Warner Bros/Joss Whedon/Ray Fisher Justice League

[kjn]

Why is Whedon supposed to look bad or racist for cutting out minority roles from JL when said roles were very minor supporting roles in the first place? Like I highly doubt Iris West and Ryan Choi were big and integral parts of Snyder's original Justice League film (no, not the new version that's currently undergoing reshoots and we're getting as "Zack Snyder's Justice League") with ample amounts of screen time and character development.

Note that the figures here are chosen more or less at random, and do not correlate with Justice League.

If you have six minor supporting characters in a movie, three of which are some sort of minority, and then two of the minority characters are cut during editing or rewrites, then yes it's a bad look. Especially if it happens more than once.

[skyvolt2000]

I'm trying to not read all the press on this since it's all "he said, he said" and mud-throwing at this point. I don't care enough to take sides, but I have to wonder why this is all coming out now? That movie came out years ago - why was Fisher so silent until now?

Because NOW is the perfect storm.

Folks are trying to cash in.

We saw it with Riverdale. Black actress crying over pay and her role. A show that butcher Chuck Clayton and black men NOT named Mad Dog. A show with black folks in charge. Sad thing is she had a POINT that should have been address when she was hired.

Dear White People-a MINOR black actor quits over a minor white guy making more. He thought folks were going to support him and they didn't.

Glee-all the attacks on Rachel Berry (while she was having a baby). Funny the black actress waits until she has a show (or movie) coming out to go after her with Amber & Alex supporting her.

A lot of times you don't see or hear about this unless someone has another project lined up and now needs some attention to help boost the new project.

Other times it's done in hopes of getting work. While she did not start it-Leslie Jones started getting more work after her battle with toxic Ghostbuster fans. Daisy Riley venting about not getting work is not by accident.

Finally some just don't give a you know what-HI John Boyega.

Which while I'm not against in principle, does seem a bit out of place in the first Flash movie.

It's not if we are going to talk police bias or brutality. However the lead is a white guy (or suppose to be) and you can already hear the complaints of white savoir.
Also the last time we had a movie dealing with corrupt cops and a black woman was the lead-it BOMBED. Black and Blue.
Maybe they should have used Michael Lane Arzeal 2.

[Frontier]

It's not if we are going to talk police bias or brutality. However the lead is a white guy (or suppose to be) and you can already hear the complaints of white savoir.
Also the last time we had a movie dealing with corrupt cops and a black woman was the lead-it BOMBED. Black and Blue.
Maybe they should have used Michael Lane Arzeal 2.

If this were a property known for it's realism and down-to-Earth portrayal of the police force, maybe, but...it's The Flash.

Of course, this is DCEU Flash so I guess they could've gone with a grounded and more topical take on the property.

[Agent Z]

Because NOW is the perfect storm.

Folks are trying to cash in.

We saw it with Riverdale. Black actress crying over pay and her role. A show that butcher Chuck Clayton and black men NOT named Mad Dog. A show with black folks in charge. Sad thing is she had a POINT that should have been address when she was hired.

She complained about how the show handled all it's black characters not just her own.

Glee-all the attacks on Rachel Berry (while she was having a baby). Funny the black actress waits until she has a show (or movie) coming out to go after her with Amber & Alex supporting her.

What show or movie?

A lot of times you don't see or hear about this unless someone has another project lined up and now needs some attention to help boost the new project.

None of the examples you've mentioned are guilty of this as far as I can see.

[godisawesome]

Anyone else feel some of this is the natural consequence of making some decisions explicitly in the hope of increasing diversity, but not really valuing them as much as those choices maybe require if you’re going to make them?

I mean... they promoted Cyborg to Justice League founder years ago to try and increase diversity in the JL line-up. They deliberately cast black actors as Iris and Wally, and tried to flip Wally’s race in the New 52.

If you make those kind of choices with good intentions... I don’t know if you can afford to do any “take backs.”

[Holt]

It's 100 percent a bad look, but some of these roles being cut also feel like the end result of trying to stuff way too much **** into one movie, just like BVS. I like Ryan Choi, he's one of my favorite legacy characters, but I'm not exactly shocked or screaming racism if his minor supporting role was cut from a movie that, by all accounts, already had way too much **** going on.

I overall believe Ray. Whedon has a reported history of acting like an ******* on his sets at times, so it would not shock me if he was a total ogre during the JL reshoots. But Fisher started treading into dangerous territory the moment he tried to ascribe that to Whedon hating minorities. Joss being accused of being an abusive shithead is something that is totally within the realm of possibility and a number of people in the industry would likely believe it; claiming Joss is a big fat racist who deliberately tried to screw over the minorities working on the movie is a much different charge and much harder to prove without hard evidence to back it up. I really hope he's been listening to his lawyers, because Whedon would be well within his right to sue over this.

