‘Superman & Batman’ movie will follow ‘Man of Steel’

It is naive to treat the two as interchangeable. Historically, in comics and film, there has been a profound bias in favor of whites over nonwhites. The scale has been tilted heavily in favor of whites for far too long. Casting nonwhite actors in formerly white roles lessens that imbalance; casting white actors in originally nonwhite roles increases the imbalance. It is far from symmetrical.

And as I keep pointing out, it's not about the characters. The characters don't exist. But actors do exist, and they need work, and they deserve equal employment opportunities. The pool of classic comic characters is biased too heavily in favor of whites, and it would be grossly unfair to impose that same bias on the talent pool.

 

We should wait til after we seen Mamoa as Aquaman before we decide whether it was a good decision or a bad one.

 

It does seem to create a double standard: It's okay to complain about casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan, but not okay to complain about casting Laurence Fishburne as Perry White.

 

As long as the best available actor is cast, I don't care if it's a one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eater.

Seriously.

If the actor can play the role convincingly, skin color and gender is irrelevant.

 

When the character's ethnicity is central to the character then it is not wrong. Black Panther and Black Lightning for example, or Katana (although many Asian actors play characters from different countries), or Geo-Force/Terra, or Khan Noonian Singh.

Peter Parker, Johnny Storm, Arthur Curry,--none of these characters have back stories that tie them to a specific ethnicity. Even Ben Grimm's backstory is easily outdated and would benefit from an upgrade.

 

Which is my problem - I've seen this guy in a few things and I don't think he's a particularly good actor - he's a good supporting character but not (to my mind) a good lead. So the changes to the character don't bother me but the actor does.

 

What's 'outdated' about being Jewish? Are we overrun with Jewish superheroes and I missed it?

 

The double standard is the one that's existed for generations and led to the dominance of white characters. This is about counteracting that double standard and trying to restore a more realistic and fair balance.

As for Khan, of course Ricardo Montalban was not Indian any more than Cumberbatch is, and "Space Seed" used the unfortunate '60s custom of using makeup to darken his skin, something that was not done in The Wrath of Khan. Then again, Sikhism is a religion rather than a race, so Khan could theoretically have been of any ethnicity. There are British Sikhs and there are probably Mexican Sikhs. And Khan's name is a total ethnic hodgepodge to begin with, due to the inability of '60s TV producers like Roddenberry to differentiate between different Asian cultures -- Singh is the standard Sikh male surname, but Khan is generally a Muslim surname, and Noonien is a Chinese given name. So the ethnic-representation issues raised by Khan go back to his original appearance, rather than starting with STID.

 

I was thinking specifically of the Yancy Street Gang.

 

As Christopher pointed out, that there is a precedent of white actors getting cast in roles over POC actors.

While I don't want to rehash the "white" Khan thing again. I will point to two other infamous racebending castings in Hollywood movies. Johnny Depp as Tonto (a white actor portraying a Native American) in The Lone Ranger and the casting in M. Night Shymalan's The Last Airbender.

There are Native American actors who could've portrayed the role of Tonto but Disney went with Depp because they wanted to use him to sell their movie. Depp still met with Comanche peoples and learned their language for the role but it was a tad intensive that Disney didn't try to find a Native American for the role.


With Shamaylan, he really stepped in it. The main cast of Avatar the Last Airbender is comprised of 2 characters who have Chinese distinction (Aang and Toph) and 2 characters who are Inuit/Eskimo (Katara and Sokka). While only 3 of the 4 appeared in Shamaylan's movie, all three were portrayed by white actors. The Inuit tribe was comprised of white actors, and no, there was no makeup applied to make them look ethnic. When Shamaylan was called out for this he said that he cast each actor based on talent and not race. He then followed through making other members of each distinct tribe/group reflect the actor's ethnicity. Although there was a bit of a controversy in to how the actress who played Katara got the role. HOWEVER, he said at the time (2010) that for the then planned sequel that he would cast Toph (the one of the 2 chinese characters) with an Asian actress.


