Racists are stupid... and not for obvious reasons!

[Joe90]

I'm gona stir it up...

Why is it considered inappropriate for a Norse dude -- Warner Oland -- to play a person of colour (Charlie Chan) but it's okay for a person of colour to play a Norse dude?

Just throwing it out there...

[Brazoo]

Well, I don't think he's playing a Norse dude - is he? Isn't Asgard suppose to be populated by alien beings in this version of the story?

[suspense39]

geeez

i'm glad they were there in the imaginary past to take notes on what color everyone was!!!! you think people would have bigger issues to deal with than get mad about the color of a comic character......

[Joe90]

Well, I don't think he's playing a Norse dude - is he? Isn't Asgard suppose to be populated by alien beings in this version of the story?

Oh! It's one of those stories... Not the Norse Asgard of Northern European Legend -- it's the Asgard of the comic books. Is it appropriate to take any culture's folklore and start to rewrite it? I know Aboriginal groups took offense to Disney tinkering with the Pocahontas (Powhatan) story, and the B'rer Rabbit (Choctaw) stories, and the Paul Bunyan (Micmaq) stories.

Just sayin'...

[Hector]

The problem is that actor Idris Elba (a great actor I might add) was given the role of Heimdall, also known as the White God...oh the irony...

[torgospizza]

A while back, some producers wanted to make Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and cast white dudes as the African gods the book dealt with. A lot of people--including myself--thought that was moronic, but I don't think that makes us racists.

[Sandman9580]

^^ Exactly. What it comes down to is appropriate casting. I don't think Betty White should play Spawn, but that doesn't mean I should be accused of age discrimination.

[samurainoir]

Do we make Hamlet Asian? But he's a royal Dane...it's just not how the Character was written.

There is a reason why Shakespeare has survived the ages.

Japanese Macbeth is Brilliant.


All Stories that survive over time are constantly being reimagined to suit the context for contemporary audiences. Christian Bale's Dark Knight quite happily resides alongside Adam West's Caped Crusader in popular culture. There is room enough on this planet for different interpretations of any given text if the story is compelling to the human condition.

[samurainoir]

The biggest problem with these kinds of changes is they seem to be motivated by this fear of not being racially diverse enough or politically correct enough, and they seem to cause more commotion than they're worth.

Except that Marvel has caused a commotion all the way to the bank cashing in on these guys over the past three decades...


I can only imagine the response if they had the internet back in the seventies and what kind of letters to the publishers received back then responding to the diverse new style X-Men.

[Mikey]

Personally, I don't think it's racist to want to see a hero performed by an actor of the same race the character was always presented as.

[ctc]

>Christian Bale's Dark Knight quite happily resides alongside Adam West's Caped Crusader in popular culture.

....depending on who you ask....

Don C.

[Brazoo]

Oh! It's one of those stories... Not the Norse Asgard of Northern European Legend -- it's the Asgard of the comic books. Is it appropriate to take any culture's folklore and start to rewrite it? I know Aboriginal groups took offense to Disney tinkering with the Pocahontas (Powhatan) story, and the B'rer Rabbit (Choctaw) stories, and the Paul Bunyan (Micmaq) stories.

Just sayin'...

Well - I see what you're saying - and I appreciate that you're playing devils advocate to some degree - but the comics already appropriated the Norse myths years ago. This is just an appropriation of Marvel's appropriation of those myths.

Is Thor the comic character really that connected to the original Norse mythology? Personally I don't think so. It's not that accurate anyway. Thor's based in North America for one thing, and he's more of a cosmic powered entity in Marvel's universe than an actual god.

[The Bat]

There is a reason why Shakespeare has survived the ages.

All Stories that survive over time are constantly being reimagined to suit the context for contemporary audiences. Christian Bale's Dark Knight quite happily resides alongside Adam West's Caped Crusader in popular culture. There is room enough on this planet for different interpretations of any given text if the story is compelling to the human condition.

Fine...then don't called it "Hamlet". Just steal the plot line, and re-imagine it all you want.

[Brazoo]

Have you guys actually gone to the Council of Conservative Citizens website? I don't want to post a link to these idiots - but they're not political conservatives concerned about the fairness of the depiction of this character - they're a white power group HIDING BEHIND those issues and politics.

On their homepage there's an article claiming that the Marvel character Black Panther is "explicit pro-black and the comics are viciously anti-white." They also describe the character as: a “genius,” who has a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford.

Those quotes on genius are theirs!

They don't actually care about this particular character - they're just using this for support. It's clear from their site that they don't want ANY black heroes. It's a whole different thing to me than the arguments you guys are making.

Here's the first two principles of their mission statement:

(1) We believe the United States is a Christian country.

(2) We believe the United States is a European country and that Americans are part of the European people.

They're somewhat clever about how explicit they're being - but it's still pretty clear.

[The Bat]

Nah, I haven't been to their site...but it sounds they're real ****** nozzels. I'm speaking strictly as a Comic Geek who doesn't like his childhood Heroes messed with.