Peter David on the Iron Fist casting

[Chainsaw Vigilante]

Too many buzzwords in this thread, not enough logic. People are being indoctrinated into a new pseudo religion and they don't realize it.

By the way, east Asian marial arts, much like Buddhism, can be traced back to India, which then spread to China and from there to Japan (karate's origins for instance started out in China) and Korea in the north, and Thailand, Indonesia, and the like in the south. It's quite ignorant for young people to think that these cultures are not a hodge podge of peoples and traditions spread from all over the place. Egg Shen said it best: "There’s Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoist alchemy and sorcery. We take what we want and leave the rest… Just like your salad bar.” The world is made better by this spreading of ideas. For instance look at how cross training has benefitted the sport of mixed martal arts since the days of style vs. style. A white man learning Silat is no different than a Korean man learning Greco-Roman wrestling. It's no more "appropriation" when a Tanzanian studies and creates a life's work out of gothic architecture than when a white person from Alberta does the same with Tanzanian tribal music. For all the talk of letting people be who they feel they are and to seek themselves when it comes to their identity, this appropriation talk is anathema to such a philosophy.

[lordozone]

It's just the outrage of the week. In one days or two, Comic book fans will find something else to be outraged.

[GrandEleven]

so a Asian is making cultural appropriation of Asian culture? this makes zero sense. So a white iron fist isn't cultural appropriation?

It makes zero sense that a persons culture isn't determined by the color of his skin but rather the environment he grew up in? Might want to re-think that a bit.

[MichaelC]

Too many buzzwords in this thread, not enough logic. People are being indoctrinated into a new pseudo religion and they don't realize it.

By the way, east Asian marial arts, much like Buddhism, can be traced back to India, which then spread to China and from there to Japan (karate's origins for instance started out in China) and Korea in the north, and Thailand, Indonesia, and the like in the south. It's quite ignorant for young people to think that these cultures are not a hodge podge of peoples and traditions spread from all over the place. Egg Shen said it best: "There’s Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoist alchemy and sorcery. We take what we want and leave the rest… Just like your salad bar.” The world is made better by this spreading of ideas. For instance look at how cross training has benefitted the sport of mixed martal arts since the days of style vs. style. A white man learning Silat is no different than a Korean man learning Greco-Roman wrestling. It's no more "appropriation" when a Tanzanian studies and creates a life's work out of gothic architecture than when a white person from Alberta does the same with Tanzanian tribal music. For all the talk of letting people be who they feel they are and to seek themselves when it comes to their identity, this appropriation talk is anathema to such a philosophy.

Yeah, personally I think "appropriation" is only an appropriate word when describing religious stuff. I you have a bunch of white guys dressing up in traditional Amer-Ind garb and doing a rain-dance when they don't have the slightest belief in the spirits that ritual is actually intended to appease, then they are appropriating. But martial arts and things like secular music forms and arts can not be appropriated.

[DuskHarlekin]

We all hate the Green Lantern movie now, but when it was being put together, people got excited, and I didn't see one white person concerned at all that the Alaskan Native guy was being portrayed by Taika Waititi, who is Jewish and Maori.

I don't know if you saw, it was probably over looked cause average non comic fans where trying to figure out why they white washed Green Lantern.

[Kuwagaton]

Too many buzzwords in this thread, not enough logic. People are being indoctrinated into a new pseudo religion and they don't realize it.

By the way, east Asian marial arts, much like Buddhism, can be traced back to India, which then spread to China and from there to Japan (karate's origins for instance started out in China) and Korea in the north, and Thailand, Indonesia, and the like in the south. It's quite ignorant for young people to think that these cultures are not a hodge podge of peoples and traditions spread from all over the place. Egg Shen said it best: "There’s Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoist alchemy and sorcery. We take what we want and leave the rest… Just like your salad bar.” The world is made better by this spreading of ideas. For instance look at how cross training has benefitted the sport of mixed martal arts since the days of style vs. style. A white man learning Silat is no different than a Korean man learning Greco-Roman wrestling. It's no more "appropriation" when a Tanzanian studies and creates a life's work out of gothic architecture than when a white person from Alberta does the same with Tanzanian tribal music. For all the talk of letting people be who they feel they are and to seek themselves when it comes to their identity, this appropriation talk is anathema to such a philosophy.

If it's about spreading ideas, I'd just say that I would prefer to study Japanese martial arts in eastern Europe, and that in the comic Danny is in fact an instructor. But when it comes to representation I think the argument changes.

[ed2962]

As of now marvel has no source for an Asian lead. The two heroes most associated with Asian culture are Strange and Iron Fist.

I don't know about that. There's no reason a project can't be developed around Shang Chi or Mantis ( I know she's part of the Guardian, but still...)

And despite Doc meeting the Ancient One in Tibet, he really has little to do with actual Asian culture

[FIFTY-TWO (52)]

I disagree with him. First: I don't think Danny being white is integral to the character. Danny being American is integral. Second: People aren't saying he should be Asian-American because he does martial arts. They're saying he should be Asian-American because the character adopts, as his own, a culture he does not belong to. It's the cultural appropriation element, and hey! There's more to Asian culture than martial arts! If he was a white guy who grew up in LA and learned kung fu at a local dojo, that would be one thing. But he's a white guy who travels to Magic Tibet and becomes the Best Magic Tibetan because white people are better at foreign cultures than the people who actually come from those cultures are.

Third, I don't buy the "this is how it has to be because that's how it's always been" line of thought. I find it to be, in truth, intellectually lazy. It's shrugging and saying, "Maybe there's a problem, but eh, whaddayagonnado?" Iron Fist is a character who is Problematic. The correct way of dealing with the problem is not to pretend it doesn't exist. I don't think it's unfair at all to apply contemporary sensibilities to older stories and characters. I think it actually serves a valuable purpose, by allowing us to see where things were done wrong in the past, so we can try to do them better going forward. And when adapting a story to another medium, it's valuable to examine the story for elements that modern sensibilities may not appreciate. (Not to mention elements that a broader audience may not appreciate - let's be honest, the number of people who will watch the Iron Fist show is vastly greater than the number of people who read Iron Fist comics, or who actually give half a shit about the character outside the show. Most of the people who watch it will only know he's white in the comics because they're told he's white in the comics. And I would bet good money that almost everybody who will watch Iron Fist still would have watched it with an Asian-American lead.)

And by the way, people DID call for Dr. Strange to be Asian-American (or, at the very least, a person of colour). A lot of people were disappointed that Dr. Strange was cast as Yet Another White Guy. People got downright pissed when the Ancient One was also cast as Yet Another White Person. Because that's the world we live in: Whitewashing still goddamn exists. That shit still goes down! And how many of the people defending a white Danny Rand objected to a white Ancient One? I would guess probably not that many, and not very passionately. If they cast a white woman as Colleen Wing, you think most of the people defending a white Danny would be up in arms? Shit, no. The most cynical side of me almost hopes they do cast a white woman as Colleen Wing, just to see how many of the people insisting Danny has to be white would actually say anything about it.

So, yeah, all due respect to PAD, I think he's just straight-up wrong here.

Amen to this!
It is just silly in this day and age to have a white American stroll into a foreign culture and become the best at one of the most important elements of that culture.
It was cute in the 60's and 70's, albeit still insulting, but now Marvel should have compromised on this. If Dr. Strange and the Ancient One were gonna be white, then Iron Fist should have been a person of color.

[dragonmp93]

There's definitely confusion in assuming that the argument is that Danny must be Asian.


Okay, so I go back to my point about David carradine. And back to Tiamatty's point that this is bigger than Iron Fist. This goes back throughout history and fiction about the depiction of heroes in a given culture by rendered white or being a white (American) supplant.

As of now marvel has no source for an Asian lead. The two heroes most associated with Asian culture are Strange and Iron Fist.

Well, they always could turn someone else into an asian, it's not like besides that Captain America and Iron Man, anyone needs to be from the US.

Anyways, i think that the problem is that there is two arguments, "the cultural appropriation and representation and all of that" argument like Tiamatty's, and the "expert martial artist = asian" argument that you see in Facebook, Twitter and lots of comment sections.

