Fant4stic Michael B Jordan is "Flame On!" The Human Torch - Part 2

[cronosred]

Technically nobody's stopping the studios from white-washing all minorities in films. It can be done but it will be of bad taste and backwards.

Minorities are alreadyunder-represented in films like these. Case in point: Avengers and MCU films where minorities mostly play supporting characters to white leading men.

The reason why it's okay for a black man to play Johnny is because the character is the archetype of a modren, cool, jock-type American male, which could be played by any American regardless of ethnicity.

If Johnny were let's say the son of Chinese immigrants, whose characterization heavily revolves around his heritage, then it would be weird to cast a white man in that role.

Just look at the Last Airbender movie where obviously Asian or Inuit characters were turned white.

So white American characters can be changed out with anyone, does the same go for black American characters?

 

[TheComicbookKid]

So white American characters can be changed out with anyone, does the same go for black American characters?

That's a false argument. By under representing you've already lessened the chances of making swaps. If the only roles you leave are heavily stereotyped "ganster from the hood" or "minorities over come white segregation."

You can't purposefully underrepresent a group then act like anything else they have is up for grabs. You've already removed most chances of you have putting your (white) character in their place by under representing them in the first place.

The movie 21 was about a group of Asian college students caught gambling turned into white kids. You can't then turn around and say well we'll make an all white Marco Polo series, too.

 

[cronosred]

That's a false argument. By under representing you've already lessened the chances of making swaps. If the only roles you leave are heavily stereotyped "ganster from the hood" or "minorities over come white segregation."

You can't purposefully underrepresent a group then act like anything else they have is up for grabs. You've already removed most chances of you have putting your (white) character in their place by under representing them in the first place.

The movie 21 was about a group of Asian college students caught gambling turned into white kids. You can't then turn around and say well we'll make an all white Marco Polo series, too.

I'm not talking about making black characters white, there are plenty of ethnicities out there.

 

[Flint Marko]

I'm not talking about making black characters white, there are plenty of ethnicities out there.

You bring up an interesting point. If a white characters race can be changed, why not african americans to asian americans?
I'm not suggesting this should ever happen, and I get that minorities are grossly under represented as a whole, but it's an interesting thought.
And for the record I think MBJ is a good fit for Johnny, I wasn't mad at all when I found out he was cast.

 

[Paradox1]

Yeah Luke Cage could probably be Asian or Hispanic to me. I'm not a fan of his, but falsely accused ex-gang member could be anyone.

 

[cronosred]

You bring up an interesting point. If a white characters race can be changed, why not african americans to asian americans?
I'm not suggesting this should ever happen, and I get that minorities are grossly under represented as a whole, but it's an interesting thought.
And for the record I think MBJ is a good fit for Johnny, I wasn't mad at all when I found out he was cast.

Although the cast come across as younger than I would like, they are very talented and I can see them all pulling off their character quite well.

 

[Flint Marko]

Although the cast come across as younger than I would like, they are very talented and I can see them all pulling off their character quite well.

Agreed. Jamie Bell is my only question mark.

 

[moviedoors]

I'd have to do more research on this since I'm not familiar with the character.

Of course it's 2015 and people are going out of their way to force diversity because it's 2015 and we still don't have any. At some point, minority groups are going to push back and I can only guess it's going to get harder for large corporations further down the line to ignore it. Minority groups as a whole have tremendous buying and viewing power that could dwarf that of the majority in the very near future.

Look at things like Scandal, and most recently, Empire. That show keeps going week by week by week. Even faster than most critically acclaimed, award winning shows fronted by white casts. Wonder why? Because people want to see themselves reflected in media. We want our stories told and our lives validated as well, just like white people do.

*standing ovation*

 

[TheComicbookKid]

I'm not talking about making black characters white, there are plenty of ethnicities out there.

Ben Kingsley has made his career doing this stuff.

That's been happening all the time, have people just not cared? How many latino/a play Native Americans? Or that John Stewart movie Rosewater about the Iranian-Canadian played by Gael Garcia Bernal?

