Time to Discuss Race: The White Washing of The Shredder

[Marvin]

Not if the issue is that of jobs and opportunities for minorities in an industry that is built on appearance. That is, if they white wash all the roles, then minorities won't have jobs. Removing 'crime' from the analogy by having all the ice cream already paid for by a donation, removing ownership from the equation and focusing on the issue.

That being said, we are no doubt talking about different things. Media representation to me is a more relevant issue when it's a matter of how people are perceived. Such as negative general stereotypes(arabs), how a culture is 'represented'. Very much in the realm of 'ethics'. What I'm talking about here is the issue of taking away an opportunity regardless of who they are.

Your issue seems to be about a group of people simply being represented more or less than another in an entertainment outlet, which to me is something different. To which point I'm not actually sure if the term 'ethics' applies.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

I don't think so.
You're claiming something is 'right' in one instance, yet the same thing wrong another; and for no other reason than do to the presence of a minority/majority.

It's not like stealing.

It's like 98% of radio stations being country music only and getting mad when someone tries to replace a few country music stations with pop, jazz, or rock.

 

[bullets]

It appears the original Shredder is some type of legend. I'm guessing from the map. At least if they are going to change who is in the costume there will be a nod or mention to Saki.

 

[Zaron]

It's not like stealing.

It's like 98% of radio stations being country music only and getting mad when someone tries to replace a few country music stations with pop, jazz, or rock.

See? This is a fair comparison.

I'm not even going to bother responding to Marvin. I'm actually getting extremely close to putting him on ignore.

 

[dark_b]

remember something very important . this movie was rewritten. some are saying over 50% of the first script changed.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/19/showbiz/movies/bay-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ew/

and in the first script wasnt Shredder called colonel Shrader ? it looks like we need to go back to the original idea. they wanted a military type Shredder.

 

[Marvin]

It's not like stealing.

It's like 98% of radio stations being country music only and getting mad when someone tries to replace a few country music stations with pop, jazz, or rock.

Are you suggesting this as acceptable or unacceptable?

I get why people think this role needs to be asian and how 'replacing' it from 'what it was supposed to be' can be worrisome. Where in your analogy is it explained why the country stations were supposed to be country before the switch...

I'm not even going to bother responding to Marvin. I'm actually getting extremely close to putting him on ignore.

I love when people say/do this on a forum.

 

[Zaron]

remember something very important . this movie was rewritten. some are saying over 50% of the first script changed.
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/19/showbiz/movies/bay-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-ew/

and in the first script wasnt Shredder called colonel Shrader ? it looks like we need to go back to the original idea. they wanted a military type Shredder.

I should also note that the original script gave absolutely no reason for Shredder's change in race. He was just colonel Schrader because that's the disguise the biomechanical alien from Dimension X decided to use. Apparently he was an incredibly uncreative alien.

 

[dark_b]

in the original script he was an alien disguised as a human who wears the Shredder suit?

 

[Zaron]

Actually he never wore a suit of armor. The blades were a part of his alien bio mechanical body.

He was a lot closer to a terminator. Human flesh covering up a mechanical body, the mechanical body was covered in blades and was that script's Shredder.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Are you suggesting this as acceptable or unacceptable?

I get why people think this role needs to be asian and how 'replacing' it from 'what it was supposed to be' can be worrisome. Where in your analogy is it explained why the country stations were supposed to be country before the switch...

Well there are two different issues:

1) Changing something pointlessly from the source

2) Why increasing diversity is more acceptable than decreasing diversity.

My analogy refers to number 2 and I'm suggesting it's less reasonable to get mad when diversity is INCREASED. In other words, when white characters are changed to minorities.

 

[Marvin]

Well there are two different issues:
1) Changing something pointlessly from the source

Ignoring the subjectively of it all, changing something from the source material being pointless is only evident after the fact and we haven't seen what they are planning. There could be numerous points to it not yet seen however, you aren't talking about this issue. Moving on.