Nick Fury, though, is a supporting character who combines the wise mentor with the hard-nosed-police-sergeant. I wonder if he would have gotten as easy a pass if he had been a main character?

I think that no one cares because it's Samuel L Jackson, just like that no one cares that Deadshot is now black because it's Will Smith.

I don't know about that. There's no reason a project can't be developed around Shang Chi or Mantis ( I know she's part of the Guardian, but still...)

And despite Doc meeting the Ancient One in Tibet, he really has little to do with actual Asian culture

Well, i guess all of his magic and mystic stuff count as Asian Culture.

[MichaelC]

I don't know about that. There's no reason a project can't be developed around Shang Chi or Mantis ( I know she's part of the Guardian, but still...)

And despite Doc meeting the Ancient One in Tibet, he really has little to do with actual Asian culture

Yeah, Strange pulls most of his imagery from Hermeticism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism

[The Whovian]

PAD is awesome

[Highland Chicken]

Because then the martial arts could be seen as part of his natural heritage, rather than something he "appropriated" from another culture.

Not that all Asians know martial arts -- just that, culturally speaking, the martial arts practiced by Danny (as inspired by Bruce Lee directly) are considered "Eastern" in origin, not "Western".

Unless he's from k'un lun (which would drastically change his character) then it's not part of his heritage at all.

so a asian is making cultural appropriation of asian culture? this makes zero sense. So a white iron fist isn't cultural appropriation?

What if he's Japanese learning Korean martial arts? There is no one Asian culture, and the one danny grew up in is alien.

[aja_christopher]

Unless he's from k'un lun (which would drastically change his character) then it's not part of his heritage at all.

If he were "Asian" then it could still be argued that it is part of his culture -- and certainly more so than if he were "white" with no Asian background whatsoever.

Again -- honestly, as a fan of Danny, I can see this from both perspectives... but ultimately I think the lack of Asian leads in the American entertainment industry should be addressed sooner rather than later.

I like Danny as a character and his race has little to do with it, which is why I said that I think a "mixed-race" Asian-American Iron Fist would be a reasonable compromise for the show.

Regardless, let's not try to argue that "K'un Lun" has no basis in our known reality... or that Daniel's character wasn't directly inspired by Bruce Lee and many other Chinese martial-arts action heroes.

------

"This mystical city lies in K'un-Lun Mountains (崑崙山). It's one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending more than 3,000 km. The mountain range exists entirely within the Tibet region of the People's Republic of China"

http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/K'un-Lun

-------

"Iron Fist, along with the previously created Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, came from Marvel Comics during a pop culture trend in the early to mid-1970s of martial arts heroes. Writer/co-creator Roy Thomas wrote in a text piece in Marvel Premiere #15 that Iron Fist's origin and creation owe much to the 1940s Bill Everett character, Amazing-Man. Thomas later wrote that he and artist/co-creator Gil Kane had:

'...started "Iron Fist" because I'd seen my first kung fu movie, even before a Bruce Lee one came out, and it had a thing called 'the ceremony of the Iron Fist' in it. I thought that was a good name, and we already had Master of Kung Fu going, but I thought, 'Maybe a superhero called Iron Fist, even though we had Iron Man, would be a good idea.' [Publisher] Stan [Lee] liked the name, so I got hold of Gil and he brought in his Amazing Man influences, and we designed the character together...'[1]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Fist_(comics)

[stingray]

Amen to this!
It is just silly in this day and age to have a white American stroll into a foreign culture and become the best at one of the most important elements of that culture.
It was cute in the 60's and 70's, albeit still insulting, but now Marvel should have compromised on this. If Dr. Strange and the Ancient One were gonna be white, then Iron Fist should have been a person of color.

It's far from silly. His point is that the character is white in the source material, so the guy who portrays him should be white. I agree. Why change the character for the sake of diversity? Have Shang Chi appear in the series. In other Marvel movies, we already have Mantis and Jubilee coming. Characters that actually are Asian. Why should Marvel have to compromise? I want the character to closely mirror the comics. If you don't, that's fine, but to have people rant about this for several pages is the thing that's silly.

[ed2962]

Well, i guess all of his magic and mystic stuff count as Asian Culture.

It's stuff Stan made up.