How do you feel about race swapping characters in movies?

[Anonymous]

Suppose you have a lineup of beloved movies many people consider classics.

Egon (middle), Benny (left), Kjell (right) and Kjell's wife Valborg (between Egon and Kjell)

Now say you take a character, who in every past portrayal has been white. And turn him black. How would you feel? And how would you feel if they did the opposite with a black character?

[NamerOfStars]

My feelings are pretty contextual- there are stories where it doesn't matter and stories where it does, and I'll be the first to admit that it's not always clear which side something is on. A story set in 21st century London? Hey, go nuts. A story set in 1st century London? Yeah, that's not gonna fly.

The book Anansi Boys was at one point due to receive a TV adaptation; it fell apart because the network insisted that the main character, Charlie, who it turns out is the son of the west African god Anansi, be played by a white actor. Neil Gaiman refused, since the character's ethnic background (and historical family background, in more detailed story aspects) is critical to the character; he HAD to be black.

In the short story "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption", the character Red is asked why he's called that, and says "Maybe it's because I'm Irish". He does in the movie, too, but in the movie, he's played by Morgan Freeman, who is very clearly NOT Irish. Does THAT bother me? No- because his expression and his delivery make it clear that it's a joke, even though the words aren't changed at all, and because it's not like it's hard to believe there were black men in prisons in New England in the 1950's. And, bluntly, because it's not made a point of.

See, the problem is that race-swapping generally isn't done on its own; cast a black actor in a non-black role and just move on, and no one's really going to care except purists. Idris Elba (who's black) played Roland (who's apparently white; I hadn't the handful of references in the books, but apparently that IS the case) in the Dark Tower movie, and I barely heard a peep about it because the reason he was cast is that he's a damn good actor (the best part of that movie, really), and NOBODY cared- it wasn't a stunt casting issue. But the idea behind it is USUALLY (in the cases that people talk about, anyway) that certain groups are inherently "disadvantaged", and so ultimately can't compete on a level playing field, so it's blind virtue signalling to promote them by hyping up their skin color, rather than their skills.

I want to stress this- I'm not saying that every character played by an actor of a different race is done as a publicity stunt; that's obviously not the case. But some people are VERY upset that the social supply of racism vastly outstrips the demand, so they produce more, in order to have something to rail against; they have a LOT invested in maintaining an air of perpetual victimhood. Ask them to make a Shaft movie starring Micheal Cera, or a Dolemite movie starring Jackie Chan. Their reaction will show you their true intentions.

[BCA6010]

99.9% of the time, it should stay true to source material, regardless of what that is.

[CAPTAIN-OBVIOUS]

The same happened with Ariel. It’s fine. Why is it a problem? Just a movie