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Thomas Francis Tryon
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 March 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 107
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| Posted: 10 June 2014 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | 1
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To answer the original question; Will Smith, sure, absolutely. Now, no Denzel, or Tyler Perry, of course. But Will Smith always, it's tradition!
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Eric Jansen
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 27 October 2013
Location: United States
Posts: 2293
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| Posted: 10 June 2014 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | 2
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What nobody seems to get is that race swapping Johnny Storm is itself a racist act.
The director and whoever looked at this historically white character and decided his whiteness was offensive and should be thrown out.
I used to be a 16 year-old white, blond kid--where's my super-hero? I didn't even get that when they cast the fully adult brunette Chris Evans the first time around! They are robbing every 16 year-old white blond kid of having a hero they could relate to in that extra special way.
And it's insulting to Lee and Kirby. It's implying that they were somehow to some degree racist for making the team all white in the first place. If they really wanted diversity, they could have just brought the Black Panther in a little early. Where's the Luke Cage movie?
And this "fairness" will have a backlash. Maybe Marvel or somebody else would have created a cool black ORIGINAL teenage super-hero who could have really taken off and, now listening to the pushback to this care-less casting of Johnny Storm, they will be gunshy and it will never happen.
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David Haight
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 25 September 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 57
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| Posted: 10 June 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | 3
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Completely agree. Those who try to pawn this particular form of racism off as somehow "culturally superior" are hypocrites at best.
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Eric Sofer
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 31 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 4789
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 5:07am | IP Logged | 4
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ITEM: Mr. Byrne, is it all right to cast Will Smith as Rhett Butler in a remake of "Gone with the Wind"? Well, they cast him as a major character in a movie set just a couple of years later, in "The Wild Wild West." I think that was a mistake - not because I don't like Will Smith, not because I don't think a black actor can play a previously white role - but because the context of the part would be disrupted by a black actor. It was right after the Civil War, and while they actually tried to capitalize on a black man being a government agent, it misses the point of the original TWWW (not as if it's the only irritating freedom the director and producers took with that property... sigh.)
ITEM: I don't like a gender switch on a previously established character, but I can understand it - and who knows, it may improve the part? But context is key. As this time in human history, as far as maturity goes, I think that some of us - a lot of us? - are not capable of accepting "radical" changes. A black Jimmy Olsen? Okay. A black Edwin Jarvis? Sure (although of course, THAT will never happen... sigh.) A hispanic Wonder Woman? Okay. A black Nick Fury? Nah, that'll NEVER work! :)
But an asian Power Man? Maybe not so much - because the context gets changed. Of course, if you're going to change EVERYTHING about the character anyhow, then it doesn't matter. A black Hercules? I don't think that will work so well either. A black Johnny Storm? I think that only works if Sue is black also. Since Hollywood is recreating most everything anyhow, I suppose it could work... but while it's more and more common today, different-looking siblings (with regard to skin color) may be hard for the viewing audience to accept.
Of course, so much of what Hollywood is releasing these days is remakes/sequels/redeux (redois? :) that sticking to traditional character casting is probably going to be around for a while. More's the pity... I'm sure Chris Claremont might get it. "Is there any reason this character couldn't be black/jewish/oriental/a woman?"
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132329
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 5:19am | IP Logged | 5
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…so much of what Hollywood is releasing these days is remakes/sequels/redeux (redois? :) that sticking to traditional character casting is probably going to be around for a while.•• THE WILD WILD WEST was a remake/redo. So was DJANGO. So was I AM LEGEND. So was GUESS WHO? So was THE HONEYMOONERS. So was CHARLIE'S ANGELS. Etc, etc. It is currently a fad in Hollywood -- bordering on a fetish, it sometimes seems -- to swap out White characters for other races and ethnicities. And I am frankly amazed that the Black community is not outraged by this patronizing modern version of blackface. Where are the roles created FOR Black actors? Why should Will Smith, Samuel L. Jackson, Halle Berry, etc, have to settle for table scraps?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132329
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 5:29am | IP Logged | 6
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The new Time machine Movie seemed to be off base with the Novel, compared to the more truer original with Rod taylor•• I can only assume you have not read the novel. Wells' Eloi are small and childlike, and most resemble tuberculosis victims, not Yvette Mimieux!
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Kip Lewis
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2011
Posts: 2880
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 7:23am | IP Logged | 7
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One thing I hear is that characters like Johnny are not
white, they are a default characters. They are white only
because of when they were created. So changing a default
character should not be an issue, in their view.
Of course, can we discuss gender and race swapping without
discussing Battlestar Galactic?
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Conrad Teves
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 28 January 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 2178
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 7:38am | IP Logged | 8
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>>Of course, can we discuss gender and race swapping without
discussing Battlestar Galactic?<<
They were totally aware that there was nothing "default" about swapping in that case. Mapping a cigar-chomping gambling libertine onto a female character produces a very different reaction than the "charming rogue" when mapped onto a man. They were trying to tell a different story.
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Kip Lewis
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 March 2011
Posts: 2880
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 7:49am | IP Logged | 9
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I didn't mean to suggest BSG was about
default characters like Johnny, just that
BSG was hardly faithful to its source but
is well received.
Plus they did change a Black man into a
White man and another Black man into
another minority and a woman, which
related to questions asked above about how
people would react to race swapping a
Black character.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 8:06am | IP Logged | 10
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One thing I hear is that characters like Johnny are not white, they are a default characters. They are white only because of when they were created. •• This is, of course, a completely racist attitude. Or would it be okay to change a Black character into a White one, or an Asian one, or a Native American one, if the author who created the character was himself Black, and therefore using a "default" setting?
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Eric Ladd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 4506
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 8:42am | IP Logged | 11
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I am all for race or gender swapping in a production when a viewpoint or message is behind the change. For instance, in the 1990's I heard of a production of Romeo and Juliet where the Montagues and Capulets were a black family and a white family. At the time, the production would be received differently to an audience in Central Park, New York as apposed to an audience in Biloxi, Mississippi. A social commentary is added to the production without changing a word of the text. This is the kind of change that I applaud. Can we be far from a same gender Hermia and Juliet or perhaps a Romeo and Philostrate?
There is no new meaning, theme or realization to characterizing Johnny Storm other than as a young, white male without altering or adding to the existing FF material. The change is what becomes important because the message is racism in reverse.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132329
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| Posted: 11 June 2014 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | 12
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I've attended several local theater productions with race-swapping in the cast. A few years back, Shakespeare on the Sound did a week of OTHELLO, with a Black actor, naturally, in the lead, but also with a Black actor as Cassio. While this added an interesting layer to Othello's paranoia (does Desdemona just have a thing for Black guys?), it also took away the "stranger in a strange land" aspect of Othello's character. Instead of being THE Moor of Venice, he became but one of an unspecified number of Black people in the city.A while later, I saw a small theater groups' production of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE, with a Black actor in the role of Jonathan Brewster. Now, aside from the problems this creates with the rest of his blood relatives being White, the character is described in the play, several times, as looking like Boris Karloff. At the very least, a bit of judicious script editing might have been applied? This is, of course, why I maintain "colorblind casting" and "race swapping" are two different things. "Colorblind casting" applies when the race of the character is not known. James Earl Jones in THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, for instance. "Race swapping" is when one known race is swapped out for another. And from where I stand, race swapping is like treating a gangrenous leg by cutting off a toe. If there is a lack of roles, especially good roles, for "minority" players -- and there most certainly IS! -- then FIX THAT. Don't put a bandaid on it.
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Topic Closed)
