Minorities in Comics and Other Media, etc

[Surf]

The "Will Smith as George Washington" part of your previous post was very strange to me. I mean Will is black and Washington was white. The Rock's father is a black man, so I don't get the comparison...especially when you factor in John Henry being fictional.

If you dont feel that example, pick any other white figure from 250 years ago then. Will Smith is a bankable Hollywood star, so is The Rock. It's not complicated, It's a matter of being culturally tone deaf and what we're conditioned to accept. When it comes to white principals, regarding matters of placement along these same lines, no deviation is ever considered or is given. From a white perspective everyone would find any instance ridiculous. Despite my personal feelings about Will Smith, he is a fine actor. What if he felt a connection to George Washington on some level? Would that change the situation in his favor like Johnson? I don't doubt Smith has the skill to pull off a believable rendition of that historical figure. Maybe he's no Daniel Day Lewis but that's not why he would never play a role like that. It's because his skin is to dark. Point being If you stuck The Rock into a scene from ROOTS he would physically stick out too for the same reason but it would be marginally less of a consideration altogether. The first examplea reaction is a hard 'yea right, whatever', second example would be 'welll, ain't he half anyway?'.

John Henry and possibly being fiction or not is a separate argument. I feel there was half a dozen John Henry's with comparable expertise in every municipality in the South and North at the time. Thousands of slave labor lives ended building railroads and swinging hammers. Why do you think that such a far fetched fictional account of what went on then? Johnson being half black and not feeling a different way about it makes the situation more problematic. Rock's daddy aint in consideration but ee's seen his Dad go through colorism issues as a black wrestler I'm sure. Especially going back to the 70s? Professional wrestling circuit back then? Fuckin forgetaboutit the shit he's probably had to deal with. Johnson seems like he's trying to tell this story in a vaccum. Sorry not sorry but without the backdrop of slavery and the analogy that Black John Henry physically worked himself to death isn't telling much of a story. If that's all The Rock has, well frankly the industrial revolution still happend right? Johnson gets no excuses made from me over this. Why couldn't he produce, write, direct and/or operate the Kraft table of he's so damn tied to the character? When he could and should, go and FIND THAT guy, to put on film who would be as DARK as we all imagined him to be.

And so part of this is personal, I wrote a treatment of a couple of educational vignettes using Black characters from this same time period as a point of telling some of the stories that may have been lost to us as people. A people who were in bondage barely 100 years ago. I have a black dad too and I still would have found the largest, darkest skin guy I could find to play Henry. Again, I'm a Rock fan but fuck him if this is the plan as it stands right now. [/font]

[Jabare]

[Agent Z]

Meanwhile, it turns out all that bitching over the Witcher Netflix series casting a poc actress as Ciri was for nothing.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/netflixs-wit...tan-1829654480

I like how Ryu is just given the power coin without Chun-Li even being considered a candidate.

[Killerbee911]

There is quite list of people who should play John Henry before Rock, I mean Terry Crews,Winston Duke, Mike Coulter,Heck even Shaq(just kidding) Some random dark skin football player/athlete who test well in screen test.

[leo619]

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson To Play Black Folk Hero John Henry In Netflix Film
https://shadowandact.com/dwayne-the-...-netflix-film/




...thoughts?

I have no problem with it, it's not like black women where you clearly see they aim towards the light skin variety (though that's slowly changing), dark skin for black men have been acceptable far sooner than their women counterpart. Add to fact that folks already talk smack for black folks claiming barack obama as a black man, now we're going to have to hear "Oh you can claim Obama as a black man even though he's half black, but the rock isn't black enough to play john henry." This reminds me of some lyrics from Logic funny enough.

[G. Boney]

spoilers:

Also, "green light babies"? Somebody in this show's writing team secretly wishes they were making a Static show instead.

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Heh, yeah my mind definitely went straight to Milestone when seeing the episode's title.

end of spoilers

[Charmed]

I feel like we claim Obama as a black man because he identifies as a black man. Correct me if I'm wrong, but does The Rock even identify as half-black? I know that he is, but in the press his Samoan heritage gets a lot more fanfare than this black heritage. Then again, who knows how he personally identifies away from the press junkets and stuff.

