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[QUOTE=Some Guy;1623373]There are few things I care less about in this world than whether or not writers and directors have the same color skin as the main character(s) in their story. So arbitrary. A good story is a good story. A bad one is a bad one. Good character development is good. Bad character development is bad.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, outside of Kirby, Lee, McGregor, Johns and David Liss, the only writers who have ever written T'Challa fully in character have been Christopher Priest, Reginald Hudlin and the late great Dwayne McDuffie.
[QUOTE=Some Guy;1623373]And perspective? Lol Don't tell me that someone who's black and grew up in western culture somehow has better perspective on what's it's like being the king of a hyper advanced, isolationist, African nation just because they share a singular physical trait. I guess soon we'll all be cheering when the next movie that takes place in Ireland is directed by someone with red hair.[/QUOTE]
This is a gross oversimplification of a rather complex issue and I say this from the perspective of a West African born in the United Kingdom but raised mostly in West Africa for 13 years before returning to the UK in the late 1980's.
My personal perspective is informed directly from the fact that I was raised in two distincly different societies and as such, do not see things from a solely western perspective.
It would be folly to assume that all African American writers have not had experience of living outside of Western influence.
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[QUOTE=Mr MajestiK;1623498]Well, well, well.
This thread's certainly taken an interesting turn.
Amusing.[/QUOTE]
Oh please, this is pretty much par for the course for this thread ;)
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[QUOTE=Kasper Cole;1623436]All I get from this is that you haven't read that many Black Panther stories....Some of the best Black Panther stories have revolved around those very things. Hell Black Panther has fought the Klan more than probably any other Marvel superhero.[/QUOTE]
Already addressed that in the other post.
[QUOTE=Kasper Cole;1623436]
And you're still missing the overall point of what me and others are saying. We're talking about an underlying subtext that often pops up in films about black people made by white people. As I said often the movies are well intended but still show black people as being incapable of overcoming obstacles without the assistance of some white person or the story is completely from the POV of a white person. There's a reason white "White savior", "Savage Noble", and "Magical Negro" are such heavily criticized tropes.[/QUOTE]
Oh, I agree that this happens a lot. [URL="http://cdn-www.cracked.com/phpimages/photoshop/9/4/3/26943_slide.jpg?v=1"]Here's one the best examples [/URL] (although it doesn't involve black people, it's just perfect for the spirit of it) although a few others come to mind (Avatar, The Help, just to mention a few) I'm just disagreeing it's something that will necessarily happen with BP.
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[QUOTE=Mr MajestiK;1623548]Unfortunately, outside of Kirby, Lee, McGregor, [B][I][U]Johns [/U][/I][/B]and David Liss, the only writers who have ever written T'Challa fully in character have been Christopher Priest, Reginald Hudlin and the late great Dwayne McDuffie.[/QUOTE]
May I ask which Johns you are referring to?
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[QUOTE=Mr MajestiK;1623548]Unfortunately, outside of Kirby, Lee, McGregor, Johns and David Liss, the only writers who have ever written T'Challa fully in character have been Christopher Priest, Reginald Hudlin and the late great Dwayne McDuffie.[/QUOTE]
According to you. The new BP writer for example- a black man that wrote award winning books about race relations- says Jonathan Hickman is on that list.
I remember Busiek writing him well, but to be honest it has been a lot of time since I've read his Avengers run and T'challa doesn't appear there that much.
[QUOTE=The Cool Thatguy;1623559]May I ask which Johns you are referring to?[/QUOTE]
Geoff Johns.
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[QUOTE=Omega Alpha;1623570]According to you. The new BP writer for example- a black man that wrote award winning books about race relations- says Jonathan Hickman is on that list.
I remember Busiek writing him well, but to be honest it has been a lot of time since I've read his Avengers run and T'challa doesn't appear there that much.
Geoff Johns.[/QUOTE]
If Johns is on the list of good writers (and while he was respectful, I don't think he was good in terms of execution), then Kurt Buseik should be on there too.
His 'take' was different from Priest yes, but he was still bad ass, in his Night Thrasher appearance and his Avengers appearance.
