Time to Discuss Race: The White Washing of The Shredder

[Arach Knight]

your just a racistesnist looking for excuses to look for racism where it don't exist, racism is nearly a thing of the past now... but the people who try to make racial speculations like this are the ones who are racist...

stop looking into white/black situations and just look into fact.... your giving out bout a film that made a japenese character American and saying it's racist, but I also noted that the same film has also made a white man into a black woman... you didn't bring that in to your criteria

1) I am not sure what a "racistesnist" is...

2) Racism is an on going occurrence in America. There are quite a few examples. For reference you can look into the Barney's shopping incidents, Oscar Grant, Stop and Frisk etc.

3) An individual pointing out racism does not make said individual a racist anymore than someone pointing out sexism makes one a sexist. To suggest such to be true is to highlight your lack of understanding about what racism is, both as an ideology and an institutional practice.

4) Not only did I address the issue of altering the race of White characters in a well stated response to a question from Marvin, the topic of this thread is to discuss WHITEWASHING. That does not discount other instances of racebending in the media, but this discussion is about one particular phenomenon. You are welcome to start your own thread to discuss racebending when it occurs to traditionally White characters, but you are not welcome to throw out a strawman and attempt to derail this conversation. You cite a true enough incident, but that statement does not devalue or otherwise negate what I have argued.

5) In all sincerity and humility I say to you, leave this thread. You lack the depth of knowledge to engage with the content of this topic. You misquoted and misrepresented Will Smith in some smug attempt to prove your rather weak point. You have invented words and sloppily thrown around accusations of racism all because you have elected to take this conversation personal and become defensive. Rather than have a robust discussion on the matter, you chose to attack people rather than attack their arguments.

You are of course free to do as you wish, but know that the arrogance required to refer to myself as the "Abstraction of Logic" is not without the mental faculties to backup such a self-aggrandizing claim. Your lack of argumentative skills and poor display as a rhetorician has conveyed to me that you are ill equipped to intellectually compete with me on the matter at hand. I am open to any difference of opinion or well reasoned and supported argument, but if you believe you can argue me down with misquotes, postulations and insults, please understand that I will find myself with little choice but to illuminate your utter lack of efficacy in the endeavor of prevailing against me in an intellectual debate. Good day, sir.

 

[SpitCurl]

1) I am not sure what a "racistesnist" is...

2) Racism is an on going occurrence in America. There are quite a few examples. For reference you can look into the Barney's shopping incidents, Oscar Grant, Stop and Frisk etc.

3) An individual pointing out racism does not make said individual a racist anymore than someone pointing out sexism makes one a sexist. To suggest such to be true is to highlight your lack of understanding about what racism is, both as an ideology and an institutional practice.

4) Not only did I address the issue of altering the race of White characters in a well stated response to a question from Marvin, the topic of this thread is to discuss WHITEWASHING. That does not discount other instances of racebending in the media, but this discussion is about one particular phenomenon. You are welcome to start your own thread to discuss racebending when it occurs to traditionally White characters, but you are not welcome to throw out a strawman and attempt to derail this conversation. You cite a true enough incident, but that statement does not devalue or otherwise negate what I have argued.

5) In all sincerity and humility I say to you, leave this thread. You lack the depth of knowledge to engage with the content of this topic. You misquoted and misrepresented Will Smith in some smug attempt to prove your rather weak point. You have invented words and sloppily thrown around accusations of racism all because you have elected to take this conversation personal and become defensive. Rather than have a robust discussion on the matter, you chose to attack people rather than attack their arguments.

You are of course free to do as you wish, but know that the arrogance required to refer to myself as the "Abstraction of Logic" is not without the mental faculties to backup such a self-aggrandizing claim. Your lack of argumentative skills and poor display as a rhetoricianhas conveyed to me that you are ill equipped to intellectually compete with me on the matter at hand. I am open to any difference of opinion or well reasoned and supported argument, but if you believe you can argue me down with misquotes, postulations and insults, please understand that I will find myself with little choice but to illuminate your utter lack of efficacy in the endeavor of prevailing against me in an intellectual debate. Good day, sir.

