"Guardians of the Galaxy," and Chasing The Diversity Unicorn

[CBR News]

Albert Ching looks at Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" and wonders, is "stroking the mane of The Diversity Unicorn" really such a bad thing?


Full article here.

[Steve Morris]

Possibly the finest moment of my artistic career to date

[DarkBeast]

I'm all for diversity, but it's just ironic that so many writers here are super sensitive and nice to so many people, but then just totally don't get how rude it is to talk the way they do about "white guys".

[CSTowle]

Unicorns should only be white, as god intended:

Legend Unicorn.jpg

[Rey Leopard]

I have enjoyed most of the output of the Marvel Cinematic Universe but have also been disappointed. When I watch these movies I feel like I am back in the 70s. That was when most successful comics could only have diverse characters as sidekicks or in other supporting roles. Hopefully someday these movies will move into the 21st century before the general audience tires of this genre.

[wmpreston]

I don't know about "slightly," but I was disappointed to see, on checking the cast list, that there weren't more black actors. This was because I thought some of the parts--Ronan, Yondu--were played by black actors. (My buddy who went with me, who is black, was thrilled that Thanos was black . . . and then I had to let him down.) I appreciate the author broaching the subject, and I don't think he did it in an inappropriate way.

The recent Planet of the Apes sequel more profoundly disappointed me by being in San Francisco but having no evidence of Asians and, near as I could tell, only one Hispanic actor. There was always one black actor at least visible in every scene with humans, which seemed a conscious choice, but, what, the epidemic took out all the Asians? It's more painful given the film's (and both franchises') subtexts about race.

[Teek]

How about we just let people cast who they want to cast and stop worrying so much about keeping score or playing diversity bingo?

Josh Trank wants to cast a black guy play Johnny Storm. More power to him.
James Gunn wants to cast a white guy to play Peter Quill. That's okay too.

There's nothing to be disappointed or outraged over either way. It's not that important in either case.


This idea that it's not okay to cast white people for movies is just as absurd as the idea that it's not okay to cast any other race.

[Mr. Mastermind]

I get wanting Marvel to make a movie not about a white guy, but bringing it up in the review was pretty pointless.

You'd be hard pressed to find any other actor, white, black, Asian, whatever, that could play the role of Peter Quill as well as Chris Pratt did. The movie was already pretty risky with a white guy in the lead, so I doubt Marvel would want to risk their first movie starring a woman or non-white actor to be a complete bomb.

[Michael P]

"The Diversity Unicorn", while meant snarkily, might not be so bad a metaphor. The ideal of diversity might be unreachable in practice (like, say, catching a unicorn), but the point isn't in the goal, it's in the trying.

[MatchesMalone]

I'm all for diversity, but it's just ironic that so many writers here are super sensitive and nice to so many people, but then just totally don't get how rude it is to talk the way they do about "white guys".

Seriously, you can't handle hearing disappointment that a leading character is white? How many years did white people enslave, kill, ridicule, and create rules/laws/science that unequivocally put non-whites below whites on some cosmic food chain?

I'm a 30 year old Irish-Italian man. I grew up with the Spider-Man Animated Series, I loved Spectacular Spider-Man, Batman Beyond, the DCAU, etc. All or most of the shows featured white leads.

When Action Comics showed a world with a black Superman, I was intrigued! I didn't want the writers to go back and talk about Clark Kent's first years as Superman (further confused by the fact that sometimes he is in jeans and a white-tee and other times he has his superman armor).

I wanted to follow the exploits of Calvin Ellis (aka Kalel) the Superman of Earth 23. There is no reason that Superman cannot be rehashed as someone from another country or ethnicity. When these characters were created their skin color was never important.

[CSTowle]

How about we just let people cast who they want to cast and stop worrying so much about keeping score or playing diversity bingo?

Josh Trank wants to cast a black guy play Johnny Storm. More power to him.
James Gunn wants to cast a white guy to play Peter Quill. That's okay too.

There's nothing to be disappointed or outraged over either way. It's not that important in either case.


This idea that it's not okay to cast white people for movies is just as absurd as the idea that it's not okay to cast any other race.

Why would you want to downgrade from unicorns to bingo? What's wrong with you?

[Luke Cage]

Unicorns should only be white, as god intended:

Legend Unicorn.jpg

Hahahahahahahaha...Hahahahahhahaha!

[Kaijudo]

How about we just let people cast who they want to cast and stop worrying so much about keeping score or playing diversity bingo?

Josh Trank wants to cast a black guy play Johnny Storm. More power to him.
James Gunn wants to cast a white guy to play Peter Quill. That's okay to.

There's nothing to be disappointed or outraged over either way.

Agreed. I'm so tired of the EVERYBODY HAS TO BE OUTRAGED ABOUT EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME!!! mania that is going on anymore.

The actors cast should be the best actors available for the part, as the director/producers perceive them. That is ALL. Pratt was hired because James Gunn thought he was the best guy for the job, not because he was white. But so many people see it as a slight to diversity, no matter if that particular actor/performance would have brought the wrong kind of energy to the production. Jordan was hired for Johnny Storm because Trank thought he was the best guy for the job, not because he was black. And, yeah, people who responded poorly to that are in the same overreaction-idiot boat as the people feeling a desperate need to take to the streets decrying a white Peter Quill. All that should matter is if the actor is right for the part in the eyes of the people making the movie/show.

It's like Saturday Night Live...they went through all of this diversity-driven scrutiny and finally hired Sasheer Zamata. Great, now they have a more diverse cast. Too bad she's not really funny at all...which is kinda important for a comedy show. But, hey, another box checked, so all is right in the world, regardless of whether that individual performer waters down the content.

[MatchesMalone]

I get wanting Marvel to make a movie not about a white guy, but bringing it up in the review was pretty pointless.

You'd be hard pressed to find any other actor, white, black, Asian, whatever, that could play the role of Peter Quill as well as Chris Pratt did. The movie was already pretty risky with a white guy in the lead, so I doubt Marvel would want to risk their first movie starring a woman or non-white actor to be a complete bomb.

Really? Peter Quill is effectively a blank slate. The character has no character, no personality, or anything. He is a walking stick figure in the in comics. Anyone could have been cast because that character has no mainstream awareness. Hell, the reason why Chris Pratt did so well, was because he was just being himself. When people saw the movie, they saw Chris Pratt, they didn't see Peter Quill since Peter Quill is no one.

I admit, Pratt did a fantastic job, but anyone could have been cast as Peter Quill because that role just needed someone to infuse personality and charm to that character.

Should someone else have been cast? No. We should cast actors to roles to meet some diversity quota, but we shouldn't ignore talent or the very good characters of color that do exist in the comics.

[gleality]

I find it funny that people are upset about the diversity of the actors, who ironically are mostly painted in rainbow colors to play aliens. My biggest disappointment (in a movie I loved by the way) was that all the aliens (minus the hero tree and rodent) look like humans who are just painted in rainbow colors. In the comics, The Kyln is populated by the craziest shapes of aliens. I was really hoping at the very least for a Star Wars cantina scene variety of aliens. Even Babylon 5 had more diversity in their alien races. Instead we got a bunch of two legged, two armed, one headed, no tailed, flesh for skin aliens with some body paint. Boring.

But seriously, please don't pick on GOTG about casting diversity when the story doesn't ever really address diversity or minority issues at all. If you want to complain about a super-hero movie that just doesn't get diversity look at X-Men: DOFP. The whole concept is about trying to gain equality for those who are different and it has 3 white male leads. From now on, please direct all of your superhero diversity derision to that franchise. Or Superman vs Batman, Avengers 2 is probably fair game as well...