How Thor breaks down racial barriers in Asgard

I look forward to your support when they start recasting minority characters with caucasian actors in the future. I bet Bradley Cooper would make an awesome Malcolm X. Oh, and I'd wager that Alec Baldwin would be amazing as the prophet Muhammad.

(Or is it only not-inappropriate when it's caucasians from a ridiculously caucasian culture [the Norse] that are being "reimagined?")

 

No, he's got a point against the comic book, which feeds into my argument that his issue should be with that in principle.

Alright. So if the film is generally respectful, he's fine with Heimdall being black?

So, basically.

The comic book changes the race of Gaia to Northern European? Surely that's also pretty bad, appropriating someone from another pantehon, whitening her up and sticking her in the narrative.

 

It's not okay to cast black characters with white actors because being black is an "intrinsic" part of their character whereas white characters are generic and can be cast with any old actor. Apparently.

 

Actually, despite earlier arguments that Cage is rooted in New York race politics, I think the character could quite easily work as Latino or Caucasian provided it stays true to the other part of Cage's story - that of an empowered former gangbanger trying to help clean up the ghetto. Nothing about gang culture mandates Cage be African-American... in fact, the notion that a gang member must be black is stereotypically in the extreme.

 

What about Blacula?

 

I for one do not consider myself generic by any measure.

 

Loved him in Quantum Leap, the less said about Enterprise the better.

 

Last time I checked Malcolm X wasnt a "character" but an actual person.

 

So?

 

Fiction vs real.

Heimdall from Thor comics, fictional character. The background of the actor playing him is less imporant than an actor playing an actual person like Malcom X.

 

And that changes anything, how exactly? Keeping in mind the other characters mentioned. And nevermind that historical figures are often altered and changed in fiction, too. Or have you never seen a show like Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure or any of the various Star Trek episodes that featured one. Say... Mark Twain.

 

I don't recall them taking too many liberties in Star Trek or B&TEA when casting parts based on real people. Writing them, that can be a different story.

Real people should be treated different than fictional ones when it comes to casting. Why bring up one when talking about the other?

 

Tom Arnold as The Falcon in Captain America: The First Avenger!

You heard it here first!

 

616 Nick Fury would be very problematic as a black character. Unless we want to ignore his World War II history and the fact that SHIELD was formed in the 1950s, which would suck because that stuff is awesome and Fury's like one of only like three major remaining links to the Marvel Golden Age (although I can't remember if he was actually there). Alternatively, we could just ignore the realities of race relations at the time, but that would suck even harder because that would be insulting.

Ultimate Nick Fury didn't possess the same backstory, perhaps to his deteriment, but it made the character's race pretty unimportant, even by implication. Although, apropos of nothing, I've become somewhat retroactively annoyed with Sam Jackson, and that's bled onto Ultimate Fury a bit.

Open ended discussion question: is it important, when casting aliens with actors from obviously different population groups, to consider the evolutionary mechanics of how such analogues would have arisen on said alien planet? I.e., "Given that Vulcans have had planetary transportation, no racial strife, and a unified government for more than a millennium, how come identifiable ethnicities continue to persist despite all the hot pon farr action?", which can also be phrased "Do Vulcans, like humans, tend to be racist in their mate choice?", or alternatively "Voyager writers would not have considered or even understood any of this crap because it approaches actual science, would they?" which is more of a statement really.

Also, is it annoyingly safe that they cast a black woman as Tuvok's wife (holodeck masturbation fantasy wife, but whatever), or of no consequence, or a good thing, because afaik there had been no black female Vulcans prior to that?

 

Actually, it was very recently revealed tht SHIELD was formed circa 2620 BC by Imotep (sp?) in order to stave off a Brood invasion of ancient Egypt and has existed ever since. Other historical members of SHIELD include Leonardo DaVinci and Galileo Galilei.

 

Tell me again why is this an issue? I really want to know?

Of all the things to care about, this should be the last on the list of worries.

 

With Heimdall, it's not really an issue because he's not really a prominent character.

It is my view, however, that the, purely hypothetical, casting of someone like Will Smith as Captain America or Superman or Zoe Saldana as Wonder Woman would be a mistake for the following reasons.

1) It is patronising to black people. It merely says we can't think of any existing black superheroes that anyone would pay to watch a movie about so we'll just cast a black actor who is already popular against type as a character that's already popular too.

2) Such casting would be the result of various Hollywood producers assuming they're being "progressive" and "colour blind" with this casting. This would be a false assumption.

3) Comic book characters are created by a writer and an artist. If an artist chooses to depict a character as white then it is disrespectful to that artist to overrule and ignore him.

4) I object to the assumption that being black is an intrinsic part of a black character's story but the same rule cannot be applied to white characters who are generic and interchangeable.

 

1) Not really. We've incorporated many 'black' characters into comics. For Captain America, it could make sense if they blended Bradley's character with Captain America (though for different reasons).

2) Or they are looking for the best actor/actress.

3) Back in the 20s-50s when racism was extremely prevalent and that black or even minority characters weren't thought of due to not being able to sell. Seriously at that time, who would want to sell a black Captain America, the symbol of America? Those artists, lots of them are dead by now as well.

4) Because they are? Because they are not a minority?

 

I'm not arguing that there aren't any such characters - Luke Cage seems to be the obvious choice - only that the people who choose what characters to make movies about don't seem to realise they exist.

Hardly.

Yes, because disrespecting the dead is SO much better.

There is also a reason why we use the term "minority" here. Why shouldn't the majority be represented ?

So ? Not being of a minority is just as much a part of a person's background as being part of one is.

White people are just as diverse and unique as anyone else. Any suggestion otherwise is racist.