How closely should casting hew to characters' ethnicities and races?

[MrAtoz]

But it seems to me that, “Oh, she was adopted by a black family,” isn’t really any more complicated an explanation than “Oh, she married a black guy.” It’s not like you have to do a whole flashback sequence showing the Storms at the adoption agency meeting little Susie for the first time, signing the papers, and bringing her home. You can “explain” it with a single line of dialogue, and you’re done.

I too have been reading comics a long time, and am aware of the legacy characters and the issues that brings up when those things are changed. But I saw someone on a blog say something that I will paraphrase here, to best of my recollection:

When Peter Parker started out, he was the sort of person who regularly wore suits and ties to high school, called women “gals” unironically, and had a classmate who fought in the Vietnam War. Why can we so easily accept Tobey Maguire, who did none of those things, as somehow playing “the same” character, but if you change the race of a character, you’ve suddenly made an irrevocable alteration that makes this character “not the same”? Is race really so fundamentally different from every other character trait? If so, must it be that way?

My wife is of a different race than me, and having married her has made me suddenly aware of a lot of these issues that I had previously had the luxury of not thinking about that much. Not all of our discussions have been comfortable for me, but they have been valuable.

[DigitalC]

It depends, if it was done simply because the best person to play the part just happened to be black then i have zero problems with it. Having Morgan Freeman play a character so ginger they nicknamed him “Red” is perfectly fine and made a much better movie than if they’d gotten an actual ginger for the part. On the other hand what the F4 people are doing simply smacks me as not having any ideas about what to do. Johny Storm is black and Doom is a blogger or some bullshit because fuck it, that’s all we got.

[Miller]

@MrAtoz

But it seems to me that, “Oh, she was adopted by a black family,” isn’t really any more complicated an explanation than “Oh, she married a black guy.” It’s not like you have to do a whole flashback sequence showing the Storms at the adoption agency meeting little Susie for the first time, signing the papers, and bringing her home. You can “explain” it with a single line of dialogue, and you’re done.

I agree, it’s a simple change to make, and it doesn’t necessarily derail the plot or the characterizations. The issue for me comes with the question, “Why make that change?” The reasoning here appears to be, “We need a reason to keep Sue white,” and that’s a little problematic for me.

[MrAtoz]

@Miller

I agree, it’s a simple change to make, and it doesn’t necessarily derail the plot or the characterizations. The issue for me comes with the question, “Why make that change?” The reasoning here appears to be, “We need a reason to keep Sue white,” and that’s a little problematic for me.

That’s true, and that particular part is troubling for me as well. I was speaking only to the notion of changing a character’s race, admittedly without taking into account the entirety of the situation. It does give me some pause that they made sure to keep the romantic couple of the same race.

I recall that in the previous FF movies, the ones with Jessica Alba and Chris Evans (who would later go on to much more successful superheroing), they made Alicia Masters, Ben’s girlfriend, black. Nobody said a word about that, as far as I can recall. I suspect it was because she was a more secondary character, and maybe also because her romantic partner didn’t look like a white guy. But Alicia is the sort of peripheral character that does often get switched to a different race when “updating” material like this, while changing one of the main characters is somewhat more daring. While I can disapprove of making sure Sue stays white, I can’t get too upset about making Johnny black, if you see what I mean.

Talking about the earlier movies reminds me that there was some level of controversy about Sue being played by a Latina, including some dreadfully tone deaf comments from John Byrne. It’s always something.

[Miller]

@MrAtoz

While I can disapprove of making sure Sue stays white, I can’t get too upset about making Johnny black, if you see what I mean.

That’s my feeling about it exactly.

[Broomstick]

@MrAtoz

I recall that in the previous FF movies, the ones with Jessica Alba and Chris Evans (who would later go on to much more successful superheroing), they made Alicia Masters, Ben’s girlfriend, black. Nobody said a word about that, as far as I can recall. I suspect it was because she was a more secondary character, and maybe also because her romantic partner didn’t look like a white guy.

Alicia was not being portrayed as the sibling of a white person. And yes, secondary character. And yes, she’s dating a guy who is an orange rock monster and Jewish (at least in mainstream continuity, I can’t remember if that was mentioned in the recent FF movies) so multiple minorities and all. Let’s not pretend that race isn’t still an issue in the US.

I think I would have had less problem with Reed being black.

I know I’d have less problem with the Storm siblings both being black.

Either one of those two alternatives is no problem - inter-racial couples are not a new thing, we’ve come a long way since the shock of Captain Kirk kissing Lieutenant Uhura.

