My biggest problem with a black Spiderman is why do we need ANOTHER Spiderman series. Can’t we leave it alone for a bit. Get some new ideas Hollywood, am I right?
Allow me to restate: When a white character is cast with a non-white actor, suddenly it’s about being “true to the source material.” When an Asian character is cast using a white person, suddenly being true to the source material doesn’t matter at all.
I certainly respect your opinion but I guess I still can’t see it.
All kinds of movies and characters have been re-invented and re-imagined in recent years. 40 or 50 years ago there weren’t a lot of roles for non-white actors or stories that made an effort to be multi-cultural. If we go for strict accuracy it’s going to leave a lot of actors shut out, as well as shutting out lots of kids who want to watch a movie with characters who look like them.
I think it’s great that Hollywood is making some effort toward diversity, even if they still have a long way to go and a lot of these roles are only going to a few breakout stars. If some young black kids can be inspired by a Peter Parker who they can relate to I think that would be a good thing. Yes, that would require changing the character to reflect a different culture. I still think it could work.
I am thinking of people like Will Smith starring in I am Legend, a role that was previously played by Vincent Price and Charlton Heston. They are both pretty iconic figures (though I suppose you could argue the story these movies were based upon weren’t a part of peoples lives to the extent that a comic book character might be). I think it worked just fine with Smith in the role (well OK, the movie was not great but it had nothing to do with the casting). Why not have a black man as a high ranking government scientist?
I guess part of what I am not understanding, do people think a black Peter Parker would be some kind of act of vandalism to the character that would necessarily ruin the story or just something you would not be particularly interested in seeing? The latter I can understand, the former I can’t.
You know that Agent J was white in the comic, don’t you?
No, really, he was. And they had to rewrite the character considerably to fit Will Smith into it, making it a Will Smith character. But they could do it, because the character wasn’t familiar, the beats the changed character hit were similiar in the relationship, and because it just worked.
Nicest, it’s part of the Mighty Marvel Manner of writing characters. They’re personalities, before powers. You could maybe make Ben Grimm a black guy. He’s Jewish, true, but he’s from a time when the jewish experience in NYC was like the black experience today. You could make Sue or Johnny black. You could make Reed Richards black, in the no-drama Obama style.
Hawkeye? Sure. Tony Stark? Rreeeally tricky, you’d be edging on bad stereotypes there.
You could make most of the Marvel characters black, with minor violence to their backgrounds.
But Peter Parker, it just doesn’t work for the urban environment of the character. It doesn’t work for the family connections. It’s just a bad specific choice.
Again, you could make Spider-Man black… but not Peter Parker.
You can’t make Steve Rogers, the Living Legend of WWII black, either, without violence to the character. You can make a black WWII Captain America. But he’ll face different challenges, and he’ll be a completely different character. (in fact, he was.)
Air Bender casting calls specified whites for what had been Asian roles in the series, and then cast an Asian in the bad guy role. That is not cool. It is not as if they had an open casting call and whites just happened to audition better; we can’t even pretend that is the case here.
I don’t have a problem with a black Peter Parker, partly because I knew nerdy black kids on the school paper and yearbook. A black kid being raised by an aunt in New York certainly is no stretch. I don’t recall any storyline that hinged on Peter Parker being white. I’d have a harder time dealing with a blond Superman. That said there are more important reasons not to be bothered by such a casting.
Whites, especially WASPs, are accepted in many ways as the default and generic American, just as man is accepted as the default sex. I’ve been told many times that Man includes men and women. If I am supposed to believe that sentences like, “Every student has his pencil.” include me, how can any one object if the picture illustrating that shows a female student? In a similar way, we are told certain characters represent “Any Man”, and this is suppose to be powerful because such characters speak to everyone. Do we really want to say that no, black people are not part of Any Man?
Now, why not generalize roles formerly cast or presented as white, as some other race, unless there is actual story that makes it incompatible? Wesley Snipes’ role was all the better for him being black as it made the racism charge all the more outrageous and highlighted how surreal it was.