2) Why increasing diversity is more acceptable than decreasing diversity.
My analogy refers to number 2 and I'm suggesting it's less reasonable to get mad when diversity is INCREASED. In other words, when white characters are changed to minorities.

If you are going to get mad at both things happening then sure, it's 'less reasonable to get mad' for the one that increases racial diversity. My issue was never about the various levels of getting mad at race swapping, it was this idea that it's only ok to get mad when it occurs in one direction. Which is why I find your choice of words so interesting just now: 'less reasonable'.

Hopefully this example makes more sense:
You have a white and a black actor friend both amateurs. The white actor has the lead role catered to him in spite of Othello being Moorish, and when the black actor complains about how important race is to the role(as we are seeing with shredder) people agree and rant and rave and hold debates about othello. Then when the black actor lands Julius Caesar, and the white actor speaks on the race of Cilicians, all that was argued in the prior scenario is fully ignored due to this other issue of politics and diversity!
Surely you can see the element of hypocrisy on the part of those that were ranting about historical accuracy and such. Look up any of these youtube rants about shredder being white and see this in action. There is a lack of conviction. People can't argue for respecting the source material on monday and then when faced with their own argument used on another race, claim this is now simply a matter of diversity in the media and that's the real issue. Enter our common friend here.

The irony being with this, they are increasing diversity to the long pool of source material in it's various incarnations. I would imagine your rhetoric doesn't stop short of this.

 

[Arach Knight]

An insightful post and really, I was mostly only curious what you thought of these other instances of this same thing happening. Clearly you are aware that the outrage is far less apparent with something like the new Hercules(played by a black actor as far as I'm concerned) when compared to the likes of making shredder white.

What you note is also far more complex issue than you assume. The Rock is half Samoan and half Black. However, his skin tone is olive and his hair texture is not kinky or frizzy. So while people are aware that the Rock is non-White, he could almost qualify as a "passer."And that is not to suggest that Dwayne Johnson attempts to pass for non-White. Dwayne Johnson is VERY proud of his family history and he never hides from the great legacy that his grandfather and father left for him. However, to the general audience, The Rock isn't necessarily a "Black man."

It is sort of like Halle Berry being accepted as the epitome of Black beauty (Berry is also half Black) while Gabrielle Union is hardly given a second thought by society at large. America still has hangups about skin tone. If Dwayne Johnson were as dark as Booker T. or Wesley Snipes, I assure you audiences would be pitching a fit. But since Dwayne Johnson has what amounts to a year round tan, then audiences have few problems seeing him as a White surrogate. For more on the subject, you should look up passing and the brown paper bag rule

 

[Marvin]

Though it a sub point, I think the Gabrielle Union vs Berry is impossibly skewed by the accolades and overall relevance disparity between the two. There are no doubt black super models or singers of beyonce's relevance(her being not mixed as far as I understand) that might makes for a more fair example of the point you are trying to convey. That being said I don't really agree. I think from Tyra Banks to Kerry Washington to Kerri Hilson the now famous and very dark Lupita, western culture can find a definition for 'black beauty' beyond Halle Berry of the 90's. Skin tone seems far less an issue imo. If anything it's facial features that the cultural hangup.

As for the rock, that's definitely a worthy observation about his complexion and hair. And I'm sure that if he was darker it would be far more talked about, however, unlike in both the Arnold and Kellen Lutz interpretations. This is clearly a non white man playing a big white icon in big hollywood. 'Passer' or not, that's significant, I'd imagine to your original post anyways.

 

[Arach Knight]

Hopefully this example makes more sense:
You have a white and a black actor friend both amateurs. The white actor has the lead role catered to him in spite of Othello being Moorish, and when the black actor complains about how important race is to the role(as we are seeing with shredder) people agree and rant and rave and hold debates about othello. Then when the black actor lands Julius Caesar, and the white actor speaks on the race of Cilicians, all that was argued in the prior scenario is fully ignored due to this other issue of politics and diversity!