Yes, obviously it’s possible to have mixed race families - our current President had a white mother, black father, and his sister is half Asian. But it’s seen so seldom in Hollywood it can seem gimmicky or tokenish.

The current TV incarnation of The Flash opted to have Barry Allen adopted by a black family after his mom was killed and his dad went to jail for the murder and that worked because of the way they handled it. If they do that good a job of it in the new FF movie I’ll be content. I just have my doubts it will be handled that well until I see it happen, Hollywood screws that sort of thing up on a regular basis.

[MrAtoz]

@Broomstick

Alicia was not being portrayed as the sibling of a white person. And yes, secondary character. And yes, she’s dating a guy who is an orange rock monster and Jewish (at least in mainstream continuity, I can’t remember if that was mentioned in the recent FF movies) so multiple minorities and all. Let’s not pretend that race isn’t still an issue in the US.

I don’t believe that I am so pretending; at least I hope not. As I tried to point out, there were certainly issues with the earlier FF movies and their treatment of race, or at least with people’s reactions to it.

The Thing being explicitly Jewish is relatively recent in comics, although Jack Kirby apparently always considered him so, and had made sketches of Ben wearing a yarmelke for his own amusement. I don’t think the movies mentioned it. I almost quoted the “you don’t look Jewish” line, but figured it might not sound so good out of context.

In the long run, you’re right that the quality of the movie itself will have a lot to do with how this all shakes out. I’m hoping this film will be good, but I don’t know how confident I am. I don’t know why, but the Fantastic Four seems to be very difficult to successfully adapt. There have been several attempts, counting various cartoons, and none of them have been what I would really call good. But there’s always a first time!

[YogSothoth]

@MrAtoz

But it seems to me that, “Oh, she was adopted by a black family,” isn’t really any more complicated an explanation than “Oh, she married a black guy.” It’s not like you have to do a whole flashback sequence showing the Storms at the adoption agency meeting little Susie for the first time, signing the papers, and bringing her home. You can “explain” it with a single line of dialogue, and you’re done.

Maybe that’s true, and if that’s how they play it off in the new movie, I’ll be fine with that. I just suspect that its not it. Why make one sibling an adoptee without trying to plan some plot point around it? Marrying someone of a different race is normal now so that its not a problem, I can totally accept that as simply casting the best actor for the role. But to suddenly break up a pair of siblings, make one of them adoptees, and race swap? You don’t do that unless you’re trying to work in some pointless plot and I don’t think that a comic book superhero movie is the best venue to explore ethnic adoption practices. Get Meryl Streep and Zoe Saldana in a role for that, cast Javier Bardem as the love interest and call it a night, but I don’t need that sibling rivalry when they’re fighting Dr Doom.

@MrAtoz

I too have been reading comics a long time, and am aware of the legacy characters and the issues that brings up when those things are changed. But I saw someone on a blog say something that I will paraphrase here, to best of my recollection:

When Peter Parker started out, he was the sort of person who regularly wore suits and ties to high school, called women “gals” unironically, and had a classmate who fought in the Vietnam War. Why can we so easily accept Tobey Maguire, who did none of those things, as somehow playing “the same” character, but if you change the race of a character, you’ve suddenly made an irrevocable alteration that makes this character “not the same”? Is race really so fundamentally different from every other character trait? If so, must it be that way?

I think race swapping is a bigger change than updating the era of the comics. We all know changes will happen in any adaptation to fit the current zeitgeist. Parker is still in high school or college and its been 50 years, instead of the Vietnam War maybe they’ll be talking about the Gulf War or the War on Terror, and instead of wearing disco pants and listening to rock and roll, he’ll wear skinny jeans and listen to grunge. Those are small changes to fit the era, and to me, its necessary to bring one character to a new audience fitting for modern timer periods. But changing the race, or gender, or sexuality, or whatever, changes the character itself. Its no longer about fitting a preexisting character into our world. Its about creating a whole new character and calling it the same name.

Its sort of like the whole Ship of Theseus thought problem. The minimum change that needs to happen is to adapt it to the 2010’s and give him a modern look. But change it too much and its no longer the same character. I could easily say what if instead of a spider, he was bitten by a mutant wasp, and he flies now, and he’s no longer in New York but in Bangkok? Is that still Spiderman (he named himself that because he liked spiders). Is the black Human Torch actually the Human Torch or is he someone else the producers wished was in FF? I don’t know, but its hard not to see it as a change too far

I just wished that if they were going to change things that much, they should just create something brand new

[Miller]

@YogSosoth

Parker is still in high school or college and its been 50 years, instead of the Vietnam War maybe they’ll be talking about the Gulf War or the War on Terror, and instead of wearing disco pants and listening to rock and roll, he’ll wear skinny jeans and listen to grunge.

