A new series on Netflix starring someone I never heard of. The opening two weren’t bad. The only nitpick I have is all these billionaires riding around in chauffeured Hyundai SUVs. That’s right: Hyundai. I understand sponsorship and product placement, but it just looks silly.
I will likely check it out. The reviews are, surprisingly, very bad.
However, I thought Luke Cage was a total snooze and it had good reviews. I will likely check this out tonight.
Luke Cage was drawn out about three padded episodes too long, but good other than that.
I saw that the reviews were poor, but there were also comments that the bad reviews seemed to center around the fact that the protagonist is white instead of Asian. Got no dog in that fight.
My kids are Asian, so I guess I have a dog in that fight. Still, I didn’t know the character was Asian and support different races playing roles. I didn’t mind Tilda Swinton in Dr. Strange, either.
There must be something random to my preferences. I was disappointed that the Last Airbender movie didn’t cast Asian kids since it was an opportunity to portray Asian kids in a positive way. The movie was horrible, anyway, so it didn’t matter.
He never was. From the very beginning in 1974 he was drawn as a blond, white guy. Which is why I find this particular controversy a bit silly. Unlike Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange there is literally no switcheroo going on here.
The review I heard was also that it was boring, poorly written, and poorly acted. I’ve watched and enjoyed DD, JJ, and LC but unless I read y’all saying “Wow!” I’m going to skip this one.
Not sure what I think about the whiteness of a martial arts superhero character who was white in the comics. The source material is White savior trope. You don’t want to deal with the trope maybe choose a different superhero story.
After two episodes: not as bad as the reviews make it sound. It is pretty annoying how clueless Danny is about how his return looks though. He was 10 or 12 or something when the plane crashed, that’s old enough to know better about how the world works.
I’m three episodes in, and I’m hooked. The story is pretty faithful to Danny’s comics origin.
That’s not really the case, though, from what I’ve seen. If Danny being a pretty classic example of the Mighty Whitey trope is mentioned, it’s generally either in the context of saying it’s the least of the show’s problems, or acknowledging that the show has taken steps to minimize that.
The controversy around Danny Rand is that it plays into the “Great White Savior” and “Mysterious Orient” tropes that are largely discredited these days. Way back when Netflix first announced it was doing a bunch of Marvel TV shows, some blog out there suggested that casting an Asian actor as Danny Rand would help the show avoid those tropes without having to significantly alter Danny’s backstory, plus it would help alleviate the incredible whiteness of the heroes in the Marvel universe.
I just watched the first, and I could barely finish it. I’m not bothered really by him being white, but he’s both stupid and douchey. Also, minor spoiler, he corners someone who attacked him, the chief security guard employed by the asshole who as a child locked him in a freezer and otherwise tormented him, and who earlier in the episode manhandled him out of a building, and he shouts, “WHO SENT YOU?!” at the guy.
Also, minor spoiler, the asshole executive and his domineering dad? Written and acted far better on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
If the second episode is tremendously better than the first, I might try it–but so far it hits all my “this show is shit” buttons.
I have only watched the first one, but it was really good. I know absolutely zero about Iron First, so I have no bias coming in.
It is. I still have a bunch of complaints, but episode 2 is a significant improvement on the first in most ways, but particularly Danny’s personality. (Episode 3 is a bit of a backslide in that regard, but not to episode 1 levels.)
Okay, that’s an entirely more reasonable argument. Not sure it is great idea, mind you. But at least it makes a lot more sense than “martial arts guy should be Asian.”
ETA: Of course by the same argument, Tilda Swinton presumably* kinda subverted the “Mysterious Orient” trope as well, with the ancient Asian sage.
- Presumably, since I still haven’t seen that one.
Okay, I’ve got a theory.
In the first episode, he’s slumped down next to a pile of homeless person cliches, and he says, “The purpose of life is to find your purpose, according to the Buddha.” That sounded nothing like any Buddhism I’d ever heard of, so I Googled it, and sure enough I found it attributed to the Buddha.
On a site called “Fake Buddha Quotes.”
Turns out it’s from a “wildly paraphrased” translation of the Boddhisatva by a Brit named Anne Bancroft (no, not that Anne Bancroft); apparently a better translation is the still-kind-of-dick quote:
Now, the thing is, if Danny had actually trained with Shaolin monks, he’d be familiar with the quote in Mandarin, and he wouldn’t ever offer such a dumb translation. This is what you’d get if you did a shitty Google search for inspirational Buddhism quotes to sprinkle into your dialogue.
BUT! I’m not suggesting the writers did that.
No. Danny did.
Here’s my theory: Danny, for whatever reason, wasn’t on that plane. Maybe he was a young stoner who ran away and stole some money. He’s been bumming around for the last fifteen years, and the best job he ever had was dishwasher at an Olive Garden. One night when he was super-stoned he got his hand caught in the pasta machine, and in the Marvel Universe, bim bam boom, super-powers, including a fist that turns into iron.
As an origin story, that sucks. So Kun Lun, Shaolin monks, all that jazz? Total bullshit he’s invented to not sound like such a lamer. He spent some time Googling Inspirational Buddhist Sayings so he could sprinkle them into his speech.
The reason why he’s such an idiot in the first episode? He’s still totally baked. His noodlemaker superpowers are the only things keeping him upright.
And Joy didn’t drug him. It’s the first time he had coffee, and it turns out to be his kryptonite.
Now, you may be thinking of something in the second episode that proves me wrong, but I don’t think so, I think he’s just continuing the con.
Do you put out a newsletter, perchance?
Yeah, that was the explicit explanation Marvel gave for casting her - they were trying to get away from the 'Wise Old Asian Master" stereotype, and instead walked directly into the “erasing Asians” stereotype.
So, I’m up to episode four, and holy shit, Danny Rand is an insufferable prick. I mean, it’s in every scene, but somehow, the one that really drove it home was when he meets Colleen on the park, and pulls down a flyer literally give secinss after she put it up. It’s just… gah! Nothing about him is likable!
That said, I’m really enjoying the show. I like pretty much all of the supporting cast. It is kind of “young Donald Trump gets super powers,” and I’m not 100% sure if that intentional, and if so, where they’re going with that. I’m interested to find out, at least.
I find the supporting cast pretty weak, personally (which is a lot of why the series isn’t working as well as the others for me).
First of all, he doesn’t have much of one (at least as of episode 5, which is as far as I’ve gotten so far)…aside from the antagonists-who-might-be-not-entirely-trustworthy-allies, the Meachums, and Claire, who’s imported from…every other Netflix series, he’s only got Colleen. And secondly, Colleen is no Patsy, Karen, or Foggy. (Not that she’s a bad character, but she’s not a standout.)