Pascal called for opening roles so that they can be cast by actors of different racial or gender identities than how the character was originally portrayed.
Having literally just black and beige white people isn’t really diversity, and having white characters in stories and universes concieved of by white people seems to me like missing the point.
When I was growing up, there were lots of original stories with black people in them. There were cartoons, movies, variety shows, dramas, comedies, all about black neighborhoods and black families. There were superstar black actors who played black characters with regularity.
Compare today where instead of taking chances on letting people tell their own stories, the only way you can “include” minorities is to dip a white character in different strengths of tea and coffee.
I don’t like it. I’m curious about the world, I want to hear music from all eras from around the world. I want to hear stories from all eras and all around the world. I want to understand how all different kinds of people think and see their values and understand how they push up against those values in the real world. Instead, we get a monoculture. Southern California and everything else is verboten.
Sure, race swapping characters isn’t how we get the diverse stories we want but at the same time, there’s also just diversity in appearance. I’ve got no problem with a black professor X, Luke Skywalker, Picard, Batman or whomever else. Let black, asian or whomever else have a classic hero they can see themselves as. Does it change my previous or current experience? Nope. I can’t imagine being so fragile as to whine or care “but the imaginary space captain I grew up with was white so if they make him black, the franchise is broken!”
Tl;dr: Yes, we need more diversity in storytelling/experience but diversity in appearance, especially in our remake/reboot obsessed culture does zero harm and possibly some good.
There should be new heroes, I have a problem just changing existing ones the same way I’d have an issue if Blade, Storm or Falcon were suddenly race swapped. Someone like Miles Morales is a perfect example on an original character that is still Spider-Man. Ironheart is another good example.
It just feels creatively lazy and frankly pandering to keep changing characters for no other reason than to make even more diversity. It makes it seems like new heroes can’t be invented when audiences know this isn’t the case.
Of the top 10 grossing movies last year, all but 2 were remakes/sequels. Those are pandering and creatively lazy too but guess what? They sell! There should be new heroes but we keep going back to the old ones. So there are three options:
- relegate Black heroes to the scraps
- somehow convince all of Hollywood and the moviegoing public to forego classics so as to make room for diversity?
- Accept that just as we accept different actors playing the same role, we shouldn’t get our panties in a knot if the character changes race the way they change actors.
What’s the harm in occasionally changing their race?
If Batman can change between Adam West, Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, Ben Affleck, Robertt Pattinson and George Clooney and we all just accept that his face, voice and age changes randomly, why can’t his skin tone? What has changed?
Does Adam West exist in the same multiverse as Michael Keaton? If not, then why can’t the multiverse also have room for a black Batman? Do we have to jump through all sorts of “and we have a multiverse and THAT’S why Batman is black?” And you know what, it’d be cool to have more non white folks as the main character.
No one’s saying Black folks can’t be new heroes like Morales or Ironheart but what is sacrosanct about an imaginary character’s race? Are white people so fragile that we literally can’t share our childhood toys?
Because if it was the opposite direction there would be endless outrage. I don’t think it’s okay to change one characters race and not others. Change Storm and Blade then and see how it goes. It’s nothing about fragility, that’s actually insulting. I’m completely fine making more Black/Indigenous/Asian/Latin main characters, they don’t need to be existing ones though where it doesn’t make any sense. Are white kids not allowed to have their existing superheroes too that they see themselves in or is that taboo?
Multiple actors have played Storm and Blade, can we make them Asian or Latin instead?
are white kids not allowed to have their existing superheroes too that they see themselves in or is that taboo?
Yes, and they do! So many of them! Imagine that, there are versions of every super hero that people can see themselves! White Batman? Sure! Black Batman? Sure! Asian Batman? Why not? Does having a Black Batman now mean that no white kids are allowed to be Batman? Absolutely not, that would be absurd! They’re Dark Knight Batman, The Batman, 1950s Batman, whatever! That’s the whole thing, it’s a fictional universe, there’s room to play.
they don’t need to be existing ones though where it doesn’t make any sense.
Does it make sense their face keeps changing every few adventures?
Why does this always only apply to white characters?
Because almost all the major characters in fantasy, comics, sci fi and large movies are white. If there were a dearth of white characters, this would be a very different conversation. But there aren’t.
I dunno, so far your arguments, as far as I can tell are that: A) It’s creatively shallow and pandering to change the character’s race in a creatively shallow sequel/reboot/remake. This seems a bizzare place to draw a line.
B) Why can’t white people become the Black heroes? Which also seems a little silly. Like, there aren’t enough white characters we have to go take over the precious few that are Black? But even then, if Hollywood got down with race changing characters, sure, go the other way too. But let’s get a few major moneymakers switching races before we demand that famous Black characters go white.
I appreciate the way you responded to this and I understand where you’re coming from. I don’t have much to add because I feel like you covered it all to be honest. I think my view of what you described was how the comics have done it, Tim Fox is black Batman, Spider-Gwen is female Spider-Man etc. so there is something for everyone.
