God how long are comic book fans going to protest race swaps in adaptations, it's been sixteen years since the Daredevil movie came out with black Kingpin and people still don't get there's a difference between that and whitewashing. I'm sure white actors will still be able to find roles in superhero movies after this one!!
When Hollywood stops taking the easy route. They'd rather raceswap big named heroes/villains instead of using the lesser known but already diverse characters. Those characters they raceswap will always be White! In comics, in animation, in video games, so raceswapping does nothing. While the diverse characters will always be diverse.
So give me more Cyborgs, Blue Beetles, Bumblebees, Vixens, El Diablos, Katanas, Darlas, Pedros...etc and less Black Deadshot, Black Black Canary....etc. One is pandering, one is true diversity! I know which one I prefer.
Done with DC. Can't handle the constant whiplash! Time to go on a hiatus!
No it's not. It's PoCwashing. It's acceptable because the actors/actresses of color faces harder times to have roles yes. But pretending that swapping an existing character ethnicity is acceptable only when it's a white character turned PoC, there is a grave problem.
There is PoC characters who deserve more prominence, especially at DC (Cyborg, John Stewart, Vibe, Sideways, Silencer, Vixen, Lady Shiva, Cassandra Cain, David Zavimbe, Black Manta, Black Lightning, Katana, El Diablo, Blue Beetle and many others), have what it takes but a serious push from DC editorial, even in the face of early resistance by comic fans. But race-swapping white characters instead of using them isn't helping anyone.
Changing a character in a big screen adaption in a way that annoys a lot of comic book fans is the opposite of pandering...
If DuVernay changes the race of any character it'll likely be because most of the actors she's worked with are black and she wants to work with them again (which is probably how we got Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch, not pandering). Restraining her from doing so because it doesn't promote diversity in comic books is not something a major studio would do.
Still not seeing the problem. DC's highest grossing movie stars a white character turned PoC and everything's fine.
This movie isn't be directed by DC editorial, it's directed by Ava DuVernay. The creative process behind movies shouldn't be driven by what's going on in the comics or how the movie will impact them but by what's best for the movie.There is PoC characters who deserve more prominence, especially at DC (Cyborg, John Stewart, Vibe, Sideways, Silencer, Vixen, Lady Shiva, Cassandra Cain, David Zavimbe, Black Manta, Black Lightning, Katana, El Diablo, Blue Beetle and many others), have what it takes but a serious push from DC editorial, even in the face of early resistance by comic fans. But race-swapping white characters instead of using them isn't helping anyone.
Representation is representation. The people who love Jason Momoa as Aquaman and made that movie a box office hit don't care that the character is a white blonde man in the comics.
Furthermore, characters who are raceswapped do not always remain white. Nick Fury has been a black man since the MCU started and Daisy Johnson got retconned into an Asian woman after Agents of SHIELD.
"BATMAN UPDATE: Robert Pattinson & Nicholas Hoult are screen testing for the role. I suspect they're screen testing in the Batsuit because Wardrobe Department will need full wardrobe test. Additionally, the film will now start production in Q1 2020."
https://twitter.com/elmayimbe/status...50262816354309
Mary Elizabeth Winstead on BoP:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/t...ying-city.html
The big name characters just give them the publicity they're looking for. Hollywood doesn't care about "true diversity", they only care about making profit. That's why they care less about someone like Vixen, despite being an original black character who's also not a legacy mantle and has all the potential in the world to be a bankable movie star to diverse audiences, as opposed to choosing to raceswap Black Canary who's more high-profile since that's what suits them. They seem to think that changing the race or gender of popular characters, who are likely to make bank anyway, would end up making even more money if the characters suddenly happen to look different, while taking an original IP that's not known worldwide is seen as a huge risk by studios. That's why this type of decisions are being made and whether they're right or wrong in Hollywood's eyes depends solely on the box office results. You think WB perhaps isn't salivating at the thought of raceswapping Batman? lol
Last edited by Johnny; 05-30-2019 at 02:42 PM.
Okay, but if you use the diverse characters already established, they most likely will replace a white character (which is more than okay by me, BTW).
It's like when Laurence Fishburne played Perry White recently in the movies - some people started griping about changing Perry's skin color instead of just adding the unknown (to the average person) Ron Troupe for diversity. Since you can't have Ron say "Hi, Clark!" and then exit stage left , he would have to have a decent amount of screen time (which would take some away from the infinitely more well-known Lois, Jimmy, and/or Perry). Changing the skin color of a character created when the only POC were horrible stereotypes solves that problem.
A bat! That's it! It's an omen.. I'll shall become a bat!
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Isn't that supposed to be Cass ?
Conversely Deadshot is still predominantly white and I'm not sure if they've quite figured out what to do with turning Aquaman into Momoa.