If only I knew how to post a "slow clap" gif (or, maybe that one of The Rock) I would, but, just know that I'm toasting you with a nicely-aged single malt scotch & smiling like a sonofab*tch. t:

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

Someone doesn't take kindly to trolls.

It would've been nicer to ban him.

 

[FrostBite]

that's a dumb answer.

No, it's a blunt answer because normally I type a lot for people who can understand things. With you, I don't feel like wasting too much breathe. ****! I've said too much already!

an actor like ashton kucther for e.g. he can wear the glasses and have a different hairstyle to.. this sells the idea. Will smith could not do that. is that racist to note this fact?

Extremely, especially since it isn't a fact. Jamie Foxx's role as Electro is almost unrecognizable.

Oh. And he used different hair and glasses for it.

****, I typed too much again.

 

[The Endless]

"Racism is nearly a thing of the past now".

My brain hurts. It's a shame idiocy and ignorance aren't nearly things of the past now too.

 

[FrostBite]

"Racism is nearly a thing of the past now".

My brain hurts. It's a shame idiocy and ignorance aren't nearly things of the past now too.

In his defense (no really, as much as I hate to do that) ignorance isn't the same thing as idiocy, and in his case as with many "racist" comments ignorance and lack of exposure to anyone outside their own ethnic or racial group is to blame. I mean he hasn't stated anything malevolent, so as much as I too keep calling it "racist" he hasn't explicitly stated a superiority complex over African Americans so... you know. He may not be drowned in sociological statistics or see any of it happen first hand in his community, or even if he does, if it is the norm in his community it will give the perception that racism is "done". Reminds me of all the folks who said that "the President is black, racism is over". Why? They didn't see the stuff still happening on a communal and economic level.

The problem with America's specific form of racism is that there is history behind it, history segregates people within the nation. As much as we're a "melting pot" there's still Chinatowns, Little Italy, etc. We kinda... keep ourselves close to the vest.

I'm not going to waste a lot of time on him because when you've had that little exposure you lack a certain amount of understanding. It's not idiocy, it's just not there. Even if we're all part of the same "culture" as Americans or whatever nation we particularly live in, we don't actually come face to face with the societal norms of many racial or ethnic groups. I know black-white relations because that's who lives here. That's who interacts. Our cultures will overlap here. As such it's become a comfort to me to have that melded culture and going to an all Caucasian area will quite honestly unsettle me as it is not my norm. When I visit them, it freaks me out despite being "white". I don't understand it, I'm ignorant. Likewise if I were to move into a predominately Hispanic territory I'd be lost in a lot of what they know or experience.

Take for example this entire race switching issue. African Americans (believe it or not) are 12% (has it gone up? Last I checked was a few years back,) of the population. Studies have shown they are actually over represented in televised media and film (which is kind of astounding seeing as there are few that come to mind). However, Hispanics, a rapidly growing population in the U.S. that has far surpassed the African American community is never heard from or seen in televised media. One of the biggest problems (having been a census enumerator) is that Hispanics aren't even counted as a racial or ethnic group making it nearly impossible to track. We have "Hispanic White", "Hispanic Black" etc. and we don't figure them into the overall percentage of the population but instead shoe horn them into "other" status. Not even figuratively, but literally. Because whites and blacks are quite honestly closer than whites and Hispanics in terms of locale, we don't notice this. We don't debate this. This issue does not exist.

In this case, we just have someone who doesn't get it. Should he learn? Yes. Is he going to by me or you or anyone else saying nasty things? No. Am I saying to stop saying nasty things? Lol, no. But I do think it's worth investing some attention into understanding the difference between idiocy and ignorance.

 

[Walt Bickle]

1) I am not sure what a "racistesnist" is...