Once again, the castings decisions made by a director and studio came off as insensitive. They had the opportunity to be faithful to the source material and content but purposefully neglected to do so.


With the roles that seem to be getting people rustled nowaday. Heimdal in Thor
Perry White in Man of Steel
Johnny Storm in Fant4stic (lol couldn't resist)
Aquaman in Dawn of Justice

These castings seem inspired rather than insensitive. Like they know the canon is there but there have been scores of adaptions before hand, so let's try something new. Also none of the aforementioned casting have anything to do with the race of the character. Heimdal isn't ruined because a non-white actor is playing him. Perry White's history of being a newspaper EIC wasn't betrayed by Lawrence Fishburne portraying him. Can't speak for Michael B. Jordan yet however, Chris Evans (or current Captain America) played Johnny Storm not 10 years ago and that didn't elevate either of the FF movies above schlock. So why not take a chance on a new adaptation? The same can be said for Mamoa as Aquaman. This is Snyder's vision for his Justice League. Let's see what he does with it.

 

Indeed, Tonto is pretty much the exception to the rule: Depp was the first live-action screen Tonto who wasn't genuinely Native American/Canadian. Plenty of screen Indians in past decades were played by white actors in brownface -- often "ethnic"-looking actors like Leonard Nimoy and Michael Ansara -- but Tonto was pretty much always the real deal. Until Depp.

Well, Aang was more Tibetan, really. The Air Nomads were essentially modeled on Tibetan Buddhists, the Water Tribe on the Inuit, the Earth Kingdom on China, and the Fire Nation on Japan.

Although it later came out, IIRC, that the studio had put pressure on Shyamalan to cast white leads. And Prince Zuko was going to be played by Jesse McCartney until the controversy erupted and they replaced him with Dev Patel as a token gesture.

And of course, they did the casting in Texas, which is not really the best place to cast for a fantasy series based entirely in Asian cultures.

 

But how central is Khan's ethnicity? Outside of a few mentions it wasn't really that important and seemed to be totally ignored in Wrath of Khan. Plus the guy started out as Norwegian and near as I can tell only got changed so Roddenberry could make a shout out to a friend of his.

 

You're right. I just called Aang Chinese as a simplification of his ethnicity. Since Tibet is a region of China. However the Tibetan people have their own autonomy. I knew the distinction and should've have stuck with it. My bad.

I had not heard of the Jesse McCartney casting for Zuko. Wow! Why even do the project at that point?

 

Since what is "fair" is at best subjective, I would have left that word out.

Otherwise, I'm right there with ya.

 

I'm not going to argue that too much considering he was originally played by Montalban--

 

I just figured they found "the best actor for the role".

I don't know why I'm arguing, I don't have a problem with Momoa as Aquaman, hell, he looks like he was dragged out of the sea . I think it's just one of my failings that I view things in a very black-and-white way(no pun intended). It irks me when I perceive statements are selectively applied.

 

So what they looked like when they were cast in the 60's is fine, but what comic characters looked like when they were drawn in the 60's is not?

At least with Mantalban they "pretended" he wasn't white European in the 60's. That almost feels more progressive than what was done currently.

And finally, with Mamoa, we can put to rest the silly line "as long as they cast the best actor for the part, I'm fine with it" since he's an alright actor, but I could never consider him the best for any role. And I loved Ronon on Atlantis.

Oh well. Thankfully it's just Aquaman, who most saw as a joke character anyways.

 

But that's why most people complained, because he was orginally played by Ricardo Montalban. It was the change in the ethnicity of the actor (who was already a different ethnicity than the character) from Montalban to Cumberbatch.

 

Except in 1982 Ricardo Montalban's Khan didn't look that much less white than Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan

Just look

Montalban

https://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Uploads/Graphics/001-0926194614-wrath-of-Kahn-2.jpg

Cumberbatch

http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/original/11113/111139610/3493080-khan.jpg

And lets be honest most people probably aren't that familiar with Space Seed.

 

So you're saying it's good we didn't progress any since 1982 regarding cultural diversity in our media and just held course with the white-washed casting?