If we want to enjoy culture of the past and use it made anew as a large part of out current culture, we do a grave disservice to non-whites and women if we don’t recast some roles. If a story can survive updated fashion, why can’t it stand more important updates? Do all the meaty roles have to go to white men from now on just because they did so in previous centuries? I think we do not have to be so bound, no more than Shakespeare was bound to using Italians in Romeo and Juliet and Danes in Hamlet. From what I understand, he did not bother even to put his characters in period costume.
Not being happy with a black Peter Parker, at least for me, has absolutely nothing to do with racial anything, any more than my insistance on a vaguely saurian Godzilla could be construed as bigotry. To me, the simplest way to put it is that Peter Parker, like Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, have always had the appearance of white males. Black characters have at times stepped in to assume the titles that these guys have originated, but when that happens, it’s clear that they are distinctly different people than the ones who originated the title or role. I would automatically reject a black Peter Parker for the same reasons that I would reject Danny DeVito playing as Thor; has nothing to do with superiority, has everything to do with established character traits.
The difference between these two things is that “whitewashing” the cast of Avatar is actually oppressive, because it makes minorities invisible. It just reinforces the idea that the only important stories we have to tell are the ones about white people, and that only white people can be heroes. Making Peter Parker black is the opposite: it’s saying that people with dark skin can also be heroes and their stories are also worth telling. I don’t believe there are any valid justifications for the argument that making white characters something other than white is oppressive in the same way, because there is no doubt that the accomplishments of white people are valued in mainstream culture.
Could Aang be black?
Nope. I’m not even sure I knew it was a comic book before it was a movie. But I enjoyed the movie. These films are usually designed to appeal to a wider audience than just the comic fan base. Maybe that is why the hardcore fans are usually disappointed with the film versions.
The problem I have with “it should be this way because it has always been this way” argument is that it means a lot of non-whites and non-males will be forever shut out. I mean, sure Hollywood could just do something original that was intended for a black or Latino or Asian or Female actor, but who are we kidding? Hollywood rarely does anything new and original.
I don’t know how much interest there would be in a black Peter Parker but if some filmmaker dreamed of making it happen I say, why not? Sure, a lot of the original fan base might have no interest but maybe people who had no interest in the character when he was white would discover something in the archetype they could relate to. Isn’t there room for multiple interpretations?
Ahem. Please step back while I get out this bullhorn.
IT IS A FANTASY MOVIE SET ON A NON-EARTH WORLD. THERE ARE NO EARTH RACES INVOLVED. PLEASE LOOK UP “FICTION.”
Thank you. To hear all of the whining about race casting in a movie supposedly so bad that only five people will ever see it anyway is befuddling to me.
OK, the following response is a hypothetical which is probably either severely stupid, requires a new thread, or both. I also apologize for using either with a list of three.
Anyway…Ok, so imagine somebody wrote an obscure fantasy book, complete with a fictional world and everything. In this world there were two major races/ethnicities: the Strongbrights, and the Dumdarks. Not an allegory or commentary of any kind, this world just happened to contain light-skinned people who were typically strong, intelligent, and brave, where-as those with more melanin were the reverse. In the book it’s not prejudiced for brights to feel and act superior, since that’s just how it is in this world. The author is vehement in claiming that the people in his book are not based on earth notions of light and dark skin, but that they are completely separate and self-contained in his universe. If a major motion picture was made of this book, with the obvious implications, would people be justified in complaining? Would their complaints be seen as whiny and ignorant since, again, the book is not based off any earth race or ethnicity?
My point is that just because something is fictional doesn’t mean it can’t have racial and ethnic implications, or any real-world implications at all for that matter. In other, shorter words, I don’t buy it one cotton-pickin’ minute. Furthermore, In Avatar’s case, sure it’s not earth, but it’s heavily, heavily based off earth. Since it’s hard to find actors from cartoon-world, perhaps using actors similar to the various ethnicities the animation was based on would not have been a bad choice.
With all that said and done (and I can’t believe I’m still arguing about this), I agree that the hullabaloo is overblown, but my opinion adamantