racism in hollywood - and how far it has come.

[roach]

But the very core of The Matrix is a guy who is surrounded and immersed in technology suddenly breaking free of it and fighting back. It's not like adding some Kung-Fu. The Matrix wouldn't work if you had the extroverted, carefree and irrepressibly happy demeanor of the Fresh Prince.

What I am saying is that the role may have been rewritten to make Keanu withdrawn and immersed in technology.

 

[Teelie]

But the very core of The Matrix is a guy who is surrounded and immersed in technology suddenly breaking free of it and fighting back. It's not like adding some Kung-Fu. The Matrix wouldn't work if you had the extroverted, carefree and irrepressibly happy demeanor of the Fresh Prince.

I think it could work. Nothing says he couldn't be extroverted but still embedded so much in the technology. It wouldn't have to be him as the Fresh Prince, he doesn't have to have many or any real life friends. Even then when the internet was "new" people had friends they'd never met, people who they had no idea of their names or what they looked like, just handles and avatars.

The personality might have changed but the under-lying story could still remain intact. A man breaks free of a computer simulated enivornment doesn't require him to be socially inept and emotionally distant.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

What I am saying is that the role may have been rewritten to make Keanu withdrawn and immersed in technology.

Which is why that character works within the context of that movie.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I think it could work. Nothing says he couldn't be extroverted but still embedded so much in the technology. It wouldn't have to be him as the Fresh Prince, he doesn't have to have many or any real life friends. Even then when the internet was "new" people had friends they'd never met, people who they had no idea of their names or what they looked like, just handles and avatars.

Things are much different now, with smart-phones and social networks, but in the 90's extroverted life-of-the-party guys like Will Smith weren't spending their nights hunched over desktop computers immersed in AOL chatrooms cultivating online friendships. Sorry, that just seems a stretch.

The personality might have changed but the under-lying story could still remain intact. A man breaks free of a computer simulated enivornment doesn't require him to be socially inept and emotionally distant.

But it helps, especially for metaphorical reasons that are obvious. He can't connect with anyone inside The Matrix, because The Matrix isn't real, so his nights are spent interacting with technology, which ironically is exactly what everyone does inside The Matrix.

 

[The Question]

You can be introverted and still be charming. People aren't always introverts because they lack social skills, sometimes it's just because they generally prefer solitude. There are plenty of very friendly and charismatic introverts, just like there are awkward and obnoxious extroverts.

Also, like, Will Smith is an actor. He can pretend to be people other than himself. He played a great lonely weirdo in I Am Legend.



Also also, getting back to the topic of the thread, I've actually thought for a while that if they were ever going to racelift Superman, Will Smith would be great for the part.

 

[jmc]

This is my personal opinion. I don't necessarily have a problem with someone of another race playing Bruce Wayne or James Bond who ever, good acting is good acting, that said I just don't know if it's going to genuinely feel the same. I've heard Idris Elba's name tossed around as potential future James Bond, I've got no doubt in my mind he'd make a fantastic kick arse lead in a British spy movie but I don't know if it would ever feel like a James Bond movie. I would hate to walk out of the theatre thinking 'Dude was great, but it just didn't feel like James Bond'. I would feel horrible actually.

 

[Teelie]

Will Smith sort of did Superman already as Hancock although it was a terrible take.

 

[The Question]

Will Smith sort of did Superman already as Hancock although it was a terrible take.

Yeah but that wasn't his fault. I think he'd make an amazing Superman proper. He can do that right balance of gravitas and vulnerability and of charisma and loneliness that makes the character genuinely compelling.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I don't understand though. Instead of changing the aspects of established icons, why not just create new characters and icons?

 

[Teelie]

That has been brought up and the short answer is "no one cares about new heroes."

 

[The Question]

I don't understand though. Instead of changing the aspects of established icons, why not just create new characters and icons?

Because characters like Superman or Spider-Man or Batman aren't just characters, they are as you said, cultural icons with deep and widespread meaning to us as consumers of popular media. Making a new icon like that on command is next to impossible, especially since Hollywood would never risk money on a superhero property that didn't feature a white lead and also wasn't an established property that everyone was familiar with, and doing this with characters that are already so well known and beloved would simply have a wider and more deeply meaningful impact.

My question is, why not do it?

That has been brought up and the short answer is "no one cares about new heroes."

Basically that, yeah.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

But surely if there's an audience for the character, people will see it. Tons of people flock to see the latest Denzel Washington movies. I'm kinda playing devil's advocate. I don't care too much about changing certain aspects of a character's identity. But at what point does that character change so much, it's no longer even the same character?

 

[Teelie]

There are a lot of movies that can be cited as examples of that but everyone has their line where changing X means the character is no longer that character. For some people it's as simple as details in the backstory, for others it can be everything but the name of the character (like, nothing but the name of the character is the same).

 

[The Question]

But surely if there's an audience for the character, people will see it. Tons of people flock to see the latest Denzel Washington movies.

Rarely does the latest Denzel Washington movie have the same lasting cultural impact as Superman.

Like, I'm not arguing against original content in movies. Hollywood has been way too sequel and adaptation happy lately, some more honest to God original screenplays would be a blessing. And the answer to scraping away the thick whitewash on American popular media is to create more roles for people of color in all properties, adaptation or no. I'm just saying that, in the realm of superheroes, new characters usually mean a lot less to people than the old favorites. A new superhero character becoming a genuine cultural icon is a rare thing. The last one that happened with was Deadpool, really. So, I'm all for creating new characters in superhero fiction who are people of color. I just think that changing the race of a traditionally white character in an adaptation or some kind of continuity reboot is an equally valid option, and one that'll likely leave a bigger mark.

I'm kinda playing devil's advocate. I don't care too much about changing certain aspects of a character's identity. But at what point does that character change so much, it's no longer even the same character?

I don't know. But I'm going to say that, in the vast majority of cases, changing the character's race is not by itself that point.



Semi-related note: What with the sliding timescale, it's going to get to the point that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Magneto to be a Holocaust survivor. I think when it eventually needs to be retconned, it should be retconned to be that he's from Cambodia and was a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. An East Asian Magneto. And by extension an East Asian Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. I'd be all for it.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

There are a lot of movies that can be cited as examples of that but everyone has their line where changing X means the character is no longer that character. For some people it's as simple as details in the backstory, for others it can be everything but the name of the character (like, nothing but the name of the character is the same).

Well, that's just nuts. I love But would be laughable as James Bond or as Harry Potter.

Here's my thinking; if it's a cool, new interpretation of a character that's done for creative reasons (like turning Kingpin black because Michael Clarke Duncan was such an imposing force that resembled Kingpin in so many other ways) then I'm all for it. But if it's just done for politically correct reasons and not to benefit the actual story or product, then I'm against it.

 

[The Question]

Well, that's just nuts. I love But would be laughable as James Bond or as Harry Potter.

Here's my thinking; if it's a cool, new interpretation of a character that's done for creative reasons (like turning Kingpin black because Michael Clarke Duncan was such an imposing force that resembled Kingpin in so many other ways) then I'm all for it. But if it's just done for politically correct reasons and not to benefit the actual story or product, then I'm against it.

Why? What harm does it cause? And what's wrong with doing something for politically correct reasons? Political correctness is really just a fancy way of saying basic human decency.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Rarely does the latest Denzel Washington movie have the same lasting cultural impact as Superman.

Like, I'm not arguing against original content in movies. Hollywood has been way too sequel and adaptation happy lately, some more honest to God original screenplays would be a blessing. And the answer to scraping away the thick whitewash on American popular media is to create more roles for people of color in all properties, adaptation or no. I'm just saying that, in the realm of superheroes, new characters usually mean a lot less to people than the old favorites. A new superhero character becoming a genuine cultural icon is a rare thing. The last one that happened with was Deadpool, really. So, I'm all for creating new characters in superhero fiction who are people of color. I just think that changing the race of a traditionally white character in an adaptation or some kind of continuity reboot is an equally valid option, and one that'll likely leave a bigger mark.



I don't know. But I'm going to say that, in the vast majority of cases, changing the character's race is not by itself that point.



Semi-related note: What with the sliding timescale, it's going to get to the point that it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Magneto to be a Holocaust survivor. I think when it eventually needs to be retconned, it should be retconned to be that he's from Cambodia and was a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime. An East Asian Magneto. And by extension an East Asian Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. I'd be all for it.

And I'd be incensed if they took away that aspect of Magneto. I'm Jewish and my grandparents' extended family were wiped out in the holocaust, so I could always empathize with his anger and liked the metaphor of him turning into what he hated the most. See here's the rub; by reaching out to a new audience by changing aspects of a character, you're dismissing your old audience who related to who he or she used to be. And screw the timeline. It's a world where people fly and shoot lasers out of their butt. Why is it so hard to just make it so World War II happened in the 1970's in that world?

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

Why? What harm does it cause?

Really? Mr T would be an acceptable Harry Potter in your estimation. That's a movie you'd want to see?

And what's wrong with doing something for politically correct reasons? Political correctness is really just a fancy way of saying basic human decency.

No. No, it isn't.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

On the other end of the spectrum, I would NEVER want to see Daniel Radcliffe play B.A. Baracus in an A-Team reboot. Is it politically correct if Radcliffe complained he couldn't get that role because he's a weedy, white, English kid, and then he was awarded it over other capable actors on the strength of his complaints rather than his talent or how well he fit the role?

 

[The Question]

And I'd be incensed if they took away that aspect of Magneto. I'm Jewish and my grandparents' extended family were wiped out in the holocaust, so I could always empathize with his anger and liked the metaphor of him turning into what he hated the most. See here's the rub; by reaching out to a new audience by changing aspects of a character, you're dismissing your old audience who related to who he or she used to be.

I'd argue that, in the issue of race, white people are not lacking for white characters to identify with, so it does quite a bit less harm.

I'd also argue that it really isn't about identification. It's about representation, which is different. Identification if about getting members of the audience to form an emotional connection with the character on the screen or on the page. A similar ethnic background can be one such way of forging that connection, but there are many other possible avenues, including personal experiences and character traits and environment. I'm not a rich black kid from southern California, but I can still identify with the character of Carlton Banks on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air because I've gone through similar experiences of awkwardness and having my trust in civic institutions shattered.

(As a brief aside, I find the notion that a white person can only identify with Batman because he's white to say more bad things about that person than anything else.)

Representation, on the other hand, is about saying loud and clear that a particular group of people exist and that they matter. We need heroic leads in films who are women and LGBT and people of color, not simply so that those groups can identify with them (although that helps and is a nice thing), but to state very plainly that those people can be the hero, that they're not defined by nonsense stereotypes and that they're worthy of our respect and of being our surrogates on these fantastical journeys and that they matter. White people don't need that because we've already been told that, people have been telling that to us our whole lives. We don't need representation because white representation is the default.

I, and hopefully most other white people, will still have the capacity to identify with Superman if they made him black, latino, asian, a pacific islander, native American, what have you. But a group of people, historically marginalized by society, now being represented by America's greatest and most beloved cultural hero? Man, that would be powerful.

And screw the timeline. It's a world where people fly and shoot lasers out of their butt. Why is it so hard to just make it so World War II happened in the 1970's in that world?

Really? Mr T would be an acceptable Harry Potter in your estimation. That's a movie you'd want to see?

No, because Mr. T is an elderly American who can't actually act. Changing a character's race still requires getting good actors who are suited for the part. If they got an 11 year old black kid from London, I wouldn't care. Why should I?

No. No, it isn't.

Please explain how it isn't.

On the other end of the spectrum, I would NEVER want to see Daniel Radcliffe play B.A. Baracus in an A-Team reboot. Is it politically correct if Radcliffe complained he couldn't get that role because he's a weedy, white, English kid, and then he was awarded it over other capable actors on the strength of his complaints rather than his talent or how well he fit the role?

That's a pretty glaring false equivalency. White actors aren't hurting for leading roles the same way non-white actors are. And even if Daniel Radcliffe weren't white he'd still be wrong for the part.

