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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2020 0:32:41 GMT
Nick Fury was black in the Ultimate Avengers. In fact if I remember correctly the artist specifically patterned him after SLJ. So casting him for the role was the perfect choice. I'm not that averse to racial bending a character if the casting choice makes sense. Like when they cast Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, sure he was the wrong race but his size, voice and overall intimidation factor was all spot-on, so it made sense. But nothing about casting Elba and Thompson made sense. Especially Tessa Thompson. Not only was she the wrong color, she was also the wrong height, size, muscularity and bearing for the role. She even looked younger than Hemsworth even though according to the movie she should have been around twice his age if not moreso. Don't get me wrong, I admire Tessa Thompson. But couldn't they have cast her as Wasp or Maria Hill instead? With Idris Elba, that was probably because of Kenneth Branagh. This guy was known for ignoring the ethnicity of characters during the casting process for decades. Unless it's absolutely critical to the role (which in my opinion, it rarely is) I like that approach. Save for most characters who're based on a real person, almost every role is interchangeable. Nobody's thinking get Tom Hanks to play Malcom X, cause that'd be weird, but if they're a made up character who isn't iconic (and even then, there's room for debate) they could be anything onscreen.
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Post by sdrew13163 on Jan 1, 2020 1:10:26 GMT
I don’t even know what that is.
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Post by Skaathar on Jan 1, 2020 1:12:37 GMT
With Idris Elba, that was probably because of Kenneth Branagh. This guy was known for ignoring the ethnicity of characters during the casting process for decades. Unless it's absolutely critical to the role (which in my opinion, it rarely is) I like that approach. Save for most characters who're based on a real person, almost every role is interchangeable. Nobody's thinking get Tom Hanks to play Malcom X, cause that'd be weird, but if they're a made up character who isn't iconic (and even then, there's room for debate) they could be anything onscreen. Depends on the reason behind it. If the reasoning is "I'm going to cast the best actor for the role, regardless of their race or looks as long as they're the best fit for the role" then I'm 100% for that. If their reasoning however is "Let's specifically change the race of an established character just so we can say we're being diverse" then that irks me. I say this as a minority, it really just feels patronizing. Like receiving a participation award just to make you feel better even though you did nothing.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2020 1:34:29 GMT
Best guess is Idris Elba has a killer agent.
If they look different in the comics then it's different. The casting makes sense to me. Maybe it would make less sense if I knew what they looked like outside the movies, but then again I wasn't bothered by Samuel L Jackson as Fury and I knew he was white.
Can't say it's an issue for me but I see what you're saying.
So that's what Valkyrie looks like? Jesus, what a babe!
Nick Fury was black in the Ultimate Avengers. In fact if I remember correctly the artist specifically patterned him after SLJ. So casting him for the role was the perfect choice. I'm not that averse to racial bending a character if the casting choice makes sense. Like when they cast Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, sure he was the wrong race but his size, voice and overall intimidation factor was all spot-on, so it made sense. But nothing about casting Elba and Thompson made sense. Especially Tessa Thompson. Not only was she the wrong color, she was also the wrong height, size, muscularity and bearing for the role. She even looked younger than Hemsworth even though according to the movie she should have been around twice his age if not moreso. Don't get me wrong, I admire Tessa Thompson. But couldn't they have cast her as Wasp or Maria Hill instead? Do you think you'd feel that way about Thompson and Elba if you weren't familiar with the characters already? I ask because as someone who wasn't, it didn't take anything away. I understand a base expectation around appearance, but all these things worked out in the movie.
Height, size, color, aside from deviating from the tradition, it still all worked. Or at least none of it worked against itself. Thor's 1500 years old and he's the spitting image of a 36 year old. They don't exactly look their age. If that's what he looks like at 1500 I could see someone twice his age looking about the same. Cate Blanchett is 50, 14 years older than both of them, and it translates to thousands of years in age difference. Anthony Hopkins is 82, 32 years older than Blanchett and Odin's thousands of years older than her. Age is very kind to those people.
Could you not argue that even if doesn't make sense from a certain point of view, it worked out anyways?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 1, 2020 1:41:04 GMT
Unless it's absolutely critical to the role (which in my opinion, it rarely is) I like that approach. Save for most characters who're based on a real person, almost every role is interchangeable. Nobody's thinking get Tom Hanks to play Malcom X, cause that'd be weird, but if they're a made up character who isn't iconic (and even then, there's room for debate) they could be anything onscreen. Depends on the reason behind it. If the reasoning is "I'm going to cast the best actor for the role, regardless of their race or looks as long as they're the best fit for the role" then I'm 100% for that. If their reasoning however is "Let's specifically change the race of an established character just so we can say we're being diverse" then that irks me. I say this as a minority, it really just feels patronizing. Like receiving a participation award just to make you feel better even though you did nothing. I'm a fairly firm believer in whatever works. There is no other approach than I'm going to cast the best actor for the role as long as they're the best fit. No other approach that makes sense to me anyways.