2) Racism is an on going occurrence in America. There are quite a few examples. For reference you can look into the Barney's shopping incidents, Oscar Grant, Stop and Frisk etc.

3) An individual pointing out racism does not make said individual a racist anymore than someone pointing out sexism makes one a sexist. To suggest such to be true is to highlight your lack of understanding about what racism is, both as an ideology and an institutional practice.

4) Not only did I address the issue of altering the race of White characters in a well stated response to a question from Marvin, the topic of this thread is to discuss WHITEWASHING. That does not discount other instances of racebending in the media, but this discussion is about one particular phenomenon. You are welcome to start your own thread to discuss racebending when it occurs to traditionally White characters, but you are not welcome to throw out a strawman and attempt to derail this conversation. You cite a true enough incident, but that statement does not devalue or otherwise negate what I have argued.

5) In all sincerity and humility I say to you, leave this thread. You lack the depth of knowledge to engage with the content of this topic. You misquoted and misrepresented Will Smith in some smug attempt to prove your rather weak point. You have invented words and sloppily thrown around accusations of racism all because you have elected to take this conversation personal and become defensive. Rather than have a robust discussion on the matter, you chose to attack people rather than attack their arguments.

You are of course free to do as you wish, but know that the arrogance required to refer to myself as the "Abstraction of Logic" is not without the mental faculties to backup such a self-aggrandizing claim. Your lack of argumentative skills and poor display as a rhetorician has conveyed to me that you are ill equipped to intellectually compete with me on the matter at hand. I am open to any difference of opinion or well reasoned and supported argument, but if you believe you can argue me down with misquotes, postulations and insults, please understand that I will find myself with little choice but to illuminate your utter lack of efficacy in the endeavor of prevailing against me in an intellectual debate. Good day, sir.

Yes I know it still exists but i'm on about generally about terms oh you could do this because that's racist yada yada yada. everyone is equal.. but people are so focused on racism they end up putting races on a pedastool instead, same goes for sexism and feminism.. peeps need to move on. and you THINKING that you have pointed out racism doesn't mean it is racist. and I haven't derailed from the subject I just proved you wrong by stating that a white man was changed into a black woman in the exact same film we are discussing, why isn't that racist? but an Asian man turned American is? why? because your putting people on pedastools, that's my point. and yes this does negate what you have said.

I didn't misquote him I paraphrased. Just because I didn't copy and paste his quote doesn't mean i'm wrong, he did turn it down because he's black, he said it himself..''you chose to attack people rather than attack their arguments. '' um no i'm pretty much attacking peoples arguments and not them personally, that's quite apparent really. your fishing for random defences that aren't there.

I am disagreeing with you, i'm not here to have an intelligence competition so back down because your the one who is getting personal not me.. trying to degrade my intelligence. practice what you preach and stick to the subject rather then try a dick measuring completion with me good man.
so just speak properly, theres no need to be using a thesaurus in a debate... reading your response is like reading 'terms and conditions'. Get a hold of yourself man ha ha

 

[CyclopsWasRight]

While there is no dearth of fury over "making Johnny Storm Black" or people accusing studios of being politically correct for changing Nick Fury and Heimdal into non-Whites, there seems to be little ruckus made when a traditionally non-White character is made into a White character. I've seen the range of arguments.

Agreed. The ruckus when compared has been minimal.

This is also a case of not only changing the character skin colour but the character itself.

Johnny Storm as Black is still the same Johnny just with different skin tone, he was raised and lived in the same environment and culture, they'll tweaked his heritage from biological
Storm to adopted but still preserves his history and characterisation whereas Shredder as a white American completely abandons it.

They've westernised the foot clan from Japanese ninjas to American mercenaries it seems too.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

The writers seemed to jump through hoops to mesh the story around a white Shredder.

Why is so important to the producers to swap Shredder's race?

The only somewhat logical reason would be to broaden the audience. That's all I can reasonably come up with.