 

[SuperT]

Or Eddie Redmayne playing a transgender character. In most of those cases, couldn't they have just found actual transgender, Native American or Iranian-Canadian actors?

 

[cronosred]

Ben Kingsley has made his career doing this stuff.

That's been happening all the time, have people just not cared? How many latino/a play Native Americans? Or that John Stewart movie Rosewater about the Iranian-Canadian played by Gael Garcia Bernal?

Their ethnicities are not important to those characters so they could really be played by anyone as long as the actors are talented that's what is really important.

 

[wobbly]

Ben Kingsley has made his career doing this stuff.

That's been happening all the time, have people just not cared? How many latino/a play Native Americans? Or that John Stewart movie Rosewater about the Iranian-Canadian played by Gael Garcia Bernal?

There's a difference between someone who can resemble an ethnic origin (while their real one might be very different), playing that part, than completely changing the race of that part to suit the actor.

When Kingsley played Ghandi for example, Ghandi was obviously still Indian.

Going back further for some examples (and these are some hilarious mis-castings), John Wayne's Ghenghis Khan (not kidding, that happened) was still a Mongol. Chuck Connors Geronimo (again, not kidding) was still a Native American, and Christopher Lee's Fu Manchu was still Chinese.

The various Sinbad films have cast white actors and slapped some fake tan on them. Historical or fantasy flicks about Rome & Greece or Egypt seldom cast Italians, Greeks or Egyptians in any of the lead roles. Jesus is almost always portrayed as white and more recently there was 'The Prince of Persia'...

However, no matter how badly miscast the parts for these assorted efforts may or may not have been, the ethnic origins of the characters were not changed.

Now when we look at examples of where Hollywood has white washed the cast (as in changed the character/s to white from what they were originally) I would say Asians have probably had the rawest deal in that regard. The Last Airbender, Dragonball, 21 etc.

There have been plenty of black characters from various medium changed to white for film down the years, but off hand I can't think of race changes on a scale as in the above examples.

 

[wobbly]

Tell me more about white american culture.

As incredible an idea as this might be to digest, it does exist, and has since a certain Mr Hancock put his signature on the declaration of Independence.

It does go back further of course (pre Revolutionary War when many of the Americans of that time still considered themselves British) but I doubt any history lesson I could offer would dispel this idea that a white characters skin color simply doesn't matter.

 

[Flint Marko]

Or Eddie Redmayne playing a transgender character. In most of those cases, couldn't they have just found actual transgender, Native American or Iranian-Canadian actors?

You never answered my question. Why do storm and black panther have to be African?

 

[Paradox1]

You never answered my question. Why do storm and black panther have to be African?

is this a serious question? Why does Clark Kent have to grow up in Smallville? Why can't Batman be from Central City instead of Gotham?

 

[Flint Marko]

is this a serious question? Why does Clark Kent have to grow up in Smallville? Why can't Batman be from Central City instead of Gotham?

And why can't gotham be in China? Or Brazil?

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

It's like the word "context" just doesn't exist for a huge chunk of people in the world, or something...

 

[RAE072]

It's like the word "context" just doesn't exist for a huge chunk of people in the world, or something...

CHRONICLE

Director: Josh Trank

CAST

Dane DeHaan ... Andrew Detmer
Alex Russell ... Matt Garetty
Michael B. Jordan ... Steve Montgomery

...nah, that's the wrong kind of context.

 

[Human Torch]

You never answered my question. Why do storm and black panther have to be African?

Because being "white" isn't a definable trait. All white characters can be replaced by any minority by definition. The reverse can never be true.

 

[SuperT]

You never answered my question. Why do storm and black panther have to be African?

Sorry - I had it all typed up then had to run into a meeting yesterday.

As far as Black Panther - his entire history, character, culture and country of Wakanda was loosely based around the idea of anti-colonialism, specifically from Europe. Wakanda represented the idea of what if one African country was able to fight/fend off colonialism from Europe and fend for themselves. Wakanda represented and still does, of what could have potentially happened had African countries been left alone. The continent is one of the richest in natural resources and Black Panther and his nation illustrated how one country used those natural resources to accelerate past many other countries across the world without interference.