Those examples do not work for two principle reasons

1) Othello is a story reliant upon the "otherness" of the eponymous protagonist. To make Othello White and keep other characters White would ruin the ability to tell the story altogether. However, there are race swapped productions of Othello, in which Othello is White and every other character is non-White, and generally, people have no issue with such an endeavor because it preserves the integrity of the story and its themes.

2) Julius Caesar is a real person. Changing the race of real life people is problematic because it literally would not make sense. Changing the race of fictional characters is less of an issue, unless ethnicity is intrinsic to the character's story. For instance, Blade's ethnicity is unimportant, so much so that I could recommend that someone watch Vampire Hunter D (a similar character) and pretty much enjoy the same sort of story despite the fact that D is White. Conversely, making the Blue Marvel a White person would ruin that characterization (for painfully obvious reasons).


Your examples are not comparable to the situation at hand.

 

[Arach Knight]

At this point, a thread like this really serves no purpose other than to facilitate inflammatory behavior and complaining for the sake of complaining, particularly since, as noted, there are some rather strong hints in the teaser trailer that there was a specific storyline reason for changing Shredder's ethnicity and alter-ego.

Even if they pull the "he is a resurrected version of The Shredder" or "there are multiple Shredders", it is still an issue because

1) It reduces minority visibility in the media by once again replacing a minority role with a White person. This is something that is done habitually, even when the character is a real person. Ben Affleck as Tony Mendez (a Mexican in real life). Harrison Ford as Dr. Stonehill (in real life, a Taiwanese doctor named Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen).So this isn't some non-issue that I am dredging up to inflame attitudes.

This is a very real and very persistent activity. If we throw in fictional characters, then you have Bane, R'as and Talia Al Ghul, the majority of the cast of The Last Airbender, Chapel and Terry in Spawn etc. White people are consistently taking roles from minorities, be they fictional or non-fictional, and few people ever complain. Yet when few roles are taken from Whites by non-Whites, it becomes a huge debate, even though minorities have largely (if not only) taken fictional roles.

2) Changes the story of TMNT. There is a reason why Bay and co had to abandon the idea of aliens: fans got wind of that stupid change and flipped their wigs. The story of the Turtles and The Shredder is an old fashioned revenge tale straight from Japanese cinema, down to warring ninja clans. To remove the heavy Japanese influence that defines the story and the characters and to throw in some White military man quite literally undermines what TMNT is.

So from an ethical standpoint and from a fan standpoint, it is
a dubious proposition at best.

 

[Marvin]

^ I'm pretty sure the japanese influence is still heavily present. The trailer starts off with an Asian tapestry. Yes to throw away the asian influence would 'undermine' the property, luckily and clearly they aren't doing that.

Those examples do not work for two principle reasons

1) Othello is a story reliant upon the "otherness" of the eponymous protagonist...

In other words the context of the production explained the change and quelled the initial(if any) outrage at the apparent change in source material. When or when that doesn't happen with this production, it will be a fine discussion.
What is important with the shredder one may ask, I mean really important. I often wonder what people think about this.

To the point however, if you have been following, the issue that was presented wasn't that of story reliance, but rather the lack of minority representation. If you change a black role to a white one, I'm being told that into itself is deplorable regardless of whatever rhetoric I can muster. "Media Representation" he said. In one instance we/people talk about the minutia of the story reliance, in the other instance it's about a visible minority in the media.

2) Julius Caesar/Blade's ethnicity..

Actually the first two blade movies serve as a commentary of the Eurotrash envy of the Western Black man. That being said any story could be retooled. As for Caesar, I believe we already went their with Jesus the non fictional semite. I personally think it boils down to the 'this is the true story of' vs 'this is simply a story/play about'.

Your examples are not comparable to the situation at hand.

Their specific accuracy wasn't the point, rather it was about hypocritical motivation of the actors in their approach to defense. Should I make the analogy again with more apt comparisons cause I feel the point will remain.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Ignoring the subjectively of it all, changing something from the source material being pointless is only evident after the fact and we haven't seen what they are planning. There could be numerous points to it not yet seen however, you aren't talking about this issue. Moving on.