Nerd-pick: Peter Parker graduated college in 1978.

Granted, it took him 16 years to get from high school student to college grad, so your overall point stands.

[MovieMogul]

@That_Don_Guy

I have also noticed that this “rule”, at least in terms of race, tends to apply to animated voiceovers as well - just about the only black character I can think of who’s voiced by a white actor is Cleveland on Family Guy.

Every recurring black character on The Simpsons (Lou the cop, Dr. Hibbert) is played by a white actor. Pretty much every other person of color (Apu, Bumblebee Man), too.

[Chronos]

Just saying that “Sue is adopted” doesn’t really cut it, because adoption also carries all sorts of baggage, especially in a comic book movie. If, in a comic book, you tell me that a character is adopted, then I’m going to expect that their biological parents are going to show up at some point, and at least one of them is probably going to be a supervillain. It’s a Chekov’s Gun.

[MrAtoz]

But I wonder how fair it is to bring those sort of genre expectations to a story. I mean, I know that as comic book fans we often can’t help it, and there are few plot twists that can really be surprising anymore. But inter-racial families are more and more a simple reality for so many of us nowadays that part of me feels…odd…to say “there must be a plot point around it.”

I know, movies (and comic books) are inherently more exciting and interesting than real life most of the time, and almost nothing in a fictional story is there by accident. I just can’t help wondering if that expectation is part of what’s creating this sense that having siblings of different races must be significant to the plot, rather than simply “that’s what our family is like.”

Ultimately, it really will depend on how the movie handles it, and how good the movie as a whole is. For that, we’ll have to wait and see.

[Leaper]

I agree. I see a lot of connection to the old thought that a movie with a female lead or a black lead MUST be a “chick flick” or a “black movie”, or that making a protagonist anything but straight must make it “for gays.” If casting decisions like this break those kind of assumptions, I’m all for it.

[Siam_Sam]

In Todd Solenz’s Palindromes (2004), a big black lady played a small white girl. She was quite effective too.

[YogSothoth]

@Leaper

I agree. I see a lot of connection to the old thought that a movie with a female lead or a black lead MUST be a “chick flick” or a “black movie”, or that making a protagonist anything but straight must make it “for gays.” If casting decisions like this break those kind of assumptions, I’m all for it.

I don’t want to come off sounding like that so if that’s how I’m being perceived, let me clarify a bit. Its simply because the FF was always white that there is a slight raising of the eyebrows when that continuity is changed. If some random movie about a comic book family or drama stars a female lead, I don’t think “chick flick” automatically.

There’s an established canon here that, when altered, deserves some explanation. Or if they are trying to create a new normal, then no explanation should be forthcoming. I just have a sneaky suspicion that somewhere in the movie, it will be alluded to that Johnny is black. If the only line referring to that is “I’m adopted” and none of the characters ever refer to it again, then that’s be the best way to approach it, I think. You can’t establish a new normal if you try to cast a black guy as Johnny Storm and then keep reminding the audience he’s black

[Miller]

@Leaper

I agree. I see a lot of connection to the old thought that a movie with a female lead or a black lead MUST be a “chick flick” or a “black movie”, or that making a protagonist anything but straight must make it “for gays.” If casting decisions like this break those kind of assumptions, I’m all for it.

The thing is, in this particular case, the casting decision seems to be playing into that stereotype, not against it.

[Superdude]

@Chronos

It depends on the character. If you’re making a biopic about Martin Luther King, then absolutely the lead needs to be black. If you’re making Fantastic Four, then Sue and Johnny absolutely need to look like they’re siblings, but they could be both white or both black or both Asian or whatever and it still works.

I saw the trailer for this earlier today at the movies. Based off of the way the trailer looks, it appears that Susan is adopted. Doctor Storm is played by Reg E. Cathey. I’m okay with that. It’s like some actress’ stance on nude scenes on screen: If it’s crucial to the plot, then cast that ethnicity. If the race doesn’t matter, take the best actor/actress.

ETA: I posted this before I saw you addressing the adoption angle upthread.

[RealityChuck]

@Miller

Sure, but those are all changes from the source material that complicate the character’s backstory unnecessarily. Changing a character’s race is, of course, also a change to the source material, but not one that generally complicates things, and one that’s arguably necessary, if you feel that the race imbalance in classic superhero properties constitutes a problem for modern adaptations.

