Discussions of discrimination in superhero tv and film

[Castle]

But when it's said and done, this is why I don't really take the X-men movies as serious when discussing discrimination in movies.

Honestly I think this from the MCU POV is fine, only because it prepares us of what is coming with MCU X-men but like I always say, MCU XMEN is just that, it will be a different form of xmen. I dont even think xmen movies in the future would be taken seriously with anything anyway not just the themes of discrimination , so we can agree on something.

Let's see, not counting borderline examples, like biracial actors Halle Berry, Olivia Munn, and Blu Hunt, being cast as older Storm, Psylocke, and Dani Moonstar (since it's unclear if the characters are also supposed to be considered biracial, too), we have:

Also I think people need to careful when they star saying ''bi-racial'' and I say this as a person of color, who is not bi racial but have bi racial family members.

Halle Berry maybe bi racial but she still looks full Black like Barack Obama or Venessa Williams, who are all bi racial , but not only do they not look very bi racial, they don't call themselves bi racial, they call themselves black. regardless of Halle Berry, Obama, Venessa been bi racial by biology, None of them can still pass for white or another race. Beyoncé is not Bi racial but she is lighter in skin complexation than halle Berry and I saw how some cheered when there was a rumour she will play Storm in MCU X-MEN. which is hypocrisy at the finest but a usual thing with Marvel Studio reactions because people said fox should have gone for a dark skinned Storm.


If Halle cannot be storm or was not good enough, then Beyoncé who has a lighter skin than Halle should not be. Halle hardly even looks light skinned in her movies as Beyonce does in her music videos or movies.

So when people say bi racial as attempt to assume they are less black especially for comic book debates, it can comes of as quite ignorant and even borderline offensive , ask Halle Berry herself when she slammed a podcaster of comparing the shades of black women.

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/halle-be...-by-radio-host
Halle Berry slams 'disgusting' comments regarding skin color preference by radio host.

Please have the comic bookie debate of fictional characters but when you step into realism and make it about actors based on superficial narrative of which comic book is better than which, it becomes too much...even for me. just because some of this actors were not bi racial in the book, does not mean a bi racial actor cannot play them if the shoes fits.

[Adam Allen]

Yeah, but the character's movie backstory makes it clear that she's not completely European, so it still counts for the narrative purposes.



Yeah, my understanding it that there are a few layers of retcons of this, but Psylocke started out as the very white Betsy Braddock, who got her bodies swapped with an Asian woman named Kawannon. Braddock in Kawannon's body was then given the Psylocke codename and became the character we know today. Eventually, it became the catch-22 that it was basically a form of yellow face, but the setup of Psylocke being an Asian mutant martial artist was the defining nature of the character. Given the backstory and the fact that the Betsy Braddock" aspect of Psylocke was the most irrelevant part of the character, the fix was just to have the characters get back their original bodies, and Kwannon just kept the purple swimsuit and Psylocke codename.

Even then it got pretty messy, since my understanding was that the comic that depicted Braddock's getting swapped back had Kawanon's body getting vaporized and her using technobabble to recreate the white body she was born in, and then Kawanon just showed up back in her undestroyed body with no explanation. The Fallen Angels miniseries also retconned pretty much the entire backstory, with the new idea that there was no mind swap and Kwannon had spent the whole time trapped in her own body while Braddock's mind was in control. (I like that version better, but when there were literally stories written showing Kawanon walking around in Braddock's body, something doesn't add up.)

I think, at this point, if they were going to adapt the character, it would be best to just have Kawanon be the one and only Psylocke and skip all of the mind-swap stuff (like I said, Betsy Braddock is irrelevant to the character in terms of what the core aspects are), but before that that retcon was used, I would've agreed that the best course of action would've been to reimagine Betsy Braddock as an Asian-British character (possibly biracial) and just forget that there had ever been a white Braddock (a la black Nick Fury).

Betsy already had the Psylocke codename before being turned into an Asian ninja. And in the initial story, it was not even a body swap -- the Mandarin just used magic and surgery to straight turn white Betsy Braddock into an Asian lady. I mean, the context story-wise was that all they did was use magic/surgery/brainwashing to make her a badass martial artist ... why that would have required changing her race, they kind of never brought up.

