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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | 1
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If nothing else, they serve to ask the question of to what extent the race or gender of a character serves as a truly essential characteristic. Is it something that strikes to the very core of a character, or is it something as superficial as hair or eye color?
***
What do you think, Doug? Batman, WASP-American/Male -- Batwoman, African-American/Female: essentially the same characters?
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Doug Campbell
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 7:20pm | IP Logged | 2
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As, I said, racism can't be considered without also considering issues of power. Changing a character's race from a group with power and privilege which constituted the overwhelming majority of all comic book characters during the 1960s to a group which was powerless and almost entirely ignored is hardly the same thing as the reverse scenario. Power is what makes the difference.
Matt: I certainly hope you're not being serious. Do you honestly believe that my experience as a white man has nothing to do with me being white? It's just a "shade of skin"?
I don't know. I think it's a very interesting question, and indeed a question which is entirely appropriate for our art to raise. Is it possible for a black man to have the same ability, virtues, and background as Nick Fury or the Human Torch? Could Luke Cage only be a black man? Or is the essential part of these characters a question of their humanity rather than their race? I really don't claim to have that answer, but I think the fact that the swapping of race in such stories prompts such provocative questions to be in and of itself a valuable function,
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Doug Campbell
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | 3
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Michael: What do you think, Doug? Batman, WASP-American/Male -- Batwoman, African-American/Female: essentially the same characters??
I'd have to see the story first. Perhaps the way it is told could cast light on who Batman is. Or what race means to us. Or gender.
Or maybe it would just be a shitty story. I honestly don't know. I just think folks are being far too quick to dismiss change on the basis of the premise that any change from the original story is automatically bad.
Change in and of itself could be good, bad, or indifferent. Given how often stories have been told and retold in a variety of powerful and meaningful forms over the history of Western Civilization, I wouldn't dismiss any new version without at least giving it a fair hearing.
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Conrad Teves
Byrne Robotics Member
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 9:09pm | IP Logged | 4
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This thread seems to have made Tumblr 'asplode!
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Koroush Ghazi
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 October 2009
Location: Australia
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | 5
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Doug Campbell wrote:
| Given how often stories have been told and retold in a variety of powerful and meaningful forms over the history of Western Civilization, I wouldn't dismiss any new version without at least giving it a fair hearing. |
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I would be far more open to new versions of characters if I wasn't entirely aware of the fact that Hollywood does this solely to make their properties more attractive to the widest possible audience. It's not done out of a genuine desire to explore the fundamental aspects of a character, or to push truly innovative storylines. It's done because they want to cover their bases with all their key demographic groups. Simple as that. I equate it with politicians kissing babies and visiting factories during elections. Shallow posturing to pander to the masses.
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Michael Roberts
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | 6
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This thread seems to have made Tumblr 'asplode!
------
If Tumblr explodes over something, it just means that it is a day that ends in "y".
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Stephen Churay
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| Posted: 12 June 2014 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | 7
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This thread seems to have made Tumblr 'asplode!
=====
As long as it actually brings thoughtful debate, then good.
I have no problem simply ignoring the race swap issues. Marvel
Comics isn't my Marvel anymore. It makes me sad for the future
readers but there's always trades and backstock. I have yet to miss a
comicbook movie, but I'm skipping the FF movie.
I've put up with race swapping in the past, but I'm to the point where I
think it really does a disservice to readers who wish to see something
that better represents the world we live in. For readers who wish to
see and read stories that have more minority characters in them, this
is simply letting them feast on scraps and lazy writing.
Instead of adding diversity, they are simply removing long standing
characters that have had a following. We'd all be better served with
original characters added to the mix. Again, I'd love to read about
what the Milestone characters have been up to. If well written, a new
Luke Cage: Power Man or Black Panther or Green Lantern: Mosaic
adds instead of changes.
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Eric Jansen
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| Posted: 13 June 2014 at 2:13am | IP Logged | 8
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I try not to let myself be bothered when the movies change something, especially the Marvel Studios ones since I figure they're half regular Marvel Universe and half Ultimate Marvel, and so I never had any real problem with Samuel Jackson being Nick Fury (to be fair, the Ultimate Nick Fury has always been black), but now this thread made me think--
Robert Forster would have made a real cool Nick Fury! And now we'll never see that. (And like JB said, we still could have had Sam Jackson as Gabe Jones or something).
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Michael Penn
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| Posted: 13 June 2014 at 4:09am | IP Logged | 9
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Batman, WASP-American/Male -- Batwoman, African-American/Female: essentially the same characters?
***
I'd have to see the story first. Perhaps the way it is told could cast light on who Batman is. Or what race means to us. Or gender. Or maybe it would just be a shitty story.
+++
A good story is a good story, and a bad one bad.
Beyond that tautology, though, what is the argument that, just for example, Batman (already established) as a WASP-American/male is essentially the same character as Batwoman, an African-American/female?
Does this not even have to be about race -- e.g., is Superman still Superman if he's not a "male" Kryptonian but a female Australian Aborigine being viewed as an "alien" in terms of race and gender by male Anglo-Aussies? That indeed could be a good story that tells us quite a bit about race and gender, but what's the argument that that's a "faithful adaption," to use JB's thread title?
Edited by Michael Penn on 13 June 2014 at 4:10am
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John Byrne
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| Posted: 13 June 2014 at 4:48am | IP Logged | 10
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This thread seems to have made Tumblr 'asp lode!===== As long as it actually brings thoughtful debate, then good. •• And we can depend on THAT!
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Roy Johnson
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| Posted: 13 June 2014 at 5:12am | IP Logged | 11
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QUOTE:
| e.g., is Superman still Superman if he's not a "male" Kryptonian but a female Australian Aborigine being viewed as an "alien" in terms of race and gender by male Anglo-Aussies? |
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My go-to example is that Hollywood wants to make a Sherlock Holmes movie (obviously my example predates Guy Richie's) or TV show ... but they want to make Holmes a black woman in a wheelchair who uses her psychic powers to solve crimes with her dog, Watson. In San Francisco. In the modern day. As a comedy.
Actually, that sounds like a funny series ...
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Eric Sofer
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| Posted: 13 June 2014 at 5:36am | IP Logged | 12
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John Byrne: "Acting, actors will often tell us when at their most pretentious, is about TRUTH."
You are, of course, absolutely right about the idea of cross casting. Those writers spent a lot of time getting the play/movies and characters just right. We shouldn't insult them by changing things so radically.
I've been acting for over thirty years - only community theatre, so you don't know me - but I can tell you that acting is an art of emotion. Truth isn't quite as important as sincerity (or verisimilitude - one of my favorite words.)
As has been said previous, in a joking - but absolutely correct - presentation, "Sincerity is the most important part of playing a character. You've got it made once you can fake that."
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