How do you feel about Hollywood changing a character’s race in movies?
Here's a simple rule: is the time period and culture of a place specific to a particular ethnicity? Yes? Then a racelift is stupid. Is it modern times, in a melting pot society, where there's some leeway for interpretation of the character from the get-go? Then proceed with caution.
Nobody complained when Nick Fury suddenly became a black guy that looks like Sam Jackson. But that's because the Hasselhoff version was already such a non-entity by the time the MCU rolled around, that no one really cared that much.
However, making Katara of the Water Tribe of the South be pasty-white made no sense whatsoever. It required retconning an entire civilization to justify!
I get why they keep putting white actors in movies about Moses: wanting to somehow recapture the magic of Charleton Heston with The Ten Commandments. But sometimes, you gotta let it go.
I was surprisingly fine with MJ being altered. Namely, because they never gave her much to do in the Sony films anyway. Sony has so misused and underused her, that she could be played by almost any skinny girl and it'd be the same thing. Case in point: other than moping, screaming, and needing to be saved - and whoring around and cheating on everyone - what was Kirsten Dunst's MJ known for again?
And in the Heist addon for Spidey PS4, MJ in Earth-1048 basically admits to sleeping with every Tom, Dick, and Harry at one point in her life. So she's an overcompensating journalist who is reckless because of the inequality in her relationship; whose only other accomplishment besides gambling her life for a story again and again is that she used to sleep around even more than Peter? Yeah... no need for her to be a redhead to tell that story! So the MCU didn't even bother.
Jimmy Olsen in the films is of so little significance, again, that he could be played by almost anyone. And while I was confused by Michael Clarke Duncan playing the Kingpin, he totally sold the part. He was probably the best part of Daredevil 2003. Jennifer Garner as Elektra, by that stroke, was simply miscast.
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I think the main rule is stick to the original and don't make changes that aren't necessarily. If it's either a historical person, the appearance is important for the plot or the author have decided something, they should keep it accurate and respect it. If it's fictional, the character's appearance aren't important in the plot, the author hasn't described their appearance and doesn't care I think it's up to the movie and series makers what they wants to do.
If I was an author, I would like my ideas to be respected when someone makes an adaption. I could accept them changing parts of the plot to make it fit the movie or series format better, since not everything in books would look good on the screen. I would however get disappointed if they changed basic and simple things like a hair color because of it's not that difficult to get correct. Imagine if people didn't care about J. K. Rowling's idea and made a movie about Harry Potter as a bald guy with no glasses, or if someone made a biography about Morgan Freeman as a blonde person.
I think the actors don't have to be born from a specific place or be exactly the same as the characters since it's acting and they're a different person than the characters, but I do however think their appearance should be convincing on screen and they should be passable. If the character is a natural red head, I think they should try to find an actor with natural red hair. If they doesn't find any good actors with red hair, they should go for someone who's natural blonde and dye their hair or use a wig making it look natural. They shouldn't go for an African-American then because of inaccuracy. I think the most ironic thing I've seen in movie's history is when the original character was white and they cast a white woman to play her, but the movie director changed his mind and made the white woman look Latina because of he thought it would look cool. It's funny to think of he suddenly thought: "Hey, we've a blonde woman playing a blonde witch. Why not make her hair black and her skin tan?".
Hollywood has been doing it for years, especially to characters who are minorities for the longest. No one bats an eye and in fact has the nerve to tells those minorities that the race of character is no big deal and seeing a character that represents them i being erased is fine. No one cares when a black, hispanic, Asian etc. fictional character is white washed but as soon as Arial, also a fictional character, becomes black- then suddenly it's a problem? Sure it's annoying, but i wish everyone would keep the same energy. Let them make batman or spiderman or any loved fictional character become any other race than a white man/boy.. and you will see tables being flipped but you don't see these reaction when it's a character that's is non white. get pissed when white characters are changed, when black characters are changed, Asian, characters are changed etc. again, keep the same energy.
