Race and gender swaps in movies and television

[RetiredSlave]

Yeah, I do too. He is one of my favorite actors working today. But that does not mean that I was happy when he was cast as Roland fucking Deschain, which was probably the first death knell to that movie(and thanks, I forgot that one but it was def top of my list when making this thread). As great as Elba is, his casting not only automatically fucked with the visual image that reads of that series spent dozens of hours reading-I read the series 3 times before that shitstain of a movie came out, but it also killed a franchise. That was supposed to be the first of several movies. Sure, there are still talks about a series, but can anyone truly expect it to be any good if it does ever come out? No, the bad taste of this movie will cause a taste aversion for any fan, actor, producer, or director that will always remember this movie.

But hey, that’s just what everyone needed. A black cowboy when the character was based on Clint Eastwood in the good, bad, and ugly. That is from King’s Own words when talking about where the idea came from.

Book adaptations should probably stay true to source. Rules are made to be broken though. King signed off on Idris too if Im not mistaken. My shield against identity politics is not giving a damn about it.

Humans in general have always been horrible at predicting future outcomes, Im very interested to see how all this plays out. If the pendulum swings back in vicious fashion then so be it. Since were in this age of free flowing information, maybe people will finally learn to stop being so pushy about their righteous convictions since it doesnt work out well. Everyone is right and sane to themselves.

 

[Happy Man]

no, the DNA studies showed that modern Egyptians are direct descendents from Ancient Egyptian empires. https://www.nature.com/news/mummy-dna-unravels-ancient-egyptians-ancestry-1.22069

There was a period when Nubians conquered Egypt, but their influence is now limited to southern Egypt and Sudan.

Did you read that source?

I just read that in that source that ancient Egyptians has more in common with eripekans and people from the Levant.

It says any sub Saharan mixing was from around 700 years ago.

But yes, invading Nubians did rule Egypt for about two centuries before being driven out. But that’s a blip on their vast history of the time.

 

[Bald1]

I don't really care about such things when it comes to works of fiction, but some things just wouldn't work. A black 007 in the 70s or 80s? Nope, wouldn't fly during the cold war. Now? Sure, why not.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan? Lol. Nope, hell no. I get that things were different in Hollywood back then, but a 6'4" white dude playing a steppe nomad is dumb dumb dumb.

Gerard Butler as Atilla the Hun with a Scottish accent? Lmao

Idris Elba as "the palest of all the gods"? I like him as an actor, but not as a Norse God. Yeah, that's actually a pet peeve of mine along with a racially diverse Asgard.

I guess it all comes down to how familiar and attached someone is to the source material.

 

[dissectingaorticaneurysm]

Did you read that source?

I just read that in that source that ancient Egyptians has more in common with eripekans and people from the Levant.

It says any sub Saharan mixing was from around 700 years ago.

But yes, invading Nubians did rule Egypt for about two centuries before being driven out. But that’s a blip on their vast history of the time.

nowhere did I say ancient Egyptians are Subsaharan African. The Nubians only ruled briefly and did not leave a lasting influence on the genetics of the region. Ancient Egyptians are genetic ancestors of today's Egyptians.

The guy I quoted said these studies proved they're caucasian and that's a misunderstanding on his part. Their skulls would be classified as CAUCASOID- just like all North and East Africans- from Berbers to Arabs to Ethiopeans. Whereas Subsaharan and western Africans would not.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

Eh...it depends on the situation.
The problem with the argument is that people want to act like all things are equal, and want to ignore the circumstances for why things are the way they are. You have to consider the business, and the history of Hollywood. It's not all "SJW" shit.
For the vast majority of the history of Hollywood, white actors played all of the great roles. Minorities played all the shitty, stereotype roles. All the iconic characters were written as white.
Movies get made because studios put money behind them. They're not taking chances on a Mexican James Bond when they already have a successful James Bond franchise with a white guy. Keeping the status quo just means that minorities don't get chances to star in big roles

There are some characters that I think shouldn't change, and others where their race doesn't matter.
In characters where the ethnicity doesns't really matter/have any real effect on who they are as a character, I don't really care if they change them. That's usually about widening representation. As long as the change isn't something absurd, who cares?

Superman has an iconic image. He could be any race, but he just has a set image already, so i don't want a black Kal-el. And being African is part of The Black Panther's character, so you can't make him white.
But characters like The Ancient One or Avatar: The last airbender? These are characters doing martial arts and clearly come from asian culture, and, there aren't a lot of asians in Hollywood as it is to be giving out asian roles to white chicks.
Tilda Swinton is great, and she did a great job. For the movie she was fine, but there is a valid argument to made that that doesn't help asians get more representation in Hollywood.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

I don't really care about such things when it comes to works of fiction, but some things just wouldn't work. A black 007 in the 70s or 80s? Nope, wouldn't fly during the cold war. Now? Sure, why not.

