion black boxers than white ones. I can totally imagine a lawyer working with some of NY's most deprived citizens being a black man. Hell, Joe Carnaghan's recent DD pitch for Fox was a total blaxploitation movie.
A young Will Smith could have been an interesting Peter Parker, though he's arguably too tall and buff. He'd totally have the persona down, though.
I can understand how, especially with a visual medium like comics, people are a little disappointed when the movie comes on to the big screen and characters look different. But you're always going to get that. Tobey Maguire didn't look exactly like Spider-man nor Ben Affleck like Daredevil among many others. Hugh Jackman looks like Wolverine to me, but he's a foot too tall. The bottom line is, he captures the essence of the character for me and thus he works.
The way I look at changing the race of the character for a movie is - will it change the essence of the character? Or is there something about this character that means that he simply can't be black or Latino or whatever? And by and large, I'd say that no, there isn't, in relation to most comic book characters.
Now, I would accept that with, for example, Captain America or Batman, having a black version might be incompatible with their history and background. That is, Cap was created during the second world war, when there was segregation in the US Army and black soldiers were treated more poorly than their white comrades. So, if you had a black Steve Rogers, realistically, he would not have been the visual focus for the war effort the way he was in the recent movie, white officers might have been loathe to obey him etc. You would have had an interesting movie but quite a different one.
Similarly, I think that it might not convince people that you could have a black Wayne family, who were scions and patrons of Gotham for years. Are there many wealthy black families, who have been as powerful and wealthy as the Waynes? Would many black families have had an English butler in their service for years? (Okay, there aren't too many white families like that either, but I'd imagine more white ones than black ones). I remember reading that the grounds that became the Batcave were once used as an escape route for runaway slaves, facilitated by the Waynes. Again, this might be interesting if the Wayne family were black, but it does make for a somewhat different situation.
On the other hand, I could see no reason why, e.g Spider-man or Daredevil couldn't be black. They come from poor parts of New York. They're working class heroes. Spider-man is bullied at school - could it be in part down to his being one of the few black kids there? Why not?
Matt Murdock's dad was a boxer - there are more champion black boxers than white ones. I can totally imagine a lawyer working with some of NY's most deprived citizens being a black man. Hell, Joe Carnaghan's recent DD pitch for Fox was a total blaxploitation movie.
A young Will Smith could have been an interesting Peter Parker, though he's arguably too tall and buff. He'd totally have the persona down, though.
You know since people already brought up Shakespeare and Beckett, and since this is a Star Trek forum, I'd probably like to throw out there that a few years ago Avery Brooks played the title role in Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine the Great. The play's protagonist is loosely (and largely inaccurately) based on the Central Asian conqueror Timur the Lame, who was certainly not black but just as certainly not white like the no doubt original English actor was.
Controversies do tend to die down after the film is released, especially if the actor is good in the role. Does anyone even remember the James Blond wisecracks that were tossed around before Casino Royale?
The Waynes are in fairness a blatant fantasy about the uber-rich, and the rather antiquated notion of having an English butler sort of confirms that. Realism is all well and good (and in the real world there is such a thing as fabulously wealthy African-American families), but the Wayne family have never been that big on realism.
^Yeah, I did kinda acknowledge that by saying not many white families have butlers like Alfred. And, let's face it, in the movies, there was no mention of them having been Gotham aristocrats for years or having been part of the slave railroad, etc.
I have to be honest, go back in time to 1989 and give me a choice of casting Michael Keaton or Denzil Washington as Batman, I'd go for the Denz!
I have to be honest, go back in time to 1989 and give me a choice of casting Michael Keaton or Denzil Washington as Batman, I'd go for the Denz!
Yes, I know that. I didn't say "he was... created and used in the animated Justice League" -- I said "he was... created, and used in the animated Justice League, etc." Note the comma; I cited his creation in the comics and his use in JL as separate clauses, separate events. Although I could've conveyed that more clearly, true.
And my recollection is that before JL came along, John Stewart was considered a secondary character in the comics. That's why, when Hal was killed off, they created a new (white) character, Kyle Rayner, to replace him, instead of just promoting John to the lead. The reason John Stewart is equal or greater in popularity to Hal Jordan today is because the producers of the JL television series decided to make him the GL for the sake of team diversity, and thereby gave him far greater exposure than he'd ever had before. The simple fact is, the number of people who read comic books is a tiny fraction of the number of people who watch television or movies. So a character's use in a screen adaptation is going to have a huge impact on that character's popularity. This is why characters like Harley Quinn and Renee Montoya, who were created for television, ended up becoming major figures in the comics.
I think theater folks on the whole are generally an exceptionally tolerant bunch; look at how much gays and lesbians have long been accepted and welcomed in the theater community.
Honestly, Jackman doesn't capture the essence of Wolverine for me. Not just because of his height, but because he feels like Wolverine reinterpreted as a handsome leading-man type, toned down and spruced up from what he is in the comics. Which works for how they've handled him in the movies, but it just feels like a different character to me.