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And if the actor is the best actor for the role let them play it. That's what actings about. The best person to make the role come to life.
Man on fire john creese was white and they gave it to denzel and nobody could play that role better.
In the case of starfire she is an alien princess and has an orange tinge. But the actress playing her in Titans is amazing. I love the choice.
Christian Bale is an amazing actor so sure the choice made the movie better.
Zendaya has been the best MJ in all the movies.
The Jimmie Olsen role that to much change for me. He was a weak person who now is a super badass.
Michael clarke Duncan not sure about that one never saw the movie.
Aquaman no brainer Jason Momoa made Aquaman actually an entertaining character for the first time.
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I understand if it's solely because they're an amazing actor and fit the personality and overall character of whoever they're playing. I mean, I wouldn't have minded Zendaya as MJ if she had actually matched what MJ was supposed to be like. It's just when they cast someone of the other race for brownie points or when they change it just to be more inclusive that it actually bothers me.
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I think these studios change the established races of known characters, not to be progressive or inclusive, but just to rile people up and crate attention and buzz about their otherwise half assed remake.
If you want to be inclusive and progressive, make a new movie with a new story with new characters. No issue.
But because they're remaking a well known classic movie, rather than doing a frame by frame carbon copy of the original (which seems lazy and a blatant cash grab) and rather than actually thinking of things to add or improve upon to add a dash of originality... The easiest thing to do is change the race, gender or sexual orientation of the characters. That's not being original and it's not improving on what already came before.
They know it will cause a shit storm for those who loved the original story, it will create buzz and debate, thus more awareness of their new movie coming, and it will maybe make those supporting the change or relate to those changes go and see the movie.
But in the end, it's just an empty remake that doesn't bring anything unique to the franchise or original story and all the hype and debates were for nothing. - 2.2K opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
I think that depends on the situation.
If the character is defined as some particular ethnicity / gender, then an actor who closely matches those characteristics should be chosen.
However, if the character has no particular defined ethnicity / gender, then it shouldn't matter.
For instance, there was a shitstorm about 3 months ago over a live action "The Little Mermaid" being cast with a black girl instead of a white girl like the original animated film. Since mermaids aren't real (and, if they were, would likely be more genetically closely related to blacks), I had no problem with that.
However, I DO have a problem with the Broadway play "Hamilton" because the actors chosen to play real-life Founding Fathers were deliberately chosen to be a different ethnicity.
In fiction, I've come across characters whose ethnicity is never even mentioned and/or is difficult to discern. So, if a film or play was made, casting for this character can be wide open. As an example, in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation's Edge" and "Foundation and Earth", a central character is Golan Trevize. The only things that we know about Golan is that he is a human male from the planet Terminus and is living about 25000 years from now. So, how do you cast that?
For me, it all boils down to two things:
1. Casting should be done to best match the defined character or real-life person who is the basis of the character.
2. For characters who are not well-defined, it's less of an issue, but casting should always be toward matching what characteristics/traits are known. -
Unnecessary and divisive. Just make a movie in the same universe with a NEW character of a different ethnicity, and new storyline and DON’T make it about race. That would be great, and the proper way to go about it.
These people don’t seem to understand that just because you criticize how they make their movie, it doesn’t make you racist. They are politicizing race to manipulate the virtuous nature of modern day people to gain power, and shame on you if you see through their shallow, corrupt garbage! If anything, they’ve proven that they want to hold racial groups down to maintain control. Look at Kanye. “Shame on that wack job Kanye West! He’s just crazy, he’s gone off the deep end for not supporting the left!”
They are CORRUPT people! Kanye is free to think and believe whatever he wants. He’s caught on to their shady ways in how they manipulate the African American population. They’ve probably labeled him a white supremacy advocate or something now, which, HOW does that even make sense?