If you are going to get mad at both things happening then sure, it's 'less reasonable to get mad' for the one that increases racial diversity. My issue was never about the various levels of getting mad at race swapping, it was this idea that it's only ok to get mad when it occurs in one direction. Which is why I find your choice of words so interesting just now: 'less reasonable'.

Hopefully this example makes more sense:
You have a white and a black actor friend both amateurs. The white actor has the lead role catered to him in spite of Othello being Moorish, and when the black actor complains about how important race is to the role(as we are seeing with shredder) people agree and rant and rave and hold debates about othello. Then when the black actor lands Julius Caesar, and the white actor speaks on the race of Cilicians, all that was argued in the prior scenario is fully ignored due to this other issue of politics and diversity!
Surely you can see the element of hypocrisy on the part of those that were ranting about historical accuracy and such. Look up any of these youtube rants about shredder being white and see this in action. There is a lack of conviction. People can't argue for respecting the source material on monday and then when faced with their own argument used on another race, claim this is now simply a matter of diversity in the media and that's the real issue. Enter our common friend here.

The irony being with this, they are increasing diversity to the long pool of source material in it's various incarnations. I would imagine your rhetoric doesn't stop short of this.

Lack of diversity and accuracy are two reasons to keep Othello black.

With Caesar you only have a single reason to keep him white, accuracy.

Therefore there's a stronger argument to keep Othello black than keep Caesar white.

It's not unfair, it's reasonable.

Ultimately it comes down to whether you think lack of diversity and accuracy are both important issues. If you do you'll be more willing to change Johnny Storm's race than Black Panther because the former only raises one issue and the latter raises both.

 

[Marvin]

Lack of diversity and accuracy are two reasons to keep Othello black.

With Caesar you only have a single reason to keep him white, accuracy.

Therefore there's a stronger argument to keep Othello black than keep Caesar white.

I'd argue that there are more reasons than the ones you listed here but I get what you are getting at. That being said, it's not about about stronger or weaker arguments against change. It's about presence and non presence of opposition outright, to change. If one will argue there is a HUGE element of 'accuracy' to their aversion to shredder's change, then that same element not meaning squat in every equivalent scenario regardless of colour is hypocritical.

 

[LaughingMage]

These are fictional characters. If the story you write requires you to turn a popular existing Asian character into a white man you write a different story.

Why?

 

[Arach Knight]

@Messiah

Othello isn't a real person. I suppose accuracy matters if you are retelling the exact story, but if one is merely attempting to tell that story in general, the bigger demand is that Othello's race be different than everyone else. So Othello could be White and every one else Chinese. Or Othello could be Inuit and everyone else Kenyan. Conversely, Caesar is a real person. Accuracy is the key demand that maintains the integrity of his true story.

@Marvin

What is important about The Shredder is that he is a Japanese ninja seeking revenge on another Japanese ninja for the slaying of his brother. That act of vengeance later leads to another attempt to avenge a death, which is how the Ninja Turtles are formed. Splinter trained them literally to seek out and kill Oroku Saki (which they were successful in doing, twice).

Now while The Shredder isn't comparable to say Magneto, in being a long running foe of the Turtles, he was their initial foe and important to their formation. Then you have the thematic aspect of it all, which is more or less a parallel to Japanese chanbara films. So given the relationship between Splinter, Oroku Saki and the Ninja turtles, keeping everyone Japanese is a pretty big deal. And turning him into a White resurrected Shredder is a cop out.

 

[LaughingMage]

I agree, although I don't like that they felt the need to write in a white Shredder. It's all justify his existence instead of allowing for a more traditional, appropriately ethnic Shredder. I wonder how many in here would be upset if they did this to April O'Neil. She's not a white woman anymore. She's black. Or asian instead. Maybe she's not even April but Adam O'Neil. But hey, they wrote a reasonable explanation for why she is nothing like the original character so it must be okay.