 

[FrostBite]

Honestly, we don't know a ****ing thing about how this plot plays out. Ditto for FF, which, we know even less about. Johnny Storm could be an entirely different character. Maybe he's not, but the casting is unorthodox all over that project as well. If this property jumped through hoops to change this, so too it seems FF did.

Both of these properties I don't think did so for broad appeal, if anything it gives them negative press. I think both of them changed things to spice up an existing franchise and take a gamble to change things on purpose in order to garner that mass attention because negative or not, it's attention.

For example we have an all young, all seemingly unrelated FF. We have big boy Turtles hitting the 6ft mark. You could say this all revolves around simple race switching but you'd be wrong. It's like saying they jumped through hoops to change the Turtles. Guess what? They did. Telling the same story time and time again makes the GA weary. Not us. Never us. We love this. Not kids. Kids are exposed for the first time.

But White Shredder? Black Torch? Those things are headline makers. Both for floundering franchises that have missed the mark in their previous box office installments. TMNT might have mass recognition in terms of IP but that didn't stop the toon a few years back from flopping so bad it all but killed Imagi (the nail was Astroboy afterward). The last FF films were so terrible they've all but killed the franchise. I can already tell you these are crafted decisions to change the proven because the proven does not excite, the proven doesn't cause outrage, the proven doesn't make press?

Edit: I think I'd like to add, although this'll probably just **** someone off as they say "it's not the same", Oroku Saki is not white. Eric Sachs is. Johnny Storm will be black. The Shredder is a moniker, it is his identity in this flick but it is not the man behind the mask from the comics. Peter Parker may be Spider-man but Spider-man is not confined to Peter Parker. Spider-man can Peter Parker, Miles Morales, Miguel O'Hara, etc. Why? Again as I said in my first response, the costume, that persona can overshadow the man. (And did for me in the case of Oroku). The suit was Shredder for me and many others, and Oroku... Eric? Those are but men who become The Shredder. If I cared about Oroku I'd have been outraged at the Utrom plot device in the cartoons. I wasn't, because he was still the suit.

This could all totally suck mind you. But I am saying why the reactions are tempered. As I said before: emotions are not rational but the more acquainted with the persona you become the more offended you are. It is very possible those who relate more and are intrigued more by the man in the suit are going to be far more upset than those who are intrigued by the persona he dons.

 

[MessiahDecoy123]

The turtles were changed only cosmetically.

Shredder's change had a ripple effect and impacted other concepts from the story.

 

[FrostBite]

The turtles were changed only cosmetically.

Shredder's change had a ripple effect and impacted other concepts from the story.

.....like.... military commandos instead of ninjas? Or the rivalry with Splinter? Because the latter we have no idea how that plays out or not. If this is a white man who has designed giant turtle commandos indoctrinating them with ninja techniques for good and turns on them. Yeah, I mean, we have something significantly different here.

But what do we know definitively that you aren't just insinuating about the character of Eric? We have literally no clue. Could this follow inspiration from IDWs reincarnation plot where Eric is the soul of Oroku brought into modern times? Specifically with his infatuation with Japanese culture and the way he stares at the armor with a hint of destiny in his eyes?

We know jack.

By the way, I am pretty sure being a freaking Utrom named Ch'rell changed the plot too.

 

[Zaron]

"Racism is nearly a thing of the past now".

My brain hurts. It's a shame idiocy and ignorance aren't nearly things of the past now too.

This is why I haven't been posting in this thread. Some of the posts in here are so out of touch with reality that there's no point in wasting my time discussing the matter. Racism a thing of the past? My god. My god.

 

[Walt Bickle]

for crying out loud lads, your are all taking my statement way to literally. yes there is still a minority of racists, just as there is homophobes.
but in the world we live in today everyone is equal and racism is no longer accepted by the majority. Therefor it doesn't need to be brought up all the time.

'but people saying changing an Asian character to American is racist is nonsense.. I'm not happy with the change... but I certainly to not think it's racist.'

or a characters race being changed in fear of people saying it's racist that all characters are white.

people need to stop throwing the race card and just move on.