Wake up people. Think freely. It doesn’t have anything to do with race. -
It annoys me when they do it regardless of the character's race. If the character has pale skin and they hire a brown skinned actor, they don't resemble the original character so it feels like they aren't really the same character anymore. The same goes for if they hire a light skinned person to play character that isn't light skinned. No matter what the race is I think they should always have people who actually look like the characters play them in live action shows/films. Character design is very important and is one of the main things we attribute to identify them. Character design is a part of who the character is and when you drastically change it, the character becomes unrecognizable. I mean look at mickey mouse, his design is so essential to his character and easily recognizable that people see three circles stuck together and think of him. Imagine how people would react if they gave him an updated character design and he had oval shaped ears and brown fur. Or if they redesigned spongebob and made him round. Or made Pikachu pink instead of yellow. That would ruin those characters for most people. The same goes for changing a character's race.
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Finding a good actor/actress who can transcend a role, maybe. If the "race" is not integral to a story, then maybe... Doing it to cover some Social Justice Warrior type thing, or to just fill some sort of quota, or just because they're "hip" right now, no.
It's like anything else. If you want a role, you should ideally be looking for an actor that can act, but also sort of resemble the character, if that's important to the character.
Like... ok, there was a series called "Batman Beyond." It's a "Batman" set in the future (2040). Barbara Gordon is a senior citizen (50+, voiced by Stockard Channing), and took over as police commissioner from her dad (all makes some sense). She was voiced in the series by a 50 something year old woman who had a quality of a woman anywhere from 50s-70s. In the movie that came out later, same character was voiced by Angie Harmon. Both are amazing actresses, but they picked a woman no older than 29 (at the time) to play a woman in her 60's - 80's. And it sounded "off." It sounded like a 20 something trying way too hard to add 40+ years to the voice. I have no idea why they went with her, other than she's a good actress, a name, etc. To me, they should have picked someone with the right voice quality. Even now, while her voice has no doubt changed, and maybe she's gotten some skill with playing older, I still think she sounds "young," and would not be a great fit for a character in her 80's.
A Madea movie with Angie Harmon would be a bad idea, as she fits almost none of the criteria, even if the Madea concept itself is a mild parody (a young guy playing an old woman). I think even A Madea movie with Martin Lawrence would "feel" kinda wrong, even though he's done the "masculine dude in drag for laughs" a few times. - 1.7K opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
Most of the time it's annoying and ruins the character. But Nick Fury, Kingpin and Aquaman were all played by phenomenal actors. Aquaman was always a goofy surfer dude but now he's a believable badass. Nick Fury was a boring white haired white guy with no real character until SLJ arrived. Michael Clark Duncan was one of my favorite actors and I was so sad when he died. He isn't the comic Kingpin but he did a good job playing the character.
As for Ariel, that's actually more akin to what she would have looked like. She would not have had pale skin and red hair.
Making Domino black with a white circle is dumb as shit. She's literally a Domino... Pale white skin with a black circle around her eye... Sure the actress did an okay job but that was not Domino.
And making MJ, a bombshell redhead be played by Zendaya is just insulting. I'm not even really an MJ fan but regardless... -
I don't like it when it feels forced to meet a political correctness quota. If it happens because they think the actor will do a great job, I think that's cool.
For example, Halle Berry was great as catwoman but PC culture didn't pressure movies into giving her the role. She did the role because they thought she'd do the best job.
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(Not native english) As a black, it is annoying. I never had any problem identifying to white characters in shows and games as a kid. Then some people with initially good intentions decided we have to identify only by looks and biological background, not by personnality, interests, goals etc. They must create new interesting characters if they want it so bad, but make them interesting. My sister too find it excessive, and is annoyed about the new little mermaid and starfire in titans... Honestly, america is quite fucked up and is spreading a dangerous way of thinking and solving "problems", while it's already complicated enough, needless to say i'm a bit worried.
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Pissed as fuck. Make a comic book with a character as another race instead of white washing everything to avoid racist comments. Seriously guys! The issue isn't how it's portrayed, the issue is that there are not enough minority superheroes. you cannot fix this problem with white washing. You can fix this problem by becoming a comic book writer that specializes in creating minority superheroes with their own individual comic books series. Don't be so two-faced about how you're approaching it. Imagine how people would react if you portrayed Black panther as a white guy for the actor. Same thing the other way around. it's not genuine, and it ruins a lot of precious childhood memories for a lot of people. Don't rewrite history to suit your needs, write the future to better suit the needs of society.
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Avatar :the last Airbender series was just nothing like the movie. It was just shit. If you ever watched the avatar Anime then you'll know that it was far from the movie. I don't know of others but surely this legendary series was entirely spoiled by the movie.
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If it's a good change that this particular actor adds something to the character without taking away from it, such as Samuel L. Jackson's portrayal of Nick Fury, or Tilda Swinton's portrayal of The Ancient One, then I'm ok with it.
If on the other hand it takes away from the character, by changing it for political or "progressive" like reasons, such as the blackwashed "Spider-Man: Homecoming", or the feminist "Ghostbusters", then that is not good.
It's not a change for the sake of the story, but rather for the self-interest for the ones making the movie. That's where i draw the line. - 618 opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
It gets worse - when they change the sex. In Netflix series Lost in Space they changed Dr. Smith from the original series into a female in the new one. Jonathan Harris morphed into Parker Posey.
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It's not something new, it was done to Cinderella before if I'm not wrong. So it's certainly not a new thing, just more mainstream now. And there is no problem with it at all unless the character's race is relevant to the story, like Pocahontas and Mulan.
- 1.7K opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
It's rather ironic that they're pushing these black characters into ginger-held roles for diversity and inclusion despite the fact that gingers are the smallest minority ever, far smaller than black people. Even black minorities in white-majority countries outnumber gingers if maybe discounting Ireland and Scotland.
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Its unnecessary tbh. Whether its white to black or vice versa the whole goal is to make the person look like the character so why change the race? I think the only reason they may make white characters into black or any other race in the live action remakes is to get some support and the actual directors and whatnot couldnt give 2 shits about it
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I think it's bullshit I've continuously dropped movies my whole life because those liberal assholes are fucking nazis with feelers. One way or another their always trying. to force everyone to think the way they do. Stupid bastards don't see by putting a spot light on race and then depicticting a difference is making a big problem. I'm from the central southern states and and since the Obama administration done all their race division shit tension got so high. in the we didn't care about what fucking color you was. Folks around here that see what he is still don't but our Obama supporters have become very racist and l prejudiced and it sucks. They can't give you a rasonal reason for anything either. Brain wash the week with tv and here were are 20 years behind the 90s in 2019.
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I feel like the character should be played by someone of the same race/culture because we have already defined them to that race. If they feel the need to have a character of different race/culture then they can make a different character. The character already made should not be changed because like for example, Ariel, is described as a red haired, "white" mermaid. Therefore we should have someone who fits the description already made.
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For me, it really depends on the character. For example the pics of the egyptians played by white folks is fairly unforgivable. Where the character's race is important to the story, (take the native American shown in one of these pic sets) then it shouldn't be changed.
But when it is irrelevant to the story, it doesn't phase me at all - 419 opinions shared on Entertainment & Arts topic.
I dont think they necessarily have to have be the same race but I think if a character has already been established as having a certain appearance that it would be nice if they try to maintain some consistency with future adaptations. Like if the person they pick is a different race but they are still look similar to what people expect that character to look like then that is fine by me, but if they look drastically different then it's kind of hurts the immersion in my opinion.
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I don't really care. I guess its both lazy and kind of shitty to cast white folk in obviously different ethnic roles. Like, casting Matt Dameon to be a Japanese hero, or a white kid in an Asian role. However, these roles are fictional people, so until they cast Ben Aflek to play Mandela or Gahndi, I don't really care.
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