Should we stop gender and race swapping iconic characters?

Question

So this new show seemed to have angered some people because it was labeled as modern day Robin Hood before (tbh I don’t know what it was labeled before but it seems like it said “Modern day Robin Hood” from the comments). It says inspired by Robin Hood and looks like it has some potential. But the comments had me thinking should we stop with trying to make an iconic character a different race or gender and just demand for new original iconic characters.

MascGirls · Accepted Answer

Well, remakes are boring. If there's a remake based simply on the premises of switching the demographic, that's unoriginal and boring. But if we're making a brand new movie based on an old folktale, for example, and decide to switch genders or races around a little, I don't really care. In theater we switch the roles around all the time because it's about the actor and their individual talents rather than sticking specifically to the role's preassigned demographic.

Justacatlady · Accepted Answer

I've seen this with a lot of Disney characters as well. I hate it. New characters that have the same attributes they find admirable would be better.

CoffeeWC · Accepted Answer

I really don't like it. You can tell this is a result of feminism because you don't see iconic female figures switched to male.

Dionigi · Accepted Answer

I dislike it when it's historically incorrect or when it's forced.

madhatters4 · Answer

i just don't care. i find the issue to be symbolic of an overall unnecessary fixation on race. entertainment is entertainment. if the color of bond, robin hood, or other people's skin determines if you can be entertained then the race fixation matters more than the substance of content

Spawnface · Answer

There's the rule that mostly only applies to pro wrestling which is any publicity is good publicity. That's kind of the trending inspiration behind Trumps new America and the new corporate model. It's the idea of agitating the public just enough to get free advertisement and controversy. It's reasonably effective but it's also very risky. With companies that go overboard it ends in disaster. Companies got to have it have plausible deniability for it to work, or the ability to control the collateral damage.

With a movie like this, I don't see too much SJW pandering, even the robin hood thing seems to just be a marketting ploy. It's looks like a pretty interesting animation, I don't know much about it though. I don't know the themes of the movie, and what they may mean in relation to the social political sphere. But, if my hopes are correct, the pandering will be very subtle, as it should, it should be just enough to bring up talk about it but not enough to boycott the production.

If people go to this movie in theatre and leave disgusted after veiwing it. They will severely damage the productions reputation towards the selling of hard copies of the movie and put a stain over all other associated productions.

Its kind of why I think this new era of marketting is going to bust belly up. Its going to get so over used that people both catch on but they are going to be permenantly disenchanted from all other relevant marketting practices. Like, the short sightedness sees this ploy as inconsequencial in the long term, when I would guess that it's incrementally leading to a complete immunization towards advertising. Because the agitation caused will be permenant and will infect everything around it.

So hopefully they dont go ghost busters here and totally bust. Lets hope they have some modesty and decide to refrain from throwing dicks in our faces.

rjroy3 · Answer

I don't care in principle. I just don't like it if it's forced. Where people mess up is making changes that fundamentally change the character, rather than tweaking things that don't really matter much.

Like if you try to make James Bond a woman you actually fundamentally changed the character of the individual, than if you just changed his race. Black/asian/whatever James Bond doesn't change the character. Just the depiction and perhaps how he goes about doing the same things. Make James Bond a woman and that's now an entirely different character. You can do it, but it's not James Bond.

That's why a black/gay spiderman still works, but the female ghostbusters didn't work. Spiderman is spiderman and making him black or gay didn't actually fundamentally change anything other than the potential love story aspect. But who he is in the world and how he expresses who he is in that world doesn't change. As long as it stays within the bounds of the character it can work.

But yea, I'd actually be pretty hype to see Idris Elba as James Bond tho I think he could only realistically fit the role for maybe 1 or 2 films. He's older. Which is another characteristic that might fundamentally change a character. If they look too old or young for a role that changes things again.

Anonymous · Answer

I wouldn't mind it, but in the current political climate I don't think it should be done. People are hyper-focused on race and gender right now, so when a character is altered it's tainted and feels forced. They're so focused on it that they're not actually ready for characters to be different in the ways they want.

It's a similar problem to many people who wanted Hilary as president: There was all this talk about having a female president. If you think that being a woman is any kind of justification for her being president then you're not ready for a woman to be president.

Similarly, if you have the air of changing a character for the sake of progressive sensibilities then you're not really ready to change that character. When you can do it purely from a place of exploring an interesting perspective on it then you can do it. But again, given the present attitudes and trends it's difficult to take any of that seriously right now. My feeling it that people should focus on making good stories until we forget all about this shit, then we can enjoy the gender swap.

Benedek38 · Answer

Neither make new characters, nor swap characters.