 

[jmc]

That has been brought up and the short answer is "no one cares about new heroes."

That's a studio mentality not the audience. The thing is the franchise model that is prevalent is preventing original and new heroes from emerging. 20-30 years ago the sequel model was different, usually they only came about after a film was successful. Characters like Rambo, Robocop and John McClean came about because the audience responded to them well and wanted more. In a way the audience was for all intense and purposes the ones who decided which heroes became household names, now there's an over reliance on preexisting heroes because the films cost so much more. They want guarantees on their investments. The audience cares, they're just not given the opportunity to see them anymore. Who was the last original character that audiences fell in love with? Jack Sparrow maybe? That was over 10 years ago.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

@The Question

And I said, it's mostly case by case. I'm cool with some characters having their race changed or other aspects of their identity changed. In some cases, such as the Kingpin, it works. And other cases, such as Daniel Radcliffe playing a Mr T role, it wouldn't. You subscribe to absolutist arguments that good storytelling and characters should be secondary to political correctness, which is something I just don't agree with. So we can argue about that endlessly, but I think it's a lazy argument to just say "no, we can't create new characters. We need to change old characters." These old icons were all new characters at one time as well. If you want a character who was persecuted by the Khmer Rouge... create him! And you never told me if you'd see a Harry Potter movie with Mr T in the lead-role, so if you say "no" I'll have to assume you're against everything you just said.

 

[Shikamaru]

Why? What harm does it cause? And what's wrong with doing something for politically correct reasons? Political correctness is really just a fancy way of saying basic human decency.

The problem is you're not looking for the best actor for the job. You're narrowing down the list of potential actors to only one group.

 

[The Question]

@The Question

And I said, it's mostly case by case. I'm cool with some characters having their race changed or other aspects of their identity changed. In some cases, such as the Kingpin, it works. And other cases, such as Daniel Radcliffe playing a Mr T role, it wouldn't.

Why do you keep bringing that up? When would that ever be a possibility? Changing a character's race doesn't mean allowing for actors who'd be terrible for the part.

You subscribe to absolutist arguments that good storytelling and characters should be secondary to political correctness, which is something I just don't agree with.

No I don't. I subscribe to a philosophy of "if it doesn't hurt the story of the character in any way, and is beneficial to groups who aren't well represented in popular media, then let's do it."

So we can argue about that endlessly, but I think it's a lazy argument to just say "no, we can't create new characters. We need to change old characters."

I never said that either. I said that we should do both.

These old icons were all new characters at one time as well.

But making a new icon on demand is basically impossible. It's like bottling lightning, it happens when it happens. Of course writers and artists and directors should create new characters who represent all walks of life, but changing a character's race in an adaptation should also be a viable option.

If you want a character who was persecuted by the Khmer Rouge... create him!

I was just saying that since they're eventually going to have to retcon Magneto's backstory to be something else anyway, why not make it that?

And you never told me if you'd see a Harry Potter movie with Mr T in the lead-role, so if you say "no" I'll have to assume you're against everything you just said.

I'm assuming that you're joking here.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

No, because Mr. T is an elderly American who can't actually act. Changing a character's race still requires getting good actors who are suited for the part. If they got an 11 year old black kid from London, I wouldn't care. Why should I?

Oh. Oh, I get it. Change the race, but not the age. So you're ageist! Well, I have a grandfather who will have trouble relating to Harry Potter now. Plus, he's American. Double whammy!

So you're cool changing racial aspects of a character, but no other aspects? Why can't we make Harry Potter old? Or American?

Please explain how it isn't.

Nah. I'll let you work that one out.

That's a pretty glaring false equivalency. White actors aren't hurting for leading roles the same way non-white actors are. And even if Daniel Radcliffe weren't white he'd still be wrong for the part.

So basically this is an affirmative action hire. Black actors playing white parts is okay, but white actors playing black parts isn't. So this is basically one-sided in other words. If you were truly honest that race shouldn't matter, why couldn't white actors play black parts as well?