Still, he's benefited off of being racially ambiguous in Hollywood, which is smart on his behalf, but it makes this whole thing feel very opportunistic to me. I understand that John Henry was a hero to him in his youth. That's great. But where was this same zeal for black representation in his other roles? In that link to The Root someone pointed out how most (if not all) of his onscreen love interests were white women and that somehow his kid was white in that San Andreas movie he did with Carla Gugino [How the hell those two produced Alexandra Daddario I will never know]. I also feel like there's an ego thing to it, too. (He is producing so of course he has to star in it, too) I think it would have been better if he gave it to an up-and-coming black actor. He's under no obligation to, of course, but would have been a nice gesture to jumpstart someone else's career.

---

Michael B. Jordan also said something in a Vanity Fair article about black people (I believe he was specifically talking about black Americans) having no mythology or folklore, which I found pretty timely given the whole Dwayne Johnson/John Henry thing. People were not happy about that either.

[G. Boney]

Michael B. Jordan also said something in a Vanity Fair article about black people (I believe he was specifically talking about black Americans) having no mythology or folklore, which I found pretty timely given the whole Dwayne Johnson/John Henry thing. People were not happy about that either.

He was. Hopefully someone has pointed out to him that he was wrong.

[leo619]

I feel like we claim Obama as a black man because he identifies as a black man. Correct me if I'm wrong, but does The Rock even identify as half-black? I know that he is, but in the press his Samoan heritage gets a lot more fanfare than this black heritage. Then again, who knows how he personally identifies away from the press junkets and stuff.

Still, he's benefited off of being racially ambiguous in Hollywood, which is smart on his behalf, but it makes this whole thing feel very opportunistic to me. I understand that John Henry was a hero to him in his youth. That's great. But where was this same zeal for black representation in his other roles? In that link to The Root someone pointed out how most (if not all) of his onscreen love interests were white women and that somehow his kid was white in that San Andreas movie he did with Carla Gugino [How the hell those two produced Alexandra Daddario I will never know]. I also feel like there's an ego thing to it, too. (He is producing so of course he has to star in it, too) I think it would have been better if he gave it to an up-and-coming black actor. He's under no obligation to, of course, but would have been a nice gesture to jumpstart someone else's career.

---

Michael B. Jordan also said something in a Vanity Fair article about black people (I believe he was specifically talking about black Americans) having no mythology or folklore, which I found pretty timely given the whole Dwayne Johnson/John Henry thing. People were not happy about that either.

Eh, Except it's not just Obama that we claimed (and from what I recalled, it was mostly after he became president where we saw him identify as a black man). We claimed Tiger Woods as a black man even though he identified as multiracial, and Zoe Saldana who identifies as afro latina (though mostly speaks from a latina perspective.), etc etc.

So it's like we attempt to claim almost anyone who appears to have african based features, but expect them to "stay in their lane." depending upon what shade of color they lie in. And I completely disagree with that logic as it appears of a having your cake and eat it too motive.

And what does his on screen romance has to do with anything? (which he has had black on screen romance, such as tyler perry, baywatch, rampage, etc) The fact that he's biracial is probably the only reason he's able to get away with white on screen romance. There's already been plenty of articles on how hollywood avoids on screen relationship between black men and white women, and that bigoted stigma plays a factor in it.

[Jabare]

Okay so I've tried to reach out to Kanye through his manager and twitter, but I'm not getting any response.

This man needs help. Time for action people.

We need to put together a crew. We need a wheelman, a tech guy and a few other spots I haven't thought of yet.

List your ideal role and qualifications. Will make it work. Time is of the essence people. Kanye is just the beginning next it could be your neighbor or your sibling.