So yeah, the mind/body swap thing was a retcon. If I'm not mistaken, these days they actually do just have them as separate characters -- white lady Betsy Braddock is now the new Captain Britain, asian lady Psylocke is the ninja. Although -- I'm sure she still has her telepathy thing too, which Kwannon didn't, and really it would be strange if it is just a completely different person, because why would she stick around being an X-Man? That also was Betsy's gig, not hers. Eh, suppose I need to go actually read these books to find out the answers to this stuff.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

It wasn't a body swap, Betsy was injured and Mojo used his powers and such to basically make her whole again by mixing her body with Kwannon's so that the two bodies were supposed to be identical, part Betsy and part Kwannon, both bodies smelled exactly the same so that even Wolverine couldn't tell them apart, so neither body was fully Kwannon or fully Betsy. Recently Betsy got a power boost in spirit form and then somehow used that power to just make herself a new body out of thin air, leaving Kwannon to use the old Asian body and get written FAR better of the two, taking much of what made Betsy...Betsy, the powers the power signature and more...

Aside from that I remember when the actress that played Storm in the last movie got heat from people because her mom was white so they didn't think that she was black enough to play Storm...

[Username taken]

Nah...too much nonsense. Not worth it.

[Username taken]

It wasn't a body swap, Betsy was injured and Mojo used his powers and such to basically make her whole again by mixing her body with Kwannon's so that the two bodies were supposed to be identical, part Betsy and part Kwannon, both bodies smelled exactly the same so that even Wolverine couldn't tell them apart, so neither body was fully Kwannon or fully Betsy. Recently Betsy got a power boost in spirit form and then somehow used that power to just make herself a new body out of thin air, leaving Kwannon to use the old Asian body and get written FAR better of the two, taking much of what made Betsy...Betsy, the powers the power signature and more...

Aside from that I remember when the actress that played Storm in the last movie got heat from people because her mom was white so they didn't think that she was black enough to play Storm...

The entertainment industry has a long, ugly history of not properly representing dark skinned black women. Hollywood especially has struggled with depicting dark skinned black women in prominent roles outside of comedies.

Storm is a dark skinned black woman with a black american father and an african mother. She's not biracial but she's been played by biracial actresses twice...why?

A biracial person is literally a mixture of two races and can basically represent both but because of the US history of racism (one drop laws in particular), they are never classified as white. That's why people freak out at Hannah John-Kamen playing Red Sonja or Zendaya playing Mary Jane despite both actresses possessing at least one WHITE parent.

Anyhow, there's was literally ZERO reason to get a biracial actress to play Storm when there are a ton of dark skinned actresses out there. Honestly, that lady playing Starfire on Titans would have made an excellent Storm.

[Castle]

It wasn't a body swap, Betsy was injured and Mojo used his powers and such to basically make her whole again by mixing her body with Kwannon's so that the two bodies were supposed to be identical, part Betsy and part Kwannon, both bodies smelled exactly the same so that even Wolverine couldn't tell them apart, so neither body was fully Kwannon or fully Betsy. Recently Betsy got a power boost in spirit form and then somehow used that power to just make herself a new body out of thin air, leaving Kwannon to use the old Asian body and get written FAR better of the two, taking much of what made Betsy...Betsy, the powers the power signature and more...

Aside from that I remember when the actress that played Storm in the last movie got heat from people because her mom was white so they didn't think that she was black enough to play Storm...

This may be coincidence but Betsy is very reminisce of Princes Kitana from Mortal Kombat in appearances and fighting style, the actress of Mortal Kombat was played by a Latina woman in the 1995 movie, however her race is not relevant to the story. Kitana could have also been white.

I am reminded why Mortal Kombat 2021 is an inferior movie to the 1995 film. the 1995 film was not woke because it put the good story first and just had many many POC characters like Kitana, Shang Tsung and Liu Kang to elevate it. The 2021 is woke because it put faux diversity first to the point that there was no Johnny Cage and all they thought was necessary was to have an Asian Raiden without giving him good directing-acting moments.

If you swap Betsy for black or latina, none of her upcoming live action stories will be like what Mystique story was in First Class and DOFP...so what is the point now?

We dont want another black panther movie, where in the 100% plot of the film. discrimination is only relevant for like 5% of the movie We want something far more deeper in conflict. Case in mind, Mystique telling charles, we are still not equals in the discrimination pool. it's funny we are talking of bi-racial or passing for white because in the frictional world of marvel where this theme can be metaphor, Mystique does pass for human and to her, Charles does not know what it is like to be really be discriminated based on physical appearance alone. which is when the story goes from just a metaphor to real life racism situations .




So There is no point in swapping Betsy race now beyond British if her story on film is not up or even better than what Mystique got. any swap is tokenism. because at the end of the day, these new movies will likely not have the flesh to tell deep stories of discrimination where there is still a ladder in the pool, so as a writer, what is point? at least I will ask this of the studios , if I was doing the screen writing? truly what is the point?

