Gunn Defends MJ Casting Rumor, Considered Diverse Actors for Star-Lord

[dragonmp93]

I was thinking: If Disney wants to dip into their pool of Disney kids, don't they have that Bella Thorne girl? Didn't realize they were on the same show. That just makes it funnier.

You know, i think that Bella is more fit for Black Cat than for MJ.

[kalorama]

It adds to the familiarity of the story allowing more people to see it.

No, it doesn't. Casting Zendaya as MJ in no way disallows anyone from seeing the movie.

Almost everyone who knows Spiderman (one of the most recognizable figures on the planet) also knows Mary Jane.

Even if that's true (and it's high;y questionable that it is) most of those people (i.e., the ones who don't read comics) don't actually care about Mary Jane (at least not to the extent that anything about her has any decision making effect on them seeing the movie), so they don't actually care what color her hair is or what race the actress playing her is. She's just a supporting character in a Spider-Man movie to them.

[simbob4000]

You know, i think that Bella is more fit for Black Cat than for MJ.

I can see her a Mary Jane, I don't really see her as Black Cat at all. Bella actually seems kind of perfect for the role of hot outgoing redhead that you could believe becomes a model later.

I could see Chanel Iman as Black Cat.

[marvelprince]

Out of the choices we've had for MJ on the big screen (Dunst and Woodley) Zendaya 1000% beats them when it comes to capturing that MJ-ness.

[Shawn Hopkins]

I understand what he is saying but if white actors were cast to play Storm or Falcon I would be just as displeased. If you want Sally Avril or deb whitman to be a different ethnicity that is fine but MJ should look like MJ
.

What's today's obsession with ole sad sack Deb Whitman? I know Greg Weismann used the name for a black character on Spectacular Spider-Man, but Mary Jane was in that, too. This version of Deb added diversity, she was not a replacement for the female romantic lead.

It wouldnt matter so much to me if we didnt have in Shake it Up , not only Zendaya herself, but also Bella Thorne , a natural redhead that would make a much better choice than Zendaya pyschically speaking for The character of Mary Jane

Attachment 39187

About The race thing , I just dont care anymore. The SJW vs Anti-SJW battle ON The internet (SJW crying because you dont cater to their politics , and Anti-SJW crying when there is some kind of change for "diversity pandering") has Been ruining every community I enjoy being a part of , especially comics.

Bella Thorne is just an awful, awful actress, though. Zendaya is the more talented one.

[Frontier]

Out of the choices we've had for MJ on the big screen (Dunst and Woodley) Zendaya 1000% beats them when it comes to capturing that MJ-ness.

I can definitely agree with that .

All she's missing is the red hair...

[meatwadf]

Gunn is a big PC guy. Before GOTG 2 he said he wanted to put more women in the movie.

Not cause the story required him too but because it something he felt he should do.

The whole thing feels wrong to me. It's like some form of obsession to be Dudley-Do-Right like religious fanatics.

It's not being "PC," just being excellent to each other. Nothing wrong with increasing the representation of folks on the big screen. If it feels wrong to you, then maybe you need to do some serious thinking about why this bothers you so much.

[BAMF]

Just want to say, saying something is "diversity *just* for the sake of diversity" is as ridiculous as saying something is "Good hygiene *just* for the sake of good hygiene." Sometimes a thing is a good thing on its own -- you don't really need to have a better reason to do it. Really wish people would stop using that line.

[Mcbkr]

If Marvel finds her most suitable for the role, (IF she even got the role), who are we to question it? As long as she's good, I don't see how it is PC (isn't it btw more pc to hate people of different color these days anyways?).

I just want a good movie with great actors. Because I'm not 12 I can see past an actor's skin color and gender (if it makes sense in the context of course).

[LRN]

Well, it IS impossible she could be worse than Kirsten Dunst, so i'm ok with her.
Have her hair red and she's gonna be great.

[themasething]

And the narrative machine is firing up again....
Remember how you were a misogynistic basement dwelling man-child loser is you had any criticism about the Ghostbusters remake since the only reason why anyone would dislike the film is because they have some sort of hatred of women in leading roles? Well prepare to be called a black woman hating racist bigot if you dislike Zendaya as Mary Jane Watson. Forget about if Zendaya is some bland Disney Channel robot that is completely unsuited for one of the most iconic roles in comic book history. It's all about the colour of her skin. The media; both news, blogs, Tumblr, Twitter and forums are banding together with as many Marvel "writers" and "creators" to make sure that the narrative of racism becomes the focus issue instead of someone's acting chops.

[Darkspellmaster]

Gunn speaks the truth. No Marvel character is defined by their skin/hair/eye color. This goes for all of their characters regardless of the original skin color.
You want a non-black Black Panther? Is the character still Wakadan born and able to act like a King? Then they are the Black Panther.
You want a non-white Emma Frost? Is she still super sassy and not afraid to use her sexuality to her advantage? Then you've got Emma Forst.
You want a non-arabic Ms Marvel? Does she still come from a super traditional Muslim family and is a teenage superhero? Then you've got Ms Marvel.

And that is just for the superhero. For the supporting characters, it literally doesn't matter who they are played by. You can have a favorite supporting character and there's nothing wrong with liking them. But as they are not the main protagonist the ONLY thing that matters about them is they show up and help add extra dimensions to that superhero during their story.

