Why you can't just change a character's race

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

http://digitalfemme.com/journal/index.php?itemid=1240

 

Where you're from and your life experiences alter who you are and how you react to events.  Take a look at this writer's take on the topic...

 

 

[Chris Fluit]

Interesting blog post. The basic idea is that you can't ask a black actor to play Frank Castle anymore than you can ask a white actor to play Luke Cage. Their race is part of their background, whether it's Irish, Italian or African-American.

However, I thought the author left a couple of questions unanswered. One, she used several hypothetical situations but didn't address the actual examples of casting an actor to play a character of a different race. It would have been informative if she had shared an opinion regarding Halle Berry as Catwoman, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury or Pete Ross in Smallville. Two, she mentioned Blue Beetle as a positive example but didn't delve into the issue of legacy heroes. She doesn't want to read about a black Spider-Man, but what about a replacement Iron Man or substitute Green Lantern? Personally, I like John Stewart and Jim Rhodes but I wonder how those characters fit into her premise.

[ClarkKent_DC]

I thought her point was well said. I've never believed "equal" means "interchangeable."

[Mark Sullivan (Vertiginous Mod)]

I thought she made her point well, too. Characters that have a rich background story tend to be stronger, more three-dimensional characters. But only if the writer really uses that information. You could cast a non-white actor as The Punisher pretty easily if you're just thinking of the character as "semi-psychotic vigilante."

[ClarkKent_DC]

That's a really good point. I was reminded of this the other day when I saw a pile of cheap DVDs in a store. One of them was an early Whoopi Goldberg movie, Burglar, in which she plays the title character, Bernie Rhodenbarr, who runs a book store in San Francisco and commits burglaries as a sideline. I never saw that movie -- never wanted to -- because it was based on a series of mystery novels by Lawrence Block, and his Bernie Rhodenbarr was a Jewish man in New York. The movie fell into Whoopi Goldberg's lap after Bruce Willis passed on it, and the idea that one actor could just be swapped out for another made me uninterested.

I just learned via IMDB that Jeph Loeb co-wrote the screenplay. Imagine that!

[Eric L. Sofer]

Did she mention the Kingpin in "Daredevil"? (Side note: Now that he's established in the Daredevil movies - oops, movie singular - can he be used as a Spider-Man foe? He IS Spidey's Lex Luthor, after all, and a knockdown drag out fight scene between Spider-Man and the Kingpin would be a classic!)

How about the Tom Clancy stories, where Admiral Greer was a white man from Vermont... and in the movies, became James Earl Jones?

Whether or not a character was created with a given race (or gender, or religion - may as well consider them too) for a reason, it's still someone else's character. It seems kind of inappropriate to change them out of the blue :) - and as the good Mr. Fluit noted, when it DID come time for an alternate colored character (and apologies if the phrase is offensive - it is not meant to be), there were Jim Rhodes, John Stewart, Katma Tui, Nubia (anyone else remember the black Wonder Woman), Jamie Hernandez (sic?), etc. It can be done; something like this enriches the character, and doesn't detract from the essence of him.

x<]:o){

[Jeff of Earth-J]

I remember rumors of casting Eddie Murphy as Robin in one of the Batman movies and Beyonce and Lois Lane in Superman Returns (although I think the former, at least, was just a publicity stunt). Bernie Casey was cast as Felix Leiter in Never Say Never Again, but that character has been played by so many different actors it was only a matter of time, really, until a black man was cast in the role. (Casey did, IMHO, play the best Felix ever.) Regarding the Kingpin, far more important than "black" or "white" is BIG, and Michael Clarke Duncan is that.

[Henry R. Kujawa]

"far more important than "black" or "white" is BIG, and Michael Clarke Duncan is that"

 

I keep wishing they'd do a remake of LIVE AND LET DIE with Duncan as "Mr. Big".  He would be SO perfect in that role! (Yaphet Khotto was a joke... but then, his film WAS done as a comedy.)

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

Will the new Ultimate Spider-Man be black?