It could've fit the origin story, the tale of a man that nobody thought was worthy to fight alongside them until Dr. Erskine recognized something in him and gave him a chance to prove himself. Would've been an interesting twist if he'd been deemed unworthy because of his race rather than scrawniness and poor health. But you're right, it would've significantly altered the rest of the story.
There are a number of wealthy African-American families, though it's true that mostly it's a recent phenomenon; the first African-American to be worth more than a billion dollars was apparently Reginald F. Lewis, the founder of Beatrice Foods, who reached that point in 1987, about a generation ago.
So it might require revamping the background a little, having the Waynes be first-generation multimillionaires who achieved their wealth through their own labor rather than inheriting old money. I think that could actually be better in a lot of ways, would make them more admirable and give them more of a self-reliant work ethic that they could've raised Bruce with.
After all, the core of the Batman story just requires Bruce to be rich and live in a mansion that's conveniently built over a large cave. There's nothing that requires his wealth to be old money or his family to have been part of Gotham's elite for generations; those are things that have accreted onto the story over time, details that could easily be set aside in an adaptation because they've rarely come into play outside the comics and not often within them.
Of course, in Marvel's Ultimate Spider-Man comics (little or no relation to the current TV series of that name), Peter Parker has died and the role of Spider-Man has been taken over by Miles Morales, a black-Hispanic teen. So yes, it certainly can work, and to all indications is working quite well.
I think the Underground Railroad tie (tee-hee) was mentioned in Batman Begins.
I want this post in a gold-plated plaque to hang in my room. No, wait, I want this post on series of gold-plated plaques to hang in the rooms of people who whine against "PC" every time they read anything race- or gender-inclusive.
Kidding aside: awesome post, Christopher. It really strikes at the core of "PC" controversies.
No, he has the no racial axe to grind, which is why he doesn't think a change of something as minor as skin color is as important as a change in build, general shape of the face, and voice. It is the person who is willing to accept major changes in other aspects of appearance in order to keep white skin who has a racial axe to grind.
That's a slightly different situation from what I meant. I was really talking about having Peter himself played by a black person in a movie (though I see now that my post referred to a black Spider-man, rather than black Peter) - and I think it would work. But yeah, we're basically on the same page here.
^Well, yes, that's what I mean. The fact that Miles Morales works as Spider-Man means there's no reason any Spider-Man, including Peter Parker, couldn't be black or Hispanic or whatever. He's simply not a character that's tied to a specific ethnic origin -- and if anything he'd make perfect sense as a member of an ethnic or religious minority, since he's always been written as something of an outsider, a working-class social outcast struggling to gain acceptance and being perpetually misunderstood and persecuted, and in fact starting out from a place where he was quite angry at the world for the way it treated him. (Well, at least when Lee and Ditko were creating him. Once Romita came aboard, Peter started to become far more successful and socially accepted, with only his Spidey half still suffering from being a persecuted outsider, and that mainly due to J. Jonah Jameson's fixations.) Certainly Stan Lee's own experiences growing up in a time when anti-Semitism was still commonplace in America informed his writing.
During the 90's Colin Salmon used to play Bond opposite actresses auditioning for the Bond girl roles, apparently he made a very, very good 007 in them.
It's a actually a sign of how the world has changed that back when Bond was created a British old Etonian with a Scottish father and French mother would have to be white. In 2012 Britain there's no reason that description couldn't apply just as well to pretty much any skin colour.
Though in a world where Daniel Craig got a hate campaign for his height and hair colour being wrong I would be amazed if this were to ever happen.
It's a actually a sign of how the world has changed that back when Bond was created a British old Etonian with a Scottish father and French mother would have to be white. In 2012 Britain there's no reason that description couldn't apply just as well to pretty much any skin colour.
Though in a world where Daniel Craig got a hate campaign for his height and hair colour being wrong I would be amazed if this were to ever happen.
Personaly, I wouldn't be tookeen on a black daredevil. his sking is meant to be a bit pale, it's part of his look. Spider-man wears a full face mask, and in the ultimate universe he's black, so I wouldn't have a problem with them making him black, but the whole thing would wreak of Marvel trying to be more mixed with their races.
As a short man myself (I'm 5'6"), and of a rather stocky build, I've always identified with Wolverine. He's the embodiment of big things coming in tiny packages. It would be great if they were to recast Wolverine with an actor more in line with who Logan is supposed to be.
I have no grudge against Hugh Jackman, he's been a fine Wolverine and even looks the part, but the fact that he's too tall for the role does take a little bit away from the character. You lose that aspect of Wolverine's personality.
I have no grudge against Hugh Jackman, he's been a fine Wolverine and even looks the part, but the fact that he's too tall for the role does take a little bit away from the character. You lose that aspect of Wolverine's personality.
Why in 2012 would that be a bad thing?
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