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[QUOTE=The Cool Thatguy;1623551]Oh please, this is pretty much par for the course for this thread ;)[/QUOTE]
Real talk. Lol!
[IMG]http://i68.tinypic.com/29bzel3.jpg[/IMG]
[QUOTE=The Cool Thatguy;1623580]If Johns is on the list of good writers (and while he was respectful, I don't think he was good in terms of execution), then Kurt Buseik should be on there too.
His 'take' was different from Priest yes, but he was still bad ass, in his Night Thrasher appearance and his Avengers appearance.[/QUOTE]
Thanks for the headsup on Kurt Busiek. :)
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[QUOTE=The Cool Thatguy;1623559]May I ask which Johns you are referring to?[/QUOTE]
Geoff Johns. :)
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[QUOTE=Omega Alpha;1623570]According to you. The new BP writer for example- a black man that wrote award winning books about race relations- says Jonathan Hickman is on that list.
[/QUOTE]
The new BP has a name does he not?
But assuming you're referring to Ta Nehisi Coates, what relevance does his liking Hickman have to do with MY list of writers I personally appreciate?
Absolutely nothing.
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[QUOTE=Kasper Cole;1623441]And yet we have decades upon decades of evidence that says otherwise. Not to mention anecdotal evidence from wealthy POC who have all said they still experience racism despite how much wealth they've acquired.[/QUOTE]
Heh, not sure if I expressed my idea well: it's not that extremely wealthy people can't be seen with racist/sexist/religious, etc, prejudice or even hear offensive comments, but money nearly all the time shelters them from any consequence of said prejudices; for example, Trump might be a xenophobic dick (or someone using xenophobia to get votes, which doesn't make it better), but would that stop him from doing business with Carlos Slim?
[QUOTE=Mr MajestiK;1623626]The new BP has a name does he not?[/QUOTE]
[Insert roll eyes smiley here]
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I have to say that nuance would be important in a BP film. While Wakanda is unlike any place on this Earth, the moment they become public, they become defined by this world...good or bad.
TChalla who had travelled abroad would be the subject of whatever racism that afluent in that area. Moreso, since he would have been sent to observe and not just spend daddy's money like a rich kid.
I think the fallacy of this white vs black writer/director is that there is a huge blanket generalization that any black director would be better than the best white director. If you have two equally talented director might approach the film differently due to their perspective.I dont think thats a crazy assumption.
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[QUOTE=Mr MajestiK;1623548]This is a gross oversimplification of a rather complex issue and I say this from the perspective of a West African born in the United Kingdom but raised mostly in West Africa for 13 years before returning to the UK in the late 1980's.
My personal perspective is informed directly from the fact that I was raised in two distincly different societies and as such, do not see things from a solely western perspective.
It would be folly to assume that all African American writers have not had experience of living outside of Western influence.[/QUOTE]
It's not an oversimplification of anything. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about a fictional character and a hypothetical director. [I]No one[/I] has said they want an "African American with life experience outside of western influence." They said they want someone who's black. And considering we're talking about Hollywood here, western influence is implicit in that sentiment. Especially when people are talking about "what it means to be black in the modern world." BP is NOT an African American. And as it has already been pointed out, has the "privelege" of money and royalty so he sure as heck doesn't feel the same way people in Ferguson do.
Ultimately my point being is twofold: 1. The perspective of being black, or African American, or POC, or *insert way to indentify by race here* is subjective. Everyone's perspective is different. And when we start talking about people from opposite sides of the world, we're not even talking about the same thing anymore. I guess my avatar implies it, but I'm white, but I sure as fudge don't think I know what it's like or what it feels like or what it "means" to be white in South Africa. And people would be moronic to say I should direct a movie about a white guy from South Africa [I]just[/I] because I have white skin. Lmao The very idea is asinine. But that's exactly what many people in this thread are doing now.
2. It's weird how in anything other field of work other than art you'd be called a racist, you'd be demonized, maybe sued, at least definitely harassed if you tried to connect arbitrary physical features to the potential for quality work, but in the arts and media that line of thinking is praised. It's hypocritical. It's dumb.
