Poll: What Do You Think About "Color Blind" Casting in Comic Book Adaptations?

[CBR News]

What Do You Think About "Color Blind" Casting in Comic Book Adaptations?

With Mehcad Brooks now cast as James Olsen on the upcoming Supergirl show, what do you think about "color blind" casting in comic book adaptations?


Vote on the poll here.

[Shawn Hopkins]

Voting hasn't opened yet, so I'll just say it should for the most part be colorblind, unless someone's ethnicity is a significant part of the identity. Then casting should shoot for a close enough match. Rising Sun is the national hero of Japan, he should appear to be Japanese. Shamrock should appear to be Irish. But in most cases it doesn't matter.

[KurtW95]

I think that since comic books are a visual medium, the characters should be portrayed by actors who resemble their original designs. And I do not see most of these instances as "color blind casting." That would infer that you were looking for the best actor and race doesn't matter, but in The Flash, the Wests were specified as being African American in the casting descriptions and I suspect the same occurred with Supergirl and Jimmy Olsen. And I feel this way on both sides. For example, I feel it was a poor decision to cast a white Bane, Ra's al Ghul, and Brick. Race, gender, and sexuality are major parts of what a character is. If you change one of them, it's not the same character.

[Paradox]

I think it's a tempest in a teapot, utterly unimportant except to racists that want to get all up in arms about it. Complaining about "organic web-shooters" was more valid, and that was still silly.

[Cinnamon]

I would like adaptations to stick close to the original.
If they make a Superman movie, I want to see someone that resembles Superman.

[Michael24]

I prefer they stay faithful and cast actors/actresses who have the appropriate look for the characters(s) being adapted.

[Marvel_Is]

I prefer they stay faithful and cast actors/actresses who have the appropriate look for the characters(s) being adapted.

I feel the same way. But, if I hadn't been reading comics all of my life, I'd probably feel differently.

[Shawn Hopkins]

When you cast by trying to get the likeness as close as possible to a drawn image you limit your pool of actors and make it harder to get the best guy for the job. Ioan Gruffudd looks a lot like Reed Richards, but I felt that he was otherwise wrong for the role and those films might have done better with an actor who was better at being Reed than looking like him.

If you say Jimmy Olsen has to be an actor with natural red hair and freckles, then you're narrowing your casting pool beyond reason. I don't think many people would expect that. So the objection just seems to be racial. Because every past film Jimmy Olsen has had nothing, in terms of looks, in common with Jimmy but whiteness.

[Mike O]

I'm fine with colorblind casting, and I think that the character should look like their comic book counter part.

Case in point, Michael Clark Duncan looked like the Kingpin, but was black.

[Mike O]

Race, gender, and sexuality are major parts of what a character is. If you change one of them, it's not the same character.

I kind of agree. It would be atrocious if they cast a white guy as Black Panther. But casting a black guy as Jimmy Olsen, or the Wests, or the Human Torch isn't as big a deal.

[PeterWhitney]

I think Devin Faraci said it best when he said that "they're not white they're default"

All through the 20th century, new comic book characters were, by default, white. This wasn’t some kind of big choice on the part of the artists, it’s just the way it was.

This default status is important because for 90% of white comic book characters, their whiteness has nothing to do with their character. The opposite, however, is almost always true for ethnic characters - most black, Hispanic or Asian characters have backstories heavily influenced by their ethnic heritage/race. You’ll hear people saying “Would you be okay with having a white guy play the Black Panther,” but they seem to not understand that being a black African king is in fact an enormous part of who T’Challa is. Remove that stuff and you no longer have the Black Panther.

Sure, some white characters need to be white. Dr. Doom is the regent of an Eastern European nation, and he’s of gypsy blood (although I guess some would claim that makes him non-white as well. Let’s not split national socialist hairs). Bruce Wayne’s old money background pretty much means he needs to be a white guy. We can have an interesting discussion about how central Superman’s white midwestern upbringing is to his character. But most everyone else? Hell, Thor isn’t even blonde in the original myths, so who gives a **** what color his skin is? He could be purple.

Can you even tell me what nationality Johnny Storm is? It may be mentioned on some Wiki somewhere, but the reality is that the Storms’ heritage has no bearing on who they are as characters. Hell, their name sounds like a fake one someone came up with at Ellis Island to hide their deeply Semitic background.

So yeah, I guess you can see what camp I'm in

[Cel]

I've always looked at comic books and various TV or movie adaptations as being totally separate things. The latter may be based on the former, but ultimately it's a modern adaptation of something created in the past and does reflect a current take on it. Sure, we can strive for faithfulness to the original source material in the sense of overall tone and characterization, but you can still add something a little different into the mix to keep it from being the same thing we've seen in previous live-action adaptations, IMO.

[Holt]

I think Devin Faraci said it best when he said that "they're not white they're default"



So yeah, I guess you can see what camp I'm in

Which is also why the hypothetical rebuttals about how people would have been upset about a white Black Panther or Luke Cage fall flat. The people at Marvel were smart enough to realize that no, an African warrior king and a victim of a racist justice system really don't work if you change them to white.

I think it's a tempest in a teapot, utterly unimportant except to racists that want to get all up in arms about it. Complaining about "organic web-shooters" was more valid, and that was still silly.

Basically this. In the grand scheme of things it's largely unimportant because except for rare cases like Jimmy Olsen chances are most of the audience doesn't give a crap. I laugh whenever I think about how people tried to organize boycotts of Thor and it did f*ck all to hurt the movie's box office because at the end of the day the amount of people angry over Heimdall or Nick Fury being black is rather tiny.

[Celestin]

I would say that ultimately it just matter of how iconic is the character's appearance. You will get equal outrage by making Superman or Wonder Woman black as you will get by making them blond haired. There is a certain expectation of how they should look like. On the other hand, less popular characters that don't have big recognition and already had many variations (was there ever Jimmy that was a redhead?) can be easily changed, even if some fans will complain about it.

[CSTowle]

I'd like to see DC not be colorblind and make a conscious decision to make Captain Marvel (or Captain Thunder or Shazam or whatever they end up calling him) non-white. Afraid he looks too much like Superman to stand out? Make him a black man and problem solved. Same with Green Lantern, use Stewart and wipe away everyone's memory of Ryan Reynolds while also making a key member of the Justice League something other than yet another white guy. They're already there with Mamoa and Aquaman, but more wouldn't hurt.