Here we have the perfect example of a character I couldn't give a dime about. In my book change April as much as you like, she's pretty much a useless character anyway. Make her black, white, asian, native american, a dude, kill her off. It wouldn't affect me the slightest. She's a classical "damsel in distress" character and never really developed into more that that.

 

[Nathan]

Here we have the perfect example of a character I couldn't give a dime about. In my book change April as much as you like, she's pretty much a useless character anyway. Make her black, white, asian, native american, a dude, kill her off. It wouldn't affect me the slightest. She's a classical "damsel in distress" character and never really developed into more that that.

We actually already had several incarnations of April, that moved beyond damsel in distress. Though I have my doubts this April will ever become anything more than that.

 

[Marvin]

@Marvin

What is important about The Shredder is that he is a Japanese ninja seeking revenge on another Japanese ninja for the slaying of his brother. That act of vengeance later leads to another attempt to avenge a death, which is how the Ninja Turtles are formed. Splinter trained them literally to seek out and kill Oroku Saki (which they were successful in doing, twice).

Now while The Shredder isn't comparable to say Magneto, in being a long running foe of the Turtles, he was their initial foe and important to their formation. Then you have the thematic aspect of it all, which is more or less a parallel to Japanese chanbara films. So given the relationship between Splinter, Oroku Saki and the Ninja turtles, keeping everyone Japanese is a pretty big deal. And turning him into a White resurrected Shredder is a cop out.

If that's the way you explain it, I could personally see the Nagi character being adopted, raised in the east and (even self)exiled to the west due to his experience with cultural hang ups in the east completely reversed in the
west allowing for his climb to power over here whereas others who have tried have only made it so far. The military angle even serves the story in that regard. In this the race change "adds" subtext, motivation and even plot.
All other things you claim important can still very much be present with (imo) added cultural commentary and true diversity to the story. I've seen plenty of stories where the more open minded and unorthodox with tradition ambitious individual is the one to be feared. Then again, I'm maybe the biggest fan of the First blade movie there is.

Just an idea.

 

[Teelie]

There is far too much defense and justification for taking away an ethnically different character to make them white.

 

[SpitCurl]

Zaron and Teelie, excellent posts. Well said.

To those claiming this thread is irrelevant or premature because the film hasn't come out yet or we don't know enough about the portrayal, I think you're missing the point. AK used the example of FF & the visceral reaction casting a black male got vs. the relatively tame if head scratching decision to cast a white male as Shredder. In both cases, neither film has come out yet - FF hasn't even started; we know nothing about the nature of Johnny's relationship to Sue or how it will be handled - yet, that didn't stop the flood of negative reaction to it. So, asking the question of why that was such a big deal before the film's release versus the mostly puzzled but not righteously-indignant reaction to The Shredder (and the justification of it) is perfectly relevant.

As for other fictional characters and how equally upsetting it'd be if Black Panther were white or Batman were Asisn, that's also false equivalence: Black Panther being the Prince of Wakanda is intrinsic to his character; his ethnicity isn't a surface detail you can discard without irrevocably changing his character. You can make him an adopted white kid that becomes Prince of Wakanda, but there's already Tarzan if you want a male fantasy about a white guy inexplicably becoming leader of a predominantly ethnic society. Similarly, Bruce is of the same cloth as Zorro or Spring-Heeled Jack: bluebloods moonlighting as masked vigilantes. You'd have a hard time selling a POC coming from old-money here in the US given our history unless the entire story is an elseworld's tale with a different minority group having assumed power. If not, you'd be making changes to accomdate the character to the point that you may as well invent a new one.

Johnny Storm, on the other hand, isn't "Caucasian", he's "default". His personality isn't changed by his skin color; his skin color is nothing but a byproduct of being drawn at a time when *of course* every character was white; partly it was racism, but partly it was arists (predominantly if not all white) drawing what they knew of themselves and their culture or wanted to be (wish fulfillment). His "ethnicity" could be German, Dutch, Swiss, who knows. It doesn't matter or factor into his personality since he's no more "Caucasian" than Clark Kent.