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Sadly, this will be a Hollywood film. Despite it's international reach the movie will no doubt cater to Western thinking of what Africa is like, which is not very broad at all. I will give credit to the late Sydney Pollack for "The Interpreter". But it was set in a United Nations frame perspective.
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[QUOTE=Some Guy;1623751]It's not an oversimplification of anything. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about a fictional character and a hypothetical director. [I]No one[/I] has said they want an "African American with life experience outside of western influence." They said they want someone who's black. And considering we're talking about Hollywood here, western influence is implicit in that sentiment. Especially when people are talking about "what it means to be black in the modern world." BP is NOT an African American. [B]And as it has already been pointed out, has the "privelege" of money and royalty so he sure as heck doesn't feel the same way people in Ferguson do.[/B]
Ultimately my point being is twofold: 1. The perspective of being black, or African American, or POC, or *insert way to indentify by race here* is subjective. Everyone's perspective is different. And when we start talking about people from opposite sides of the world, we're not even talking about the same thing anymore. I guess my avatar implies it, but I'm white, but I sure as fudge don't think I know what it's like or what it feels like or what it "means" to be white in South Africa. And people would be moronic to say I should direct a movie about a white guy from South Africa [I]just[/I] because I have white skin. Lmao The very idea is asinine. But that's exactly what many people in this thread are doing now.
2. It's weird how in anything other field of work other than art you'd be called a racist, you'd be demonized, maybe sued, at least definitely harassed if you tried to connect arbitrary physical features to the potential for quality work, but in the arts and media that line of thinking is praised. It's hypocritical. It's dumb.[/QUOTE]
Who the hell said anything about Ferguson? And you're still missing the overall point that is being made.
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[QUOTE=Some Guy;1623751]It's not an oversimplification of anything. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about a fictional character and a hypothetical director. [I]No one[/I] has said they want an "African American with life experience outside of western influence." They said they want someone who's black. And considering we're talking about Hollywood here, western influence is implicit in that sentiment. Especially when people are talking about "what it means to be black in the modern world." [B]BP is NOT an African American. And as it has already been pointed out, has the "privelege" of money and royalty so he sure as heck doesn't feel the same way people in Ferguson do.[/B]
Ultimately my point being is twofold: 1. The perspective of being black, or African American, or POC, or *insert way to indentify by race here* is subjective. Everyone's perspective is different. And when we start talking about people from opposite sides of the world, we're not even talking about the same thing anymore. I guess my avatar implies it, but I'm white, but I sure as fudge don't think I know what it's like or what it feels like or what it "means" to be white in South Africa. And people would be moronic to say I should direct a movie about a white guy from South Africa [I]just[/I] because I have white skin. Lmao The very idea is asinine. But that's exactly what many people in this thread are doing now.
2. It's weird how in anything other field of work other than art you'd be called a racist, you'd be demonized, maybe sued, at least definitely harassed if you tried to connect arbitrary physical features to the potential for quality work, but in the arts and media that line of thinking is praised. It's hypocritical. It's dumb.[/QUOTE]
First thing's first, no one in this thread has said that the director HAD to be black. Let's get that out of the way.
At the bold: Without sincerely trying to drag a touchy subject like Ferguson into this, what is that based on?
-Plenty of 1 percenters who are black, whether from the U.S. or elsewhere, have agreed or at the least empathized with the ferguson protesters. That's a fact.
-Again, T'Challa's comic book history suggests that he [B][I]might[/I][/B], at the least, empathize to some degree with someone who may side with the protesters or even the protesters themselves. Again, he was educated in the west so he's exposed to what life in the west is like. He actually fought the KKK. He taught kids in the inner city not as T'Challa, monarch of Wakanda, but under an alias (Luke Charles). He also lived in the inner city under another alias (Mr. Okonkwo) during his stay in Hell's Kitchen. He historically has been good friends with other black superheroes, including Sam Wilson, who prior to being the Falcon, was a social worker (and T'Challa upgraded Falcon's wings as a show of goodwill). More importantly, he was in a long-term relationship and engaged to an African-American woman (Monica Lynne), a woman who doesn't come from a privileged background at all.
To say that he wouldn't feel a certain way or that he's completely detached from it emotionally, especially when his comic book history suggest it might not be the case, is just pure speculation.