Hire me to challenge the mind and push the envelopes and turn the table upside down , let me even be part of a disney plus controversy because I am pushing story telling limits and ''upsetting'' people the way Chris Claremont made many fake religious folks upset in the 1980s who claimed to love Jesus but at the same time preached hate. dont just hire me as a writer to sell your theme parks only and confirm Martin Scorsese woeful take about comic books not been about real stories.

[CosmiComic]

The entertainment industry has a long, ugly history of not properly representing dark skinned black women. Hollywood especially has struggled with depicting dark skinned black women in prominent roles outside of comedies.

Storm is a dark skinned black woman with a black american father and an african mother. She's not biracial but she's been played by biracial actresses twice...why?

A biracial person is literally a mixture of two races and can basically represent both but because of the US history of racism (one drop laws in particular), they are never classified as white. That's why people freak out at Hannah John-Kamen playing Red Sonja or Zendaya playing Mary Jane despite both actresses possessing at least one WHITE parent.

Anyhow, there's was literally ZERO reason to get a biracial actress to play Storm when there are a ton of dark skinned actresses out there. Honestly, that lady playing Starfire on Titans would have made an excellent Storm.

Yeah, the whole one-drop nonsense can't go away fast enough.

Plus, Hollywood doesn't seem to have many biracial heroes. They'll hire biracial actors, because uniracial POC are too "ethnic" for White audiences, according to corporate executives, yet won't actually have biracial main characters, because, as you've pointed out, to those running Hollywood, both groups are interchangeable. But not with White characters, because people start freaking out about it.

Whatever the case, if any of these studios are serious about diversity, they need to do more to address colorism.

[Username taken]

Yeah, the whole one-drop nonsense can't go away fast enough.

Plus, Hollywood doesn't seem to have many biracial heroes. They'll hire biracial actors, because uniracial POC are too "ethnic" for White audiences, according to corporate executives, yet won't actually have biracial main characters, because, as you've pointed out, to those running Hollywood, both groups are interchangeable. But not with White characters, because people start freaking out about it.

Whatever the case, if any of these studios are serious about diversity, they need to do more to address colorism.

Exactly.

Colorism is a very real thing. Getting a light skinned biracial actresses to play Storm is a classic example of said trope in play.

It's gotten so ridiculous that Zoe Saldana (a light skinned afro-latina) had her skinned darkened to play Nina Simone- another dark skinned black person. It's a stupid trope that needs to die.

That's why it seemed like I was praising the MCU in my Monica Rambeau thread. Marvel hired Teyonah Parris, a dark skinned black woman with the curls that closely matched Monica's original 'fro. Same with Simone Missick as Misty Knight. Like I said earlier, there was ZERO reason for Fox to not get a dark skinned actress for Storm particularly in this day and age. Same with not casting an Afro-Brazilian as Sunspot. When it came to the discussions of discrimination and representation, the X-men movies were NOT at the forefront of this discussion.

But it's all ultimately moot now because the Fox X-men is dead but Marvel and other studios shouldn't make the same tone deaf, ridiculous casting choices that Fox made with some of the mutants.

[CosmiComic]

Exactly.

Colorism is a very real thing. Getting a light skinned biracial actresses to play Storm is a classic example of said trope in play.

It's gotten so ridiculous that Zoe Saldana (a light skinned afro-latina) had her skinned darkened to play Nina Simone- another dark skinned black person. It's a stupid trope that needs to die.

That's why it seemed like I was praising the MCU in my Monica Rambeau thread. Marvel hired Teyonah Parris, a dark skinned black woman with the curls that closely matched Monica's original 'fro. Same with Simone Missick as Misty Knight. Like I said earlier, there was ZERO reason for Fox to not get a dark skinned actress for Storm particularly in this day and age. Same with not casting an Afro-Brazilian as Sunspot. When it came to the discussions of discrimination and representation, the X-men movies were NOT at the forefront of this discussion.

But it's all ultimately moot now because the Fox X-men is dead but Marvel and other studios shouldn't make the same tone deaf, ridiculous casting choices that Fox made with some of the mutants.

White-run Hollywood often acts like any skin tones darker than "lightly tanned" are all interchangeable. When they're clearly not. Idk if I'd call Saldana light-skinned, but she clearly wasn't as dark as Simone was. But to a lot of these studios, there's no difference. And that's not even getting into how Hollywood treats other facets of appearance aside from skin color.

Fox-Men never did a great job with PoC heroes. Marvel Studios has done a reasonable job casting actually dark-skinned Black people, so I'm guessing they won't mess up in the future. Idk about other PoC, considering they aren't many in the MCU yet.