So? Who really cares if it changes the source material? What does that have to do with the idea of putting together a good movie? Hell, movies change source material all the time.

Last night, I saw a production of Kinky Boots. The part of Lola was played by a black man. The part of Lola’s father was played by a black man. But the part of Lola as a young boy was played by a white boy.

Did it bother me? Not in the least. That sort of nitpicking had no place in the story. Race didn’t matter one whit. And anyone who looked upon this as a flaw in the musical is just pointlessly nitpicking: the kid was good in the role.

Then there was the production I saw of Lucia di Lammermore, where Lucia was white and her brother was black (and they were both Scottish, but every word they said was sung. In Italian). The casting was simply a case of getting the best people for the role and had cast them.

Well, that’s the question here, isn’t it? Does race matter? To the makers of this new FF film, it sure appears to. “Race doesn’t matter, let’s make Heimdall black,” works. “Race doesn’t matter, let’s make Kingpin black,” works. “Race doesn’t matter, let’s make Johnny Storm black - but not his sister,” doesn’t work, because apparently race does matter, otherwise they wouldn’t need to invent extra backstory to explain why Johnny and Sue are different colors.

Why do they need a backstory? The important thing is the main story. If they cast them as brother and sister and didn’t explain a goddamn thing, it wouldn’t affect the story one whit. It really would only bother the fanboys; most moviegoers wouldn’t even be aware of it if people didn’t complain beforehand.

I don’t think that’s all it boils down to, because this casting choice in particular leads to some questions about racial representation in popular media that are at least as troublesome as the virtual absence of colored characters in classic Marvel and DC properties.

It needn’t raise any questions at all. And think about this in real life: if you met a brother and sister of two different races, it’s none of your business how that happened. I wouldn’t be so rude as to ask.

[Miller]

Boy, that’s really a whole lot of missing the point, Chuck. I’m genuinely unsure where to start, because I feel I’ve been as clear and explicit in my concerns as possible, and you seem to have missed each and every one of them. But I’ll see what I can do.

First off, I give absolutely zero fucks about changes from the source material in the creation of an adaptation. I give even fewer fucks about changes to the source material of this particular property, because I’m really not invested at all in The Fantastic Four. I’m in favor, in general, of “race blind” casting, particularly when updating old properties like this, which tend to be pretty white, straight, and male-centric. That’s all good. I’m fully on board with all of that.

It sounds like you’ve seen some great plays lately. I’ve seen the movie version of Kinky Boots, and loved it. I’m not at all bothered by the idea that they cast a white kid for the young Lola, and a black man for the adult Lola. But then, there isn’t any racial baggage around the idea of a white child growing up to be a black man, because (certain recent news stories aside) that’s not a thing that happens in real life. There is, on the other hand, a very real history of Hollywood being adverse to showing interracial relationships, and of avoiding casting minorities in lead roles under the assumption that a movie starring a black guy will be perceived as a “black” movie, and avoided by white theater-goers.

And that, once again, is the issue I have with this movie. It’s not a matter of plot nitpicks, or changes to the source material. It’s that the people casting this movie appear to have specifically picked this character to recast as black because he’s not a part of the central romance, and he’s not the lead. I am not saying that this is absolutely the reason they cast Johnny as a black guy, and not any of the other characters. It could very well be that Michael B. Jordan is just absolutely the best guy for the role, and they just couldn’t pass him up. I can’t say for sure, because the guy’s filmography fits on a Post-It note. (Kate Mara has slightly more exposure, but she’s still hardly a “name” in Hollywood at this point.) I’m pretty sure they could have found any number of actors, of any race, to fill these roles just as well. But, of course, I haven’t seen the movie, so I could be wrong. They may very well be (ahem) fantastic, and I will feel foolish for doubting it. But right now, going off a few very uninspiring trailers, I get a very distinct impression that Jordan is pure stunt casting in an attempt to win some credit for diversity, but was done in such a tone-deaf manner that it comes across as faintly racist.

[Broomstick]

I’m not entirely sure why, but I’m more comfortable with the notion that the Storm family was re-cast as black and thus it’s Sue who’s the odd one out rather than Johnny being adopted into a white family. Maybe it’s because it’s a way to open up a few more parts for minority actors rather than just one? I don’t know. That’s just a first impression and subject to change.

And, again, a LOT depends on how well the movie and story are done as a whole.