John Wayne as Genghis Khan? Lol. Nope, hell no. I get that things were different in Hollywood back then, but a 6'4" white dude playing a steppe nomad is dumb dumb dumb.

Gerard Butler as Atilla the Hun with a Scottish accent? Lmao

Idris Elba as "the palest of all the gods"? I like him as an actor, but not as a Norse God. Yeah, that's actually a pet peeve of mine along with a racially diverse Asgard.

I guess it all comes down to how familiar and attached someone is to the source material.

On some level I get the Idris Elba/Heimdall criticism, but on the other hand, they aren't really "Norse" gods, as in, they were born in Nordic lands, or created Nordic people. They are just worshipped by the Nordic people.

The Asgardia in the MCU, and the Asgardians are just basically aliens. I don't see why they can't be racially diverse.

 

[eighterumg5]

Idris Elba can be anyone imo TS. In fact he was also Kings gunslinger for The Dark Tower.

Just physical obsessed looniness. These people are not spiritual at all. Primitive minds, thats all. Que sera. Props to Elba for taking advantage, I truly like that dude.

I really like Idris. Would love to see him play Bond. After reading the Dark Tower series I wondered what they would do with Detta Walker. Of course the movie was a stinker and it'll never go anywhere. But there was so much racial tension in one of the books.

 

[eighterumg5]

Yeah, I do too. He is one of my favorite actors working today. But that does not mean that I was happy when he was cast as Roland fucking Deschain, which was probably the first death knell to that movie(and thanks, I forgot that one but it was def top of my list when making this thread). As great as Elba is, his casting not only automatically fucked with the visual image that reads of that series spent dozens of hours reading-I read the series 3 times before that shitstain of a movie came out, but it also killed a franchise. That was supposed to be the first of several movies. Sure, there are still talks about a series, but can anyone truly expect it to be any good if it does ever come out? No, the bad taste of this movie will cause a taste aversion for any fan, actor, producer, or director that will always remember this movie.

But hey, that’s just what everyone needed. A black cowboy when the character was based on Clint Eastwood in the good, bad, and ugly. That is from King’s Own words when talking about where the idea came from.

I can't "like" this enough......you Fucking nailed it

 

[moreorless87]

Idris Elba as "the palest of all the gods"? I like him as an actor, but not as a Norse God. Yeah, that's actually a pet peeve of mine along with a racially diverse Asgard.

Never stated in the films of course and seems like a relatively minor detail, I actually felt with Asgard it helped to actually not just make it purely "techno Viking", giving it an element that was obviously different to that. It was never a big role but I felt he filled it well, gave a supporting character a lot of gravitas,

The big problem you have really is that Hollywood over the last decade or more has become totally obsessed with existing properties, seems like 90% of blockbusters take this form so I think you see some obvious lag in terms of diversity in the source material. That really means that some potential changes are going to be needed, its just I'd say a question of picking them well and not making entire films based on it as a gimmick ala Ghostbusters.

 

[RetiredSlave]

I really like Idris. Would love to see him play Bond. After reading the Dark Tower series I wondered what they would do with Detta Walker. Of course the movie was a stinker and it'll never go anywhere. But there was so much racial tension in one of the books.

I was enthralled by the books, as I am most things King. Dont remember much of the movie other than thinking this isnt what I visualized. Perhaps its because of that tension that they changed it up.

However they couldve just not mentioned it in the movie if it was going to be too controversial, or possibly unfairly damning to King with goofs claiming hes racist because he wrote about racism. Pretty certain Kings always had a major say in all of his film adaptations.

End of the day its all just fiction anyway. I prefer my racism in that form or on the comedy stage than irl. Can we move on please? That question directed to our chaos incarnate species.

My own internal thoughts on the matters of gender and skin colour over the last few years have been so unbelievably fluid (tee hee) that Im not surprised it seems no one knows wtf is going on including those pushing their ideas as divine law on everyone else.

Chaos post concluded lest I lose myself in a rabbit hole.

 

[eighterumg5]

I was enthralled by the books, as I am most things King. Dont remember much of the movie other than thinking this isnt what I visualized. Perhaps its because of that tension that they changed it up.

However they couldve just not mentioned it in the movie if it was going to be too controversial, or possibly unfairly damning to King with goofs claiming hes racist because he wrote about racism. Pretty certain Kings always had a major say in all of his film adaptations.

End of the day its all just fiction anyway. I prefer my racism in that form or on the comedy stage than irl. Can we move on please? That question directed to our chaos incarnate species.

My own internal thoughts on the matters of gender and skin colour over the last few years have been so unbelievably fluid (tee hee) that Im not surprised it seems no one knows wtf is going on including those pushing their ideas as divine law on everyone else.