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Post by politicidal on Jan 1, 2020 1:44:12 GMT
I don’t even know what that is. Bruce Lee in spandex.
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Post by Vassaggo on Jan 1, 2020 3:25:28 GMT
Unless race is integral to the character then I couldn't care less.
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Post by Skaathar on Jan 1, 2020 5:10:46 GMT
Depends on the reason behind it. If the reasoning is "I'm going to cast the best actor for the role, regardless of their race or looks as long as they're the best fit for the role" then I'm 100% for that. If their reasoning however is "Let's specifically change the race of an established character just so we can say we're being diverse" then that irks me. I say this as a minority, it really just feels patronizing. Like receiving a participation award just to make you feel better even though you did nothing. I'm a fairly firm believer in whatever works. There is no other approach than I'm going to cast the best actor for the role as long as they're the best fit. No other approach that makes sense to me anyways. If only Hollywood was that honest.
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Post by DC-Fan on Jan 1, 2020 5:17:04 GMT
In the case of the Ancient One, that was done because they didn’t want to piss off the Chinese government by casting a Tibetan actor/actress. The character in Shangi-Chi are all supposed to be Chinese, so that wouldn’t be a problem. Then don't cast a Tibetan actor/actress. Cast a different Asian ethnicity. Cast an old Chinese guy. Cast someone with ambiguous Asian ethnicity. What you shouldn't do is whitewash the character. Agreed. Sounds like "not wanting to piss off the Chinese government" was just an excuse by MCU Dictator Kevin Feige to whitewash the character.
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Post by Skaathar on Jan 1, 2020 5:21:30 GMT
Nick Fury was black in the Ultimate Avengers. In fact if I remember correctly the artist specifically patterned him after SLJ. So casting him for the role was the perfect choice. I'm not that averse to racial bending a character if the casting choice makes sense. Like when they cast Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, sure he was the wrong race but his size, voice and overall intimidation factor was all spot-on, so it made sense. But nothing about casting Elba and Thompson made sense. Especially Tessa Thompson. Not only was she the wrong color, she was also the wrong height, size, muscularity and bearing for the role. She even looked younger than Hemsworth even though according to the movie she should have been around twice his age if not moreso. Don't get me wrong, I admire Tessa Thompson. But couldn't they have cast her as Wasp or Maria Hill instead? Do you think you'd feel that way about Thompson and Elba if you weren't familiar with the characters already? I ask because as someone who wasn't, it didn't take anything away. I understand a base expectation around appearance, but all these things worked out in the movie.
Height, size, color, aside from deviating from the tradition, it still all worked. Or at least none of it worked against itself. Thor's 1500 years old and he's the spitting image of a 36 year old. They don't exactly look their age. If that's what he looks like at 1500 I could see someone twice his age looking about the same. Cate Blanchett is 50, 14 years older than both of them, and it translates to thousands of years in age difference. Anthony Hopkins is 82, 32 years older than Blanchett and Odin's thousands of years older than her. Age is very kind to those people.
Could you not argue that even if doesn't make sense from a certain point of view, it worked out anyways?
It works only if you shut off your mind and don't think about it... which is pretty much what I did because I did enjoy Ragnarok. Even if you weren't familiar with the comics, most people would assume that the elite fighters of a tall, warrior-race would look their part. Or that someone who was already at their fighting peak to fight Hela way before Thor was born would be noticeably older than Thor. At least around Hela's age. Did it work nonetheless? Sure it did, that's because it was a good movie. The better question to ask would be, would it have been worse if Valkyrie was a tall, blonde, muscular Nordic-looking woman?
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Post by Skaathar on Jan 1, 2020 5:25:16 GMT
Then don't cast a Tibetan actor/actress. Cast a different Asian ethnicity. Cast an old Chinese guy. Cast someone with ambiguous Asian ethnicity. What you shouldn't do is whitewash the character. Casting a Chinese actor for Ancient One would’ve caused a much bigger outcry given the political situation. The character also has some controversy about him supposedly being an Asian stereotype, so this was really a lose-lose situation. From my experience with the Chinese, they don't really get that hung-up with movies, not like Americans do. They'll bash or praise it with severe honesty but they rarely nitpick it for political messages... unless it's something extremely blatant. At least from my experience. So I doubt it would have raised that much of an outcry had they made the Ancient one an old Asian man. It's not like the character was some kind of Chinese folktale.