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

This whole John Henry controversy is a non-starter to me. The American south of the late 19th century was peak racial miscegenation. Not because people were soooo tolerant of interracial couples, but because so many freed slaves were the sons of black women who had been raped by their white owners, and had grown to adulthood. Dwayne Johnson's skin color wouldn't have stood out in the slightest. Light-skinned black people didn't become rare until Jim Crow segregation set in and truly kept both sides apart for multiple generations. So when I read that Root article and see this chick clucking her tongue, and shaking her head, saying this ain't for Dwayne, I kind of wish a history book would appear out of the blue sky and land on her head.

[Agent Z]

I feel like we claim Obama as a black man because he identifies as a black man. Correct me if I'm wrong, but does The Rock even identify as half-black? I know that he is, but in the press his Samoan heritage gets a lot more fanfare than this black heritage. Then again, who knows how he personally identifies away from the press junkets and stuff.

I think one of his autobiographies, he identifies as half-black.

In that link to The Root someone pointed out how most (if not all) of his onscreen love interests were white women and that somehow his kid was white in that San Andreas movie he did with Carla Gugino [How the hell those two produced Alexandra Daddario I will never know].

You know, when I was a kid I actually used to think Johnson was white and I think the women he was paired with on screen might have had something to do with that. Well, that and his dad being played by John Beasley in Walking Tall.

[ed2962]

Okay so I've tried to reach out to Kanye through his manager and twitter, but I'm not getting any response.

This man needs help. Time for action people.

We need to put together a crew. We need a wheelman, a tech guy and a few other spots I haven't thought of yet.

List your ideal role and qualifications. Will make it work. Time is of the essence people. Kanye is just the beginning next it could be your neighbor or your sibling.

Jim Brown was at that meeting today! But Jim didn't embarrass himself by calling Trump his surrogate daddy like Kanye did...Kanye you're 40 yrs old now! Also, it seems a lot of these law and order conservatives missed when West praised Larry Hoover.

[leo619]

Okay so I've tried to reach out to Kanye through his manager and twitter, but I'm not getting any response.

This man needs help. Time for action people.

We need to put together a crew. We need a wheelman, a tech guy and a few other spots I haven't thought of yet.

List your ideal role and qualifications. Will make it work. Time is of the essence people. Kanye is just the beginning next it could be your neighbor or your sibling.

LMAO, Bruh you know Kanye is doing this for the money right? The only thing Kanye is doing is proving that if you sell your soul, you can get guaranteed success too.

So do I see others following his footstep? Certainly, Kanye essentially shows how sheep like Trump's audience is, so if you want to go after the lowest common denominator with your greatest chance of success, you spit the filth that Trump and Kanye is talking. And in the world of survival, you best believe people can toss away that conscious if it grants success.

This whole John Henry controversy is a non-starter to me. The American south of the late 19th century was peak racial miscegenation. Not because people were soooo tolerant of interracial couples, but because so many freed slaves were the sons of black women who had been raped by their white owners, and had grown to adulthood. Dwayne Johnson's skin color wouldn't have stood out in the slightest. Light-skinned black people didn't become rare until Jim Crow segregation set in and truly kept both sides apart for multiple generations. So when I read that Root article and see this chick clucking her tongue, and shaking her head, saying this ain't for Dwayne, I kind of wish a history book would appear out of the blue sky and land on her head.

Lol I may not be the greatest history buff, but I can't count how many times I would hear foolishness and would think the exact same thing.

[G. Boney]

This whole John Henry controversy is a non-starter to me. The American south of the late 19th century was peak racial miscegenation. Not because people were soooo tolerant of interracial couples, but because so many freed slaves were the sons of black women who had been raped by their white owners, and had grown to adulthood. Dwayne Johnson's skin color wouldn't have stood out in the slightest. Light-skinned black people didn't become rare until Jim Crow segregation set in and truly kept both sides apart for multiple generations. So when I read that Root article and see this chick clucking her tongue, and shaking her head, saying this ain't for Dwayne, I kind of wish a history book would appear out of the blue sky and land on her head.

Not to take away from your overall point...but since when are light skinned black people rare?