Chaos post concluded lest I lose myself in a rabbit hole.

I just wish he ended his books as strong as he started them. Time to read more king I think. What do you recommend that's more recent of his?


As far as the racial stuff

 

[CyberRubberDuck]

Sorry, I'm with TS on this.
I'm all for more actors from all races and both sexes. Great.
But why keep changing already established characters? Why can't a new black character be created and do well off its own merits? Why can't female leads be based on female leads rather than taking a character that was originally a man?
Idris Elba as Bond? Get your own 00 agent Idris, and make him great. Don't hijack 007.
Guy with wings from marvel? Why did he deserve to be the new Cap'n? Someone remind me what he did in the mcu that made him worthy of that? Don't care about it happening in the comics a few years back, that has nothing to do with mcu. You can literally delete all of falcons scenes from the mcu and it would not make one single plot/script inconsistency.

It shouldn't be about race, but by backing down to the pc screamers, and forcing character changes when it doesn't make sense it becomes about race.

For the record I am a white male. Not in the slightest bit racist but still find it hard to put up with many of the race issues created by people who supposedly are trying to correct it.

 

[RetiredSlave]

I just wish he ended his books as strong as he started them. Time to read more king I think. What do you recommend that's more recent of his?


As far as the racial stuff

Discrimination doesnt exist in my reality. I know it does exist though so perhaps I just suffer from some uh the ol' cognituh dissonen there. Its hard for me to take it seriously. I wish it wouldnt take me a long long time to definitively form my own thoughts on the subject because I dont care enough to do so. Many thoughts swirl about when the subject is raised though.

I havent read anything recent by him. Besides The Dark Tower, the one that always stands out for me is Geralds Game. The tension he creates in that limited setting is sublime. Like most great artists King will only be truly appreciated after his death. Theyll study him for the way he writes rather than the content of his works. Best writer ever at smoothly dragging you into a story imo. He breaks the fourth wall all the time too with his numerous pop culture references, and I believe thats very intentional.

 

[moreorless87]

As far as book adaptations being totally faithful to the source goes I don't agree with that. It can be an effective way to work but really cinema is full of adptations that take great liberties with the source material, Blade Runner, Apocalypse Now, etc.

A big part of Marvel's success I would say is that its not just directly adapting its source material, characters personalities for example shift significantly playing into actors like Downey Jnr's strengths.

 

[SmilinDesperado]

Sorry, I'm with TS on this.
I'm all for more actors from all races and both sexes. Great.
But why keep changing already established characters? Why can't a new black character be created and do well off its own merits? Why can't female leads be based on female leads rather than taking a character that was originally a man?
Idris Elba as Bond? Get your own 00 agent Idris, and make him great. Don't hijack 007.
Guy with wings from marvel? Why did he deserve to be the new Cap'n? Someone remind me what he did in the mcu that made him worthy of that? Don't care about it happening in the comics a few years back, that has nothing to do with mcu. You can literally delete all of falcons scenes from the mcu and it would not make one single plot/script inconsistency.

It shouldn't be about race, but by backing down to the pc screamers, and forcing character changes when it doesn't make sense it becomes about race.

For the record I am a white male. Not in the slightest bit racist but still find it hard to put up with many of the race issues created by people who supposedly are trying to correct it.

Is a studio more likely to back and fund guranteed titles/moneymakers like 007, or knockoff versions of them, with black characters? Are movie goers more likely to go watch "black versions" of the same character, or just wait for the "real" one to come out?

"Just create a new one" is a lot easier said than done.
Look at comic books. They have been around for like a 100 years. What new original ethnic character could you create today that wouldn't just be a black version of an already established white character? What power and storyline hasn't been done already by a white character?

It's the same with movies. There's only so many stories and characters you can create without doing overlap. And why would a movie studio waste money, or risk gambling on an unknown when they already have a guranteed moneymaker?

Black helmed films/stories weren't getting funded by big studios. I remember reading about studio execs having issues with casting a white female to costar alongside Will Smith in his movie 'Hitch' because they didn't think it would sell as well.
They didn't want to cast a black female lead alongside Smith, because then people think it's a "black movie", so they wont' watch it; and they didn't want to cast a white female lead alongside the black male lead because there would be people with issues with that.
We're not talking about 50 Cent in a romantic comedy with Reese Witherspoon. This is a Will Smith movie. In 2005. He's probably the most vanilla, famous Hollywood-friendly black actor out there, and this was an issue for him and a studio when he was about at his peak popularity.
https://www.today.com/popculture/was-race-issue-hitch-casting-wbna7019342

Studio execs/Hollywood has some set ideas/beliefs on what they think will and won't sell. And that results in minorities not getting parts for movies because the white guy is the safer bet. If you never challenge these beliefs, then things don't change.
Peele just did this with his movies "Get Out" and "Us". About 10 years ago, those movies wouldn't of gotten seen by the amount of people that saw them, and they would have just been classified as "black movies".