 

[Zaron]

for crying out loud lads, your are all taking my statement way to literally. yes there is still a minority of racists, just as there is homophobes.
but in the world we live in today everyone is equal and racism is no longer accepted by the majority. Therefor it doesn't need to be brought up all the time.

'but people saying changing an Asian character to American is racist is nonsense.. I'm not happy with the change... but I certainly to not think it's racist.'

or a characters race being changed in fear of people saying it's racist that all characters are white.

people need to stop throwing the race card and just move on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY

 

[Marvin]

The writers seemed to jump through hoops to mesh the story around a white Shredder.

Why is so important to the producers to swap Shredder's race?

The only somewhat logical reason would be to broaden the audience. That's all I can reasonably come up with.

They producers reboot somewhat recent things, they seek out new ways to present things to the audience. That much is plain logic.
It's the driving difference between sequels and reboots. From ASM to the more recent Robocop...This is why reboots(to beloved things) and fans don't often agree at first.

Who knows they they went for this kinda shredder. The idea probably began with them making sure they were making something different. Shredder has kinda been done over and over...

 

[Marvin]

for crying out loud lads, your are all taking my statement way to literally. yes there is still a minority of racists, just as there is homophobes.
but in the world we live in today everyone is equal and racism is no longer accepted by the majority. Therefor it doesn't need to be brought up all the time.

'but people saying changing an Asian character to American is racist is nonsense.. I'm not happy with the change... but I certainly to not think it's racist.'

or a characters race being changed in fear of people saying it's racist that all characters are white.

people need to stop throwing the race card and just move on.

To be fair, I don't think the producers and their decision was or is motivated by racism. However this thread(however misguided I personally find it) is about the general reaction by the press, audience and fans. And how that differs with different films.

That being said, there used to be lynchings in the street and now the biggest actor in the world is black and the front runners for the oscars are often afro...and that's just hollywood. Safe to say Racism is on the rapid decline. It will never go away though, humanity just isn't built that way. Same with homophobia, it can reach a point of wide acceptance but to think there will ever be people that don't hate such things, no. Reading your posts it's would seem this is what you are saying however if you are looking to make a point and it be accepted, forums really aren't 'built that way"

Speaking on producer motivation. I do think their decision is motivated by money. Just like picking fox of some unknown. There just isn't a any overly political discussion there.

 

[Walt Bickle]

so are you basically saying the people behind the tmnt movie are racist??

 

[Walt Bickle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrjwaqZfjIY

so are you basically saying the people behind the tmnt movie are racist??

 

[Zaron]

so are you basically saying the people behind the tmnt movie are racist??

I am saying racism is much, much more common than you think. Just because it's no longer culturally acceptable to go around saying "boy do I hate black people!" doesn't mean racism is behind us. It's often much more subtle than that.

 

[godisawesome]

I'm kind of torn on this.

On the one hand, the fact that Shredder will be played by a white actor is a bit disappointing when you consider that we'll be deprived of a still relatively untapped pool of talented actors who could have played this part very, very well.

On the other hand, Fitchner is a very talented actor who I've been waiting to see get center-stage as a villain of a good movie (Lone Ranger doesn't count; they wasted him) for a few years now.

I don't think there was an intentional decision to white-wash the character. The two previous live-action Shredders were Japanese-American and Cambodian-American, while the voices both in the movies and live action have gone to whoever did it best (Uncle Phil, you will be missed).

At worst, I see this as being like the best-case scenario from Lone Ranger: the creators believed an acclaimed star could bring the movie some extra attention and advantages, and so they cast someone they liked and completely disregarded looking for an up-and-comer who fit the role. Any racism attached would thus be more a case of institutional/accidental racism; there's far more white actors in Hollywood who are acclaimed and supported than minorities.

