First of all, when Spawn the film came out, Spawn was a top ten comic book, a popular HBO animated series and a popular line of toys. Spawn #1 sold ~1.7 million copies, which is quite a feat when you can consider that X-Men Vol. 2 #1 sold ~3 million copies (the Guinness record holder for most copies ever sold for a comic book). Either you don't know jack crap about Spawn, are too young to remember how the 90s actually occurred or just want to make stuff up to suit your case. The Spawn film was a box office hit, grossing more than twice its budget. And as it stands, Spawn had quite a bit of controversy surrounding the whitewashing of key characters to the story.
Second of all, you can hear Liam Neeson's accent the entire time. It isn't as if he pulled a Hugh Laurie or an Andrew Garfield and adopted the appropriate accent for the nationality of the character he is portraying. You hear his same accent as you hear in all of his roles. Mind you, I am not criticizing his performance, he did an excellent job. I am however criticizing the hypocrisy that professes that changing the race of non-White characters or tertiary characters is acceptable but changing White characters or major characters is some how a detriment.
And rather than acknowledge that fact, you go on to prove me right by being a hypocrite, making an argument for why it is okay for an Irishman and French woman to play characters that are traditionally Arab, but not okay for a non-White to play a character that is traditionally White. You are a hypocrite, and I am loathe to respect a hypocrite.
Does that mean you respect me?
At 45 years old I most definitely remember the 90's.
All I was indicating is that for the general audience Spawn is much less known than Spiderman. I believe most reasonable people would not argue that point. The average general audience member knows who Peter Parker is and knows who Mary Jane is in relation to Spiderman, but would not know who Al Simmons or Spawn is.
As far as Liam's portrayal of R'as, all I indicated was he looked the part. As far as acting, I don't think anyone would say Liam isn't a good actor. You even said he did "an excellent job". Yes, they changed the character for the movie into, what, a Brit? Actually I'm not sure what his nationality was in the movie, but I don't think that mattered. Liam looked the part and his acting was great!
Now, for me to be hypocritical as you claim I would have to be ok with changing a primary minority character's ethnicity to anglo, but not ok with changing a primary anglo character to a minority. But that is not the case. I gave you numerous cases of a black character (both primary and secondary) where I would not agree with changing the race. Here is a quick list again:
- Cyborg
- Green Lantern (John Stewart)
- Bishop
- Black Panther
- Blade
- Cloak
- Deathlok
- Falcon
- Power Man
- Night Thrasher
- Prowler
- Shard
- Storm
- War Machine
In my opinion, in almost everyone of the cases above, the look of the character is important.
At the same time, there have been changes from anglo characters to black that I was ok with, including:
- Nick Fury
- Heimdall
Yes, for some those changes were a problem, but not for me. Because in my opinion these two characters weren't what I would call "primary". Mind you, nor would a couple on the list I provided above, but I'm hoping you get the point...
Which is, assuming the actor/actress cast has the acting ability, the look of the character matters and should be portrayed per canon.