Agreed, my only qualm with this is the idea of using a character's name and the personality not matching the character at all. For example, you can have a character be named Sif, but if she doesn't act like Sif then she's Sif in name only and you might as well just change her name to something different. Just saying "Hey we have MJ" but she acts like Liz Allen doesn't instill confidence in me as a person. If you're going to have her as MJ then have her as MJ. One of the key things is that May talks her up and Liz and Betty are both surprised by her looks when they meet her. To me having MJ, if the rumors are true, change personality seems a bit dumb. It's like saying this shy girl who's cute has to go into party mode to get the guy she likes. Where as MJ went from using parties as a means of forgetting issues at home, but she ultimately kept her kind personality -one that shows up more as an adult.

[plo12]

I'm holding my judgment till I see a trailer.
It could work, as it did work with Iris West in The Flash.
But the question is, is racebending really necessary?

[TOTALITY]

But it keep happening when you can just already use an established character that's created already. I'm opposed to all this bending cause it doesn't make anything better just makes it worse. Instead of turning a character gay, or Asian for example I want to see those that are already established gay or Asian.

Yeah, but as long as people keep wanting to make movies about the classic Fantastic Four lineup or Peter Parker's most famous supporting cast or plenty of other examples, and as long as we agree that all superhero movies shouldn't be only about white people, then it's a lot easier, and changes things a lot less, to just let POC play some of those characters, rather than say "why don't you use these other characters?"

I understand what he is saying but if white actors were cast to play Storm or Falcon I would be just as displeased. If you want Sally Avril or deb whitman to be a different ethnicity that is fine but MJ should look like MJ
.

In Storm or Falcon's case, their blackness is hugely important to both characters, and everyone would have every reason to be displeased about turning them white. The reason it's good to be open to 'racebending' characters isn't a general rule of 'any character can be any race,' because some characters do need to be a specific race. It's just that, especially when we're adapting characters created in past eras like most superhero adaptations, most of the characters for whom race is a fundamental part are not white, and most of the characters who could be any race are originally white, because for so long white has just been treated as the 'default' mode for all characters unless they were specifically created with a particular other race in mind. And even when characters have arguably just been arbitrarily non-white, people of color have been so historically underrepresented that we're still a ways off from it not seeming weird to take that representation away when adapting them.

Gunn speaks the truth. No Marvel character is defined by their skin/hair/eye color. This goes for all of their characters regardless of the original skin color.
You want a non-black Black Panther? Is the character still Wakadan born and able to act like a King? Then they are the Black Panther.
You want a non-white Emma Frost? Is she still super sassy and not afraid to use her sexuality to her advantage? Then you've got Emma Forst.
You want a non-arabic Ms Marvel? Does she still come from a super traditional Muslim family and is a teenage superhero? Then you've got Ms Marvel.

Gotta disagree with some of those examples. Wakanda is powerful specifically as a depiction of black excellence on a global, aspirational level, and having a non-black-African on the throne opens a totally different thematic can of worms. And a huge part of Kamala Khan is that not only is she from a traditional Muslim family, but that that's patently visible for the world to see whether she's at school or fighting supervillains. To see a character who looks like a girl who maybe no one at your high school wanted to sit next to after 9/11 or other internalized bigotry still going on today, wearing that costume and punching Kang or whomever, is a symbol that's really important to a lot of people. I might be a little closer to agreeing with you if there were a lot of other Muslim superheroes, but there aren't and that context is a part of Kamala for the time being.

My issue with this and all like it is that they are using the name and idea of the character to bring people into theaters. Mary Jane's story is a little more than "playful alpha female" and shame on Gunn for negating all the work past writers have put into her and Peter to make their relationship believable and have depth (somewhat). Its why people love these characters to start with. You can tell Gunn's knowledge of Mary Jane is a picture in his head and not a biography based on the stories he's read. If we take Gunn's approach we can say his Peter Quill was just a clumsy idiot. No more needs to be said, no story was written to evolve that character at all /sarcasm. The traits described by Gunn apply to a lot of females in Marvel comics so why not just make Zendaya's character a new one? Lets circle back to my initial statement, because Marvel is leveraging the name to get your money and then tell a completely different story. It makes the writers job much easier but the product is almost always a little insulting to comic fans in perspective.

Lets get back to a realistic approach, we have become so PC that the characters in comics and the movies these days are just unrealistic. The constant reboots also make it hard to relate to the material.

Diversity is a good thing, diversity for the sake of diversity is pandering.

Just make this chick a new character, start a new chapter....

How else was Gunn supposed to describe the character in a few words? Launching into a summary of her storied history would've been uncalled for; he just needed to speak to the point that MJ is her personality and not her white skin, not honor every single classic story. If anyone should have a more nuanced understanding of the character then hopefully it's the people actually working on the movie she's in, and if they do have that understanding and decided they had to use her and not another character, then there you go. If the movie answers your question of "why did that character have to be MJ?" then they've probably done a good job.

[bandoogiemanz]

It's easier to change the ethnicity of a supporting or not as popular character than it is to create a new one, simple as that. All hail diversity.