Africa to this day, is still stereotyped as a continent full of savages with no education, resources, means etc. That's why the story of Wakanda is illuminated because it's throws everything people think about Africa out of the window. Moving a story like that to Central or South America doesn't hold because those countries and that continent don't have nearly same history of subjugation or stereotypes as Africa. You'd have to radically change the story and character to the point where it wouldn't be the same character anymore.

As far as Storm - she has to be African (she's actually African-American, her dad was an American photographer) because she was specifically created to be African-American - she was one of the first black female comic book superheroes. She debuted in the 70's and was something that had never existed before - a African-American female leader of one of the most popular comic book superhero teams. The importance of her being black transcends just her appearance in the comics. She's been the the poster child for what it means to be a strong, independent, confident, well-rounded, African-American female, something that is severely lacking in media then and now. To remove that from her would be a complete demolishing of the character.

The importance of her staying African-American is more than just "that's always what she's looked like" she's one of the defining characters in African-American fictional literature. For a lot of minority fictional characters, they simply represent something MORE than just being comic book characters because they are minority characters in a universe dominated by Caucasian characters.

Storm and Black Panther as African-American characters stand for something far deeper than I can put into words moreso than Johnny Storm or Peter Parker as white characters. To me, it's that simple.

Whoa, that was a mouthful. Sorry! lol

 

[moviedoors]

Storm and Black Panther as African-American characters stand for something far deeper than I can put into words than say, Johnny Storm or Peter Parker as white characters. To me, it's that simple. l

Encore!

 

[Flint Marko]

Sorry - I had it all typed up then had to run into a meeting yesterday.

As far as Black Panther - his entire history, character, culture and country of Wakanda was loosely based around the idea of anti-colonialism, specifically from Europe. Wakanda represented the idea of what if one African country was able to fight/fend off colonialism from Europe and fend for themselves. Wakanda represented and still does, of what could have potentially happened had African countries been left alone. The continent is one of the richest in natural resources and Black Panther and his nation illustrated how one country used those natural resources to accelerate past many other countries across the world without interference.

Africa to this day, is still stereotyped as a continent full of savages with no education, resources, means etc. That's why the story of Wakanda is illuminated because it's throws everything people think about Africa out of the window. Moving a story like that to Central or South America doesn't hold because those countries and that continent don't have nearly same history of subjugation or stereotypes as Africa. You'd have to radically change the story and character to the point where it wouldn't be the same character anymore.

As far as Storm - she has to be African (she's actually African-American, her dad was an American photographer) because she was specifically created to be African-American - she was one of the first black female comic book superheroes. She debuted in the 70's and was something that had never existed before - a African-American female leader of one of the most popular comic book superhero teams. The importance of her being black transcends just her appearance in the comics. She's been the the poster child for what it means to be a strong, independent, confident, well-rounded, African-American female, something that is severely lacking in media then and now. To remove that from her would be a complete demolishing of the character.

The importance of her staying African-American is more than just "that's always what she's looked like" she's one of the defining characters in African-American fictional literature. For a lot of minority fictional characters, they simply represent something MORE than just being comic book characters because they are minority characters in a universe dominated by Caucasian characters.

Storm and Black Panther as African-American characters stand for something far deeper than I can put into words, Johnny Storm or Peter Parker as white characters. To me, it's that simple.

Whoa, that was a mouthful. Sorry! lol

Thanks for the thorough answer

 

[cronosred]

On film Blade and Storm could have been played by anyone, ethnicity played no part in their characters.

 

[Goshdarn Batman]

Yeah Luke Cage could probably be Asian or Hispanic to me. I'm not a fan of his, but falsely accused ex-gang member could be anyone.

Because being "white" isn't a definable trait. All white characters can be replaced by any minority by definition. The reverse can never be true.

[YT]tGkWY2RAorA[/YT]

I want to see that movie.

 

[Paradox1]

[YT]tGkWY2RAorA[/YT]

I want to see that movie.

HA, ha that is hilarious. I guess you do loose a little some of that uumph when you race change a character like him [YT]watch?v=bcXrE6fLCUM[/YT]