It would be perfectly fine with me if no character was ever gender or race swapped. It's not like I go see these movies because of it (Idris Elba having 2 minutes of screen time as Heimdall isn't the reason I went to see Thor, lol), but I don't avoid them because of it either. Some cases are annoying...like Sunspot (they turned the one black New Mutant white on a team full of white characters ), but at the end of the day it isn't all that important.
HEY KIDS, (BUY MY) COMICS!! https://www.mythworldemedia.com/store
I mean in the great schemes of things yeah
buuuuut
that's one less positive depiction of a Black man for kids to see. And there's a correlation between seeing positive representations of not just White people and a kid's self esteem and how they feel/emphasize about people of different races as they grow up.
GrindrStone(D)
Yeah, the purist in me wants to say that I'd want to have comic book movies be as close to the comics as closely as possible, but I think me and others have to realize that that's just not always realistic, including casting. That said, there have definitely been some interesting "race-swapped"/"ethic-swapped" choices.
(Catwoman|Eartha Kitt) - (Harvey Dent|Billy Dee Williams) - (Kingpin|Michael Clarke Duncan)
(Callisto|Dania Ramirez) - (Human Torch|Michael B. Jordan) - (Baron Mordo|Chiwetel Ejiofor)
(Deadshot|Will Smith) - (Kid Flash|Keiynan Lonsdale) - (Hawkgirl|Ciara Renée)
I ways feel that any character can be race swapped if their ethnicity isn’t vital to their characters.
Black Panther being indigenous African is important to the character. Plastic man’s ethnicity really doesn’t effect the basic premise of the character.
IMHO Id consider the race swapping of Wasabi a good thing in terms of representation honestly I have very little knowledge of the character :/ But from the few issues his racial background never came into play.... Buuuuut the monster dude? In the comics his ancestors are Native to Japan...in the movie he's like a white surfer fanboy :/
GrindrStone(D)
Race/gender/etc swapping imo comes down to four things, especially since it always comes up in the case of adaptions.
1. The actors so damn good that the studios dont care.
2. To add diversity to an all white cast (usually silver age comics or old books)
3. To avoid problematic scenarios ("Oh the badguy is a cackling yellow peril stereotype....")
4.Because their lazy/stupid/racist.
Context especially in regards to the material being adapted is key though, as well as realistic expectations.
That Transgender mob boss movie Scarlett Johansson was on for example would have brought attention to Trans people, would it hace been cool to have a Trans actor playing her role ? Sure. But theres none in Hollywood big enough to sell that tole so every one loses by its cancellation.
I have nothing against ScarJo ( I'll stick up for her in other situations) and I'm sure the producers probably meant well deep in their hearts, but it's clear that they were more concerned about "will it sell in Peoria" than being accurate. I'm not so sure how much we've really loss. This is what the real person looked like
But yeah, ScarJo is who they wanted to go with....
Last edited by ed2962; 08-29-2019 at 11:30 AM.
With as big of a name as Scarlett Johansson and Hollywood execs tending to prioritize business and the desire for as much box office money as possible, then the result is pretty obvious.
I suppose you could say that the saying of "the love of money is the root of all evil" applies here.
Then you get that situation of "If it does good in a shitty way is it not good anymore?" Because surely Trans representation on the big screen is better then none
I'm not even mad at them for wanting to turn a profit, but sometimes you have to think about what exactly it is you're doing when you're claiming to make a "serious" piece of entertainment. At what point do you undercut whatever statement you're supposedly trying to get at?