Edited: Accidentally used the wrong name for Tim Fox, I used the authors name instead of the characters.
Thanks! A civil online discussion about a potentially heated topic? Lemmy truly is a lovely place!
You’re playing into corporate’s hands by assuming audiences cannot relate to a narrative if the actors don’t resemble them in some fashion. Their interests are served by having you buy into such a notion. They run social media sock-puppet accounts espousing it everywhere you care to look (like throwing spaghetti at a wall, if we just talk about it enough maybe some of it will stick!). The problem is that the notion is bullshit.
I love The Wire. It’s the best show about policing. I have nothing in common with black Americans barely living above the poverty line, though. Not behaviour, not worldview, not skin tone, not dress sense. Yet these characters make up three quarters of the cast; and I empathised and sympathised with them all the same. By the same token Lord of the Rings has a broad, enduring reach well beyond the Anglosphere.
I think much of the fuss over representation in modern media comes down to content producers trying to tailor the consumer to their product. They want us preoccupied with it. And when they’re caught out or backed into a corner on the matter, rather than fess up and admit they have industrial and institutional pressures to deal with (actor employment, Blackrock ESG gamification, etc), they suggest critics are racist instead. Perhaps that really is a better strategic approach than a policy of honesty and respect for the public’s intelligence. But it doesn’t make it true.
You’re misunderstanding the argument and offering a pretty facile counter-argument.
The misunderstanding is narrative v aspiration. We are talking about movies and tv shows for children, like Star Wars, the MCU, Star Trek etc. No one is saying people don’t understand or can’t relate to a narrative if the characters don’t resemble them. The argument is that non white kids should have large, classic, mainstream heroes who resemble them too. Rather than just the Enterprise’s tactical officer or engineer but rather, the captain.
Meanwhile, the argument that content producers are trying to tailor the consumer to the product is, at best, a rather silly notion. If anything, content producers want as broad a base as possible. Unless you believe Netflix wants to be Blackflix, Prime as LatinoPrime etc it’s just nonsensical on its face. And the idea that content producers want us only to care about diversity just comes right out of a silly right wing playbook where any discussion of race or gender is indoctrination being foisted on the unwitting masses. In reality, the folks who complain about the very notion of race swapping a classic character seem to be the ones obessed about race (“Oh no! An imaginary space captain is a different skin tone than the first actor who played that pretend space man!”) The simple truth that most media, for pretty much its entirety, has catered to white men. Things slowly started improving so that women and minorities could participate but rarely as the lead. Now, people are rightfully looking at that as boring and as outdated as Leave it to Beaver.
Seems to be just another defence from the void of creativity that is today’s Hollywood. Why not just tell good NEW stories from all cultures on earth? That is interesting. Not converting old and beloved stories to fit their false pandering - this is just another weird guilt trip to sell their lack of creative ideas.
Is it Hollywood’s lack of creativity or is the audience’s? There’s a reason all but 2 of the top 10 grossing films last year were remakes/sequels/reboots. Hollywood isn’t forcing anyone to see those movies, but those are the movies audiences consistently seem to choose.
While I love new stories and take time off work to see them every year at ViFF, in a culture where reboots reign supreme, we either change the moviegoing audience’s demands/tastes dramatically OR just as we allow new actors to take on some of those iconic roles to which we flock (like say, Batman, Captain Picard etc) we don’t restrict those actors to being the same ethnicity as the first actor was. One seems much more practical than the other.
Demanding that diversity only comes in new stories relegates diversity to the cultural scrap heap. While I wish we sought out new stories, for whatever reason, we want Marvel movie 732432 instead.
Yes this is also probably very true. the reboot of lion king made a billion and that says more about the audience than the filmmakers.
As a counterpoint, Hollywood and establishment media is losing relevance hourly. People are spending less time watching yet another remake/sequel/reboot, and they’re spending a lot more time watching completely original content on youtube, or having discussions on reddit (or lemmy), or playing video games.
The argument you’re making would have been more persuasive back when Hollywood had a virtual monopoly on creativity, but they’ve been eating their seed corn for so long it’s having major long-term effects on the creative industry in America.
Japan is an interesting example of another way media could be done. There’s a content pipeline in a lot of cases of webnovel to light novel to manga to anime to movie (and of course that’s not the only thing that exists in the country but I’m a weeb so shut up), and it’s having an outsized influence globally. The manga industry dwarfs the American comic book industry, and while there are remakes and sequels, it isn’t the majority of the media coming out.
In the west, we’ve also seen some examples of hits from other countries that weren’t based on anything else, such as squid game and parasyte out of Korea. There’s also been some successes such as M3gan which made over 10 times its production budget.
Then there’s stuff like indiegogo and patreon, where people are going out to directly fund indies because they’re so hungry for something different.