 

[Nimrod]

What about in old war movies when they used native english speakers (sometimes with regional accents) to potrait Axis or similar.. is this the same?

 

[moreorless87]

Is a studio more likely to back and fund guranteed titles/moneymakers like 007, or knockoff versions of them, with black characters? Are movie goers more likely to go watch "black versions" of the same character, or just wait for the "real" one to come out?

"Just create a new one" is a lot easier said than done.
Look at comic books. They have been around for like a 100 years. What new original ethnic character could you create today that wouldn't just be a black version of an already established white character? What power and storyline hasn't been done already by a white character?

It's the same with movies. There's only so many stories and characters you can create without doing overlap. And why would a movie studio waste money, or risk gambling on an unknown when they already have a guranteed moneymaker?

Black helmed films/stories weren't getting funded by big studios. I remember reading about studio execs having issues with casting a white female to costar alongside Will Smith in his movie 'Hitch' because they didn't think it would sell as well.
They didn't want to cast a black female lead alongside Smith, because then people think it's a "black movie", so they wont' watch it; and they didn't want to cast a white female lead alongside the black male lead because there would be people with issues with that.
We're not talking about 50 Cent in a romantic comedy with Reese Witherspoon. This is a Will Smith movie. In 2005. He's probably the most vanilla, famous Hollywood-friendly black actor out there, and this was an issue for him and a studio when he was about at his peak popularity.
https://www.today.com/popculture/was-race-issue-hitch-casting-wbna7019342

Studio execs/Hollywood has some set ideas/beliefs on what they think will and won't sell. And that results in minorities not getting parts for movies because the white guy is the safer bet. If you never challenge these beliefs, then things don't change.
Peele just did this with his movies "Get Out" and "Us". About 10 years ago, those movies wouldn't of gotten seen by the amount of people that saw them, and they would have just been classified as "black movies".

Again I think you have Hollywood locked into the idea that the only big blockbusters its interested in are existing properties, either film franchises or well known books/comics. A lot of those franchises come from an era where white males tended to dominant roles so if your going to adapt them and be more inclusive then you are going to need to make changes.

I would point out though it can go the other way, franchises like Terminator and Alien have arguably become less centred on female characters over time.

 

[Doomer]

Looking forward to Doctor Sleep.

 

[Clear Winner]

As long it's not integral to the character, I couldn't really give a damn. Hollywood's done this for decades and far less tactfully. IMO, people are only moaning now because it's white characters that are getting changed.

I remember when people got angry about "race changes" in Hunger Games. This being one of the worst quuotes:

“Kk call me racist but when I found out rue was black her death wasn’t as sad,” @JashperParas

https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-proven-black-imagining-race-in-hunger-games

And then found out that if they read properly, the character was described as dark-skinned anyway. That shit was hilarious and sad at the same time.

 

[Clear Winner]

Is a studio more likely to back and fund guranteed titles/moneymakers like 007, or knockoff versions of them, with black characters? Are movie goers more likely to go watch "black versions" of the same character, or just wait for the "real" one to come out?

"Just create a new one" is a lot easier said than done.
Look at comic books. They have been around for like a 100 years. What new original ethnic character could you create today that wouldn't just be a black version of an already established white character? What power and storyline hasn't been done already by a white character?

It's the same with movies. There's only so many stories and characters you can create without doing overlap. And why would a movie studio waste money, or risk gambling on an unknown when they already have a guranteed moneymaker?

Black helmed films/stories weren't getting funded by big studios. I remember reading about studio execs having issues with casting a white female to costar alongside Will Smith in his movie 'Hitch' because they didn't think it would sell as well.
They didn't want to cast a black female lead alongside Smith, because then people think it's a "black movie", so they wont' watch it; and they didn't want to cast a white female lead alongside the black male lead because there would be people with issues with that.
We're not talking about 50 Cent in a romantic comedy with Reese Witherspoon. This is a Will Smith movie. In 2005. He's probably the most vanilla, famous Hollywood-friendly black actor out there, and this was an issue for him and a studio when he was about at his peak popularity.
https://www.today.com/popculture/was-race-issue-hitch-casting-wbna7019342

Studio execs/Hollywood has some set ideas/beliefs on what they think will and won't sell. And that results in minorities not getting parts for movies because the white guy is the safer bet. If you never challenge these beliefs, then things don't change.
Peele just did this with his movies "Get Out" and "Us". About 10 years ago, those movies wouldn't of gotten seen by the amount of people that saw them, and they would have just been classified as "black movies".

Great post