My best case scenario? They did a full scale search, and Fitchner wound up being the best choice. They were thus aware of the "whitwashing," but believed they were justified in:

A- removing a minority from the position of lead villain (like the Mandarin in Iron Man 3) and seeing some benefit in making the evil organization more of a nebulous, politically correct gang as opposed to the Ruthless-Foreign-gangsters cliche they might have had from a more Yakuza-interpretation.

and

B- Actually are trying to move into a post-racism type of thinking, to the point of being completely color-blind. Let's be honest, this is a somewhat laudable end goal for Hollywood, and would be an expression of completely unbiased production. And considering these turtles were going to be aliens for a while and we were going to have Colonel Shraeder, there initial conception of the character pretty clearly wasn't as a ninja master of Japanese extraction.

It's still incredibly shaky, but at least they're being up-front about it as opposed to Johnny Depp as Tanto.

 

[Zaron]

How often do I need to hear the "Maybe they just cast the best actor for the part!" excuse for casting white actors in POC character roles before I can safely say "So you're saying white people have some natural gift for acting?"

 

[Arach Knight]

I'm kind of torn on this.

On the one hand, the fact that Shredder will be played by a white actor is a bit disappointing when you consider that we'll be deprived of a still relatively untapped pool of talented actors who could have played this part very, very well.

On the other hand, Fitchner is a very talented actor who I've been waiting to see get center-stage as a villain of a good movie (Lone Ranger doesn't count; they wasted him) for a few years now.

I don't think there was an intentional decision to white-wash the character. The two previous live-action Shredders were Japanese-American and Cambodian-American, while the voices both in the movies and live action have gone to whoever did it best (Uncle Phil, you will be missed).

As I have said before, I am not really attempting to ascribe intention to the casting choice. I even prefaced my initial post with the fact that I believe Fichtner to be a remarkably capable actor that has a history of playing villains with aplomb and panache. More pointedly, I asserted that Fichtner will likely serve the role well.

When I was asked about my general sentiment regarding the racebending (do a web query for the term) of characters in films, I said it depends upon the nature of the character (fictional vs real life figure, ethnicity as part of the identity vs ethnicity being a non-factor in the characterization).

Those are all related but distinct conversations that are not what I am endeavoring to discuss here. I am solely concerned with the disparity in adverse reactions from the media/fans when racebending results in a minority character being whitewashed versus when racebending results in a White character being replaced with a minority portrayal. In other words, I am concerned with the rather palpable hypocrisy associated with racebending in film, in which the general audience accepts racebending when the transition is from a POC to a Caucasian, but not when it is from Caucasian to a POC.

I have said very little about the motivations of the production staff or writers on this film project. There are a bevy of reasons why they could have changed the characterization, and it isn't as if The Shredder has been the only casualty of this reboot. The size of the turtles, their origin story and their relationship to a character that is generally perceived to be their chief antagonist, have all been changed by this script. Whether or not those changes will be in the service of the TMNT mythos has yet to be seen. Consequently, that only leaves room for speculation, which is fine, but that is not my goal.

With that said, my issue isn't so much any particular grievance with the fact that the character of the Shredder has been whitewashed as much as I take issue with the fact that the vitriolic rhetoric that swirls around the race change of other characters (Heimdall, Nick Fury, Johnny Storm) is seemingly absent. Even though we haven't seen a single trailer for the new Fantastic Four film or any real script details, the media and fans have ripped on Michael B. Jordan and the idea of a Black Johnny Storm. However, as evinced by this very thread, the discussion about a White Shredder has largely been met with "we should wait and see before we criticize the change" or "Shredder isn't an important enough character for his race to matter." All I wish to understand is the lack of equity in those diametrically opposed reactions.

 

[Zaron]

I applaud you, Arach Knight.

 

[Marvin]

How often do I need to hear the "Maybe they just cast the best actor for the part!" excuse for casting white actors in POC character roles before I can safely say "So you're saying white people have some natural gift for acting?"

Probably about the same amount of time you do for minority actors. These same debates were waged in regards to Perry 'White' last year in which I took part. The term best (celebrated)actor for the job came up every so very often.