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Post by blockbusted on Jan 1, 2020 5:47:09 GMT
Casting a Chinese actor for Ancient One would’ve caused a much bigger outcry given the political situation. The character also has some controversy about him supposedly being an Asian stereotype, so this was really a lose-lose situation. From my experience with the Chinese, they don't really get that hung-up with movies, not like Americans do. They'll bash or praise it with severe honesty but they rarely nitpick it for political messages... unless it's something extremely blatant. At least from my experience. So I doubt it would have raised that much of an outcry had they made the Ancient one an old Asian man. It's not like the character was some kind of Chinese folktale. Oh, trust me. Perhaps Chinese themselves wouldn’t have minded, but if they hired an Asian descendant for Ancient One, there would’ve been a massive controversy broke out from some place else to a point where it would’ve been hard not to notice, and if they hired a Chinese, the controversy would’ve multiplied exponentially.
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Post by blockbusted on Jan 1, 2020 5:48:48 GMT
Then don't cast a Tibetan actor/actress. Cast a different Asian ethnicity. Cast an old Chinese guy. Cast someone with ambiguous Asian ethnicity. What you shouldn't do is whitewash the character. Agreed. Sounds like "not wanting to piss off the Chinese government" was just an excuse by MCU Dictator Kevin Feige to whitewash the character. Why whitewash JUST Ancient One? No one else really got whitewashed in this series, so the racism is clearly not the factor here. And can you blame Disney for allowing this? They almost got banned completely from China because of ‘Kundun’ back in 1990s.
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Post by Skaathar on Jan 1, 2020 7:40:35 GMT
From my experience with the Chinese, they don't really get that hung-up with movies, not like Americans do. They'll bash or praise it with severe honesty but they rarely nitpick it for political messages... unless it's something extremely blatant. At least from my experience. So I doubt it would have raised that much of an outcry had they made the Ancient one an old Asian man. It's not like the character was some kind of Chinese folktale. Oh, trust me. Perhaps Chinese themselves wouldn’t have minded, but if they hired an Asian descendant for Ancient One, there would’ve been a massive controversy broke out from some place else to a point where it would’ve been hard not to notice, and if they hired a Chinese, the controversy would’ve multiplied exponentially. Sorry, still not buying it. Hiring an old Asian man to portray an old Asian man can't possibly cause more controversy than casting a white female for the role instead. It's not like it's the first time someone of ambiguous Asian heritage got cast as a different Asian in a blockbuster after all, yet we don't get much backlash. Don't see what's so different with this role.
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Post by Power Ranger on Jan 1, 2020 8:44:28 GMT
Confirming that diversity= no whites.
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Post by sostie on Jan 1, 2020 13:22:23 GMT
Then don't cast a Tibetan actor/actress. Cast a different Asian ethnicity. Cast an old Chinese guy. Cast someone with ambiguous Asian ethnicity. What you shouldn't do is whitewash the character. Agreed. Sounds like "not wanting to piss off the Chinese government" was just an excuse by MCU Dictator Kevin Feige to whitewash the character. Learn what "whitewashing" a character is. She is not a white woman playing an Asian, she is a white woman playing a character that is specified as a Celt in the film. Funnily enough, few if any complaints about the gender change! How far should we go with the misuse of the term? Complain that Blade was played by an American because he was American in the film, despite being British in the comics?
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Post by politicidal on Jan 1, 2020 13:25:12 GMT
Confirming that diversity= no whites. This is not the first martial arts movie with an Asian-majority cast. It’s not that unusual.
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Post by sostie on Jan 1, 2020 13:31:29 GMT
Confirming that diversity= no whites. No...but your post does confirm that many don't understand what it means
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Post by Power Ranger on Jan 1, 2020 13:36:21 GMT
Confirming that diversity= no whites. This is not the first martial arts movie with an Asian-majority cast. It’s not that unusual. I was being a little facetious, but mind you Marvel couldn’t make a film with 98% white actors and not send the twitterspere into meltdown. Marvel could respond that the predominant Asian casting in Shang-Chi is determined by an adherence to reality due to an Asian setting, given that films about WW2 may still have predominantly white casts but it’s nevertheless it’s a lack of diversity that big budget American superhero films couldn’t get away with if the cast were white.
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Post by DC-Fan on Jan 1, 2020 17:16:19 GMT
Confirming that diversity= no whites. This is not the first martial arts movie with an Asian-majority cast. It’s not that unusual. But why does MCU Dictator Kevin Feige feel the need to advertise the movie as "90% Asian cast"? When Ang Lee made Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, he didn't go around advertising the movie as "all-Asian cast". Probably because Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was a good movie so Ang Lee didn't need to use race to advertise the movie. Feige knows the Eternals will probably suck so he's trying to advertise the movie using race/diversity.
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