[skyvolt2000]

What show or movie?

She is on Netflix's What/If and was on Doom Patrol recently.

Anyone else feel some of this is the natural consequence of making some decisions explicitly in the hope of increasing diversity, but not really valuing them as much as those choices maybe require if you’re going to make them?

I mean... they promoted Cyborg to Justice League founder years ago to try and increase diversity in the JL line-up. They deliberately cast black actors as Iris and Wally, and tried to flip Wally’s race in the New 52.

If you make those kind of choices with good intentions... I don’t know if you can afford to do any “take backs.”

WHO asked for that to happen?

Nobody wanted Cyborg in Justice League. The only POC (not counting actors) is a guy missing body parts. That is how low black folks are thought of? When Vixen, John Stewart and so many other black heroes are out there.

Folks SCREAM for diversity-they did not say male Wally or Iris black. Barry has black kinfolk-XS-use her.

How did Justice League help Cyborg? Who was already on tv and in animated movies in the much superior Teen Titans? Who already had a lead role in a Justice League film called Doom the LAST Dc movie written by McDuffie. Who already had merchandise in stores.

Aside from Black Lightning what black person has benefitted from DC since 2011?

Dc thought just tossing us in stuff was enough. If it was the 80s-90s-yeah but it's 2020.

[Steel Inquisitor]

Note that the figures here are chosen more or less at random, and do not correlate with Justice League.

If you have six minor supporting characters in a movie, three of which are some sort of minority, and then two of the minority characters are cut during editing or rewrites, then yes it's a bad look. Especially if it happens more than once.

It's only a bad look if you don't understand how movies are made, those roles would be expendable even if they white actors and Snyder was directing. Whedon didn't even cast those roles, that was Snyder.

[Castling]

If Iris West's actress isn't mixed, I'll withdraw that, because I've honestly never seen her parents. I recall hearing about how either Iris or Wally or both are mixed but have black parents on the show. Perhaps it's just Wally, then, because I can definitely tell the actor is mixed.

Candace, her mother, and her father identify as African-Americans. What I've read of Candace's dad is that he is of "Euro-roots" which basically means one of his parents or grandparents may be white or mixed-race. Being of "Euro-Afro-American ethnicity" can apply to a wide swath of African Americans who may or may not look racially mixed (especially in the South), thanks to slavery.

[Dark Falz]

Candace, her mother, and her father identify as African-Americans. What I've read of Candace's dad is that he is of "Euro-roots" which basically means one of his parents or grandparents may be white or mixed-race. Being of "Euro-Afro-American ethnicity" can apply to a wide swath of African Americans who may or may not look racially mixed (especially in the South), thanks to slavery.

Oh, okay. Then what I was hearing about must have been applying to Wally West. I've actually never seen a single solitary episode of the show, so I don't know who Wally's Parents are, and I don't know much about, or follow the actors of the show, either.

[Castling]

Note that the figures here are chosen more or less at random, and do not correlate with Justice League.

If you have six minor supporting characters in a movie, three of which are some sort of minority, and then two of the minority characters are cut during editing or rewrites, then yes it's a bad look. Especially if it happens more than once.

Everyone's roles were cut down. Flash and Superman's stories were reduced and rewritten. Batman's story arc was also rewritten. It's not just Cyborg.
They had to take a four hour movie and cut it to under two hours.

[Castling]

Oh, okay. Then what I was hearing about must have been applying to Wally West. I've actually never seen a single solitary episode of the show, so I don't know who Wally's Parents are, and I don't know much about, or follow the actors of the show, either.

Well, in the show, Wally and Iris have the same parents; they're full-blooded siblings. But again, two black parents can have a child who looks mixed. I know a Nigerian couple (dark-skinned mom, fair-skinned dad) who have four children: two of them look like typical black people; one is a lighter brown-skinned daughter and the fourth is a light-skinned son with soft curly black hair and a Roman nose. He's the only member of the family who sunburns.

[Potanical Pardon]

I'm really sorry I clicked on this link.

[WebLurker]

I'm really sorry I clicked on this link.

I'm sorry that I ever heard of it.

[basbash99]

Oh, okay. Then what I was hearing about must have been applying to Wally West. I've actually never seen a single solitary episode of the show, so I don't know who Wally's Parents are, and I don't know much about, or follow the actors of the show, either.

So you've never watched the show, but yet felt the need to come into a thread not at all about the show and bring up how you "hope they address the chaos of why two black people wind up with a mixed race daughter." which turned out to be completely wrong both in-universe and in reality. OK, i guess. You do you.