Imagine a world where everyone on Earth had roughly the same skin color. How would it happen? I don’t know, imagine! Maybe COVID-45qanon affects skin color. Maybe God snaps her fingers and we all turn chartreuse. I picture a super popular K-Pop/HipHop documentary directed by Harry Styles that starts a worldwide trend of everyone marrying someone differently looking and ten generations later we’re all looking like Mariah Carey, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, or Bruno Mars, only more so.
I maintain my previous statement: color blind casting is the best practice unless there's a compelling reason otherwise. Black Panther must be African: it's a vital part of his identity which cannot be served by casting a white actor. Magneto must be cast as a Jewish Holocaust survivor: it's a vital part of his identity. Shang-Chi must be Asian, likely Chinese. It's a vital part of his identity.
Magic: the Gathering is making Aragorn black in their upcoming set, and that's great! There's no reason Superman, Steve Rogers, Batman, Thor, Tony Stark, pick your hero couldn't be recast too.
This whole debate is ridiculous (which is not to criticize the article: I agree with it)
This was really well said and very timely given that I was just discussing racism, the K-pop industry, and Chinese K-pop idols' support for China on Reddit a few minutes ago. It hits home for me personally, as well. There's a number of studies that seem to indicate that the concept of race is incredibly general and....kinda meaningless tbh. We're all so racially mixed that it's incredibly difficult to find people who are purely, 100% White or Black or any other race. And this post has a lot of personal relevance to me, as the product of the marriage between a Swedish man adopted by a German Jewish guy and a Japanese, Chinese, & Native Hawaiian woman. Nearly all of my relatives on my mom's side are in marriages that are, to varying extents, cross-racial, and my mom has at least one White ancestor that we know of. Hell, the culture my mom grew up in has been shaped (and continues to be shaped) by the interactions between Hawaiian, Portugese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, & Filipino plantation workers. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I actually have had my doubts about non-white actors being shoehorned into period pieces and the like, but when you have prominent voices complaining so loudly about the skin colour of mythical creatures, and now middle-aged man debating the casting of the Little Mermaid, then to my mind it's over. Whatever lingering doubts I may have had have been put to rest by the subtle, and at times not so subtle, racism that keeps condemning the casting of people of colour (like myself).
If you're putting a parenthetical reference to MJ not being white in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Captain Marvel probably deserves one for (but the main secondary characters aren't!).
(Quibble, quibble, quibble, but pedantic quibbles aside, this is another good one.)
Really well said Carl.
I maintain my previous statement: color blind casting is the best practice unless there's a compelling reason otherwise. Black Panther must be African: it's a vital part of his identity which cannot be served by casting a white actor. Magneto must be cast as a Jewish Holocaust survivor: it's a vital part of his identity. Shang-Chi must be Asian, likely Chinese. It's a vital part of his identity.
Magic: the Gathering is making Aragorn black in their upcoming set, and that's great! There's no reason Superman, Steve Rogers, Batman, Thor, Tony Stark, pick your hero couldn't be recast too.
This whole debate is ridiculous (which is not to criticize the article: I agree with it)
This was really well said and very timely given that I was just discussing racism, the K-pop industry, and Chinese K-pop idols' support for China on Reddit a few minutes ago. It hits home for me personally, as well. There's a number of studies that seem to indicate that the concept of race is incredibly general and....kinda meaningless tbh. We're all so racially mixed that it's incredibly difficult to find people who are purely, 100% White or Black or any other race. And this post has a lot of personal relevance to me, as the product of the marriage between a Swedish man adopted by a German Jewish guy and a Japanese, Chinese, & Native Hawaiian woman. Nearly all of my relatives on my mom's side are in marriages that are, to varying extents, cross-racial, and my mom has at least one White ancestor that we know of. Hell, the culture my mom grew up in has been shaped (and continues to be shaped) by the interactions between Hawaiian, Portugese, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, & Filipino plantation workers. I wouldn't have it any other way.
I actually have had my doubts about non-white actors being shoehorned into period pieces and the like, but when you have prominent voices complaining so loudly about the skin colour of mythical creatures, and now middle-aged man debating the casting of the Little Mermaid, then to my mind it's over. Whatever lingering doubts I may have had have been put to rest by the subtle, and at times not so subtle, racism that keeps condemning the casting of people of colour (like myself).
If you're putting a parenthetical reference to MJ not being white in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Captain Marvel probably deserves one for (but the main secondary characters aren't!).
(Quibble, quibble, quibble, but pedantic quibbles aside, this is another good one.)
I imagine a world where no one makes Civil War movies.