Bale as Batman started as fan casting IIRC.
Spoilers Marvel Cinematic Universe spoiler-heavy speculation thread
- Thread starter bbjeg
- Start date
I may be wrong, but I think Disney has even bigger problems (not of their own making) with the character and casting, in that "Kang" (or a variation of same with a Z at the end) seems to be quickly turning into a racial slur for African Americans, of all people.
Yeah.
I said 'assuming' because I was specifically responding to a post where you were talking about 'assuming' innocence.
But in any case, I would argue presuming (or assuming for that matter) *nothing* is very different from presuming innocence. One is being neutral, the other isn't. If you're presuming innocence, you're presuming the accusers are lying. Both parties can't be innocent, not in this sort of thing.
Last edited:
Yes, it is a present day slur against Afrocentric black people, pushing the myth of black people (particularly those allegedly from sub-Saharan Africa) being eternally "less than" / having no connection to the supposed "superior" people/nations of Africa (almost always ancient Egyptians), couched in the imagery and language of White Supremacy marketed for centuries (especially in the West).
I have no reason to believe Disney would ever acknowledge similarity in spelling / pronunciation between the comic/MCU character's name and the slur. It would be interesting to read Disney's reaction if the matter was brought to their attention.
That's the one.
I've already explained why that's not true, because presumption is not certainty, and it is not immutable. It is a working model based on available evidence and precedent, and therefore it can be altered in light of further evidence.
The whole point of the presumption of innocence, after all, is to acknowledge the existence of doubt. Any presumption you make could be wrong, so it's a question of which wrong presumption would do the lesser amount of harm. To presume someone guilty when they're innocent would do them harm, while to presume someone innocent when they're guilty does not do them harm. You are not responsible for the harm a guilty person may do, while you are absolutely responsible for the harm that you may do to another. Therefore, you make the choice least likely to make you responsible for harming another person. Ethics 101.
And as I said, this applies to both accuser and accused. If you are the person the accuser reports their charges to, you presume they're telling the truth unless you find proof to the contrary. If you are a member of the justice system trying the accused, you presume they're innocent unless their guilt can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not about their innocence or guilt, it's about your responsibility to avoid causing unnecessary harm to others.
Huh? I believe you. But at the same time, I've never heard anything so ridiculous. Then again, human beings can be ridiculous.
Humans define ridiculousness.
I know it's not immutable, but you're still taking it as the starting point. The default to be disproven.
If you're presuming innocence, you're presuming the accusers are lying because that's a necessary condition of that innocence. Like, if you presume someone is of Irish descent, it would be disingenuous to claim you're not also presuming at least one of their bio parents is of Irish descent. That's the only way the person could be of Irish descent. And the only way someone in this situation could be innocent is if the accusers are lying. Yes, you're leaving room to change your mind, but it's your starting point.
Which is why I disagree with:
Presuming the accused is innocent when they're guilty doesn't do *them* harm, no, but does harm the accuser. The message to the latter is "I'm taking you lying as the starting point."
Agreed, but most of us are *neither* the person having the charges reported to them nor on the jury. And being neither, I see no reason we should prioritize the latter approach over the former.
Last edited:
You are all mistaking the position of the court of law with public opinion. Sure, people can debate these cases, and have done for decades, about who, what, why someone may or may not be guilty. The key distinction is that "in the court of law" someone is innocent until proven guilty. This is designed so that the court favors finding someone innocent of a crime over mistakenly convicting someone them. The job is on the prosecutors to prove guilt. Remember, OJ Simpson was NOT GUILTY of murder.
The grey area is in the court of public opinion where all of the legalities don't matter. The damage from judging someone guilty based on accusations alone can destroy an innocent persons life regardless of what were the actual facts. Sure, we can have sympathy for the victim/accuser, but unless we know for sure that their accusations are real then we always need to be cognizant of the damage that can be done to the accused's personal and professional life if they are indeed innocent. Without taking this into account, anyone can intentionally destroy someone's life simply by making an accusation. In the cases of sexual assault, this is an incredibly difficult situation because historically the public would shame the accuser. It is great progress that we have moved away from that but moving the pendulum in the other direction creates ethical conundrums as well.
The grey area is in the court of public opinion where all of the legalities don't matter. The damage from judging someone guilty based on accusations alone can destroy an innocent persons life regardless of what were the actual facts. Sure, we can have sympathy for the victim/accuser, but unless we know for sure that their accusations are real then we always need to be cognizant of the damage that can be done to the accused's personal and professional life if they are indeed innocent. Without taking this into account, anyone can intentionally destroy someone's life simply by making an accusation. In the cases of sexual assault, this is an incredibly difficult situation because historically the public would shame the accuser. It is great progress that we have moved away from that but moving the pendulum in the other direction creates ethical conundrums as well.
Last edited:
And I explained why that is.
And I explained why that is not true at all. You're not arguing with me, you're arguing with a basic, accepted principle of ethics. If you're just going to restate your points without listening to a word I said, then there is no point in continuing to discuss this with you.
Yeah. I think we've all seen how things can take off on social media, whether justified or not.
To be clear, I am specifically talking about the realm of opinion. Of course I believe it should be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. My whole point is that it works differently when it comes to opinion, in response to folks saying it doesn't. (If my cousin tells me his neighbor hit his car, he has not *proven* it in any reasonable sense of the word, but it's actually okay for me to take his word on it. Cuz I'm just some rando and not the courts.)
I mean, you haven't. You stated that it's not true, but then talked about how you can still leave room for doubt and about the potential harm to the accused, neither of which addresses the actual point: If you presume the accused is innocent, you are presuming the accuser is lying because that is a necessary condition for the accused to be innocent. That you leave room to change your mind in the face of later info doesn't change that. That there's potential harm to the accused doesn't change that. If you presume something happened on Christmas, then you are also by definition presuming it happened in December.
Last edited:
Predates the movie by like 10-15 years. Basically an intentional misspelling of kings supposedly based on AAVE.
Odd to hear that "Kang" is becoming a slur against African-Americans, given that Lee & Kirby's choice of Kang as a villain name, like Star Trek's use of it as a Klingon name in "Day of the Dove," was probably influenced by the pervasive Yellow Peril trope of Asian-coded villains, like Fu Manchu and Ming the Merciless. Comics of the day had no shortage of such characters -- see the Mandarin and Fin Fang Foom, for example. So even a villain not specifically intended as Asian, like Kang, might still be given a Chinese-sounding name because it would've conveyed a sense of exotic menace to the (white) audience of the day.
I'd figured that the Kang character was far enough removed from the name's possible racial-stereotype influence that it wouldn't be an issue today, especially with a non-Asian actor playing the part. So there's quite an irony if it's become a slur from another direction altogether.
Of course, they could always just bring him back and call him Rama-Tut or Immortus, I guess.