Let me be more precise. Obviously the correct solution is to create new characters - swapping is asinine.
But if you say "we should just create new characters" - they will start mass producing crappy Mary Sue female and minority characters. Which is EXACTLY what is happening. I actually wrote a question about this. In the last few years movies were FLOODED with shoddily written "strong female characters" and "people of color" - and honestly it is making me sick.

dalibara · Answer

Yeah that’s so boring because they turn amazing ideas into cliches. In vampire diaries Elena Gilbert was supposed to be an alpha blondie badass flirty woman, with a big ego, but a big heart ( things that you don’t see everytime in a main character, but that would be awesome). Instead of that they changed her into a brunette ( nothing against that but Elena is blonde with blue eyes! Nothing like Nina dobrev) and her character in the TV show is just a kind of Bella Swan but in a different way. She is the sweet friendly lovey dovey girl that you can see in every TV shows

Anonymous · Answer

Sometimes it's fine and sometimes I think it's a problem.

In the case with the Robin Hood one, that's not even a Robin Hood remake, it's more or less just inspired by it so I don't think it's that big of a deal.

In general I've never really had a problem with gender-swapping characters, but race swapping can be kind of bad in my opinion. Especially if the character is tied to a culture of a particular race, then it really doesn't make any sense to change their race.

Although in a lot of cases, if the character's race isn't specified in the book version, for example, then I don't think it matters that much. For example, Hermoine Granger is sometimes black in different Harry Potter plays and a lot of people interpreted her as black because her race was never clearly specified in the book. So if they were to remake the Harry Potter movies and make Hermoine black, I don't think I would have a problem with that because she wasn't written to be white.

alexd666 · Answer

If a good film/tv show is being made, an existing character is involved and that character is played by somebody of a different race and/or gender, then I will enjoy the film show because it is good. Some people seem to think something is automatically improved by having more minorities/fewer straight, white males. I don't think that race or gender swapping is necessary nor do I think it is inherently a positive or negative thing. The motivation behind some swaps and the reaction from some people towards the swaps are where I have a 'problem'.

humanearth · Answer

I like the idea though out time things come and go. Like 300 years ago men wore a warrior type a long grown dress. That men wore after a successful battle win. Men even wore high heels, Skirts, Stocking as recent as 100 years ago.

Women are no different. A lot even made history in battles

BCA6010 · Answer

Yes.

If Hollywood (or whoever) feels it necessary to have more black, hispanic, alien, Asian, crippled, blind, straight, gay, or outright mentally deranged characters, they should just make new characters and have original ideas for once. Rewriting established characters is almost universally poorly-received and again, unnecessary when you can just make new characters.

SketchForger · Answer

If it's told in the future, that implies that it's the next (or a much further down) generation.

Why is it suddenly a problem that she's a girl if she's not the same person?

I get that some people find it annoying when people gender swap characters and that's all that happens... But I also don't understand why they would be content I'd the gender of the character remained the same, but it's still a shitty attempt at rebooting an older series.

Nivinxus · Answer

I'm actually indifferent, feminism may have played a part in it. But gender swapping had been a thing long before then. If you played some video games that were released early 2000 like Atlantica Online or Shin Koihime (incidentally being both eastern games) they've been genderswapping historic characters like fcking Attila the Hun.

I think people are making it a big deal out of it when it doesn't really matter.

Anonymous · Answer

swap out a person of color or a woman in a famous role and replace them with a white male, and there would be outrage in the streets. That's how you can tell there's a problem with this. One race and one gender is the victim of the swapping, which shows it isn't about "telling the story from a different perspective". It's about replacing white males in roles. That's racist and/or sexist.

Anonymous · Answer

If it's a new take with some fresh ideas, and they just decide to switch things up a bit for artistic reasons, cool. If it's done pretty explicitly just to switch the demographics or genders, bleh. Even if it is done for artistic reasons, if it's advertised as purely gender/demographic-focused it can still rub me the wrong way.

Malik00 · Answer

No no no no kid you're looking at it the wrong way, the question you should be asking is does it work? By that i mean is it well written, or is it just a poorly veiled attempt at virtue signalling like she-ra?

BlackDawn · Answer

Yeah it's fucking annoying. In 20 years I'm expecting a reboot with Harriet Potter

Darwin7171 · Answer

Sure, it can be okay. But as long as it's not pushing a one-sided political narrative. If you're going to have a "diverse" and progressive cast, the men don't need to be bumbling idiots and you can represent conservatives respectfully.

I say this as a moderate. I'm just tired of how progressive all the politics have become with shows.

Deathraider · Answer

Yeah. We need some originality. Of course, people won't listen because this is a way to make quick easy money.

Servus09 · Answer

You would never see a white actor playing the role of a prominent black man or women in history. Yet you see black actors playing the roles of white historical figures all the time. Why is one ok and the other is not?

Anonymous · Answer

Yes. SJW shit should be eradicated from the face of the planet, not just movies and games. We had strong female characters (Lara Croft, Princess Leia etc.), we had strong black characters (Shaft, Blade etc.) and everything you could ask for even before society became retarded. And nobody complained.

Should we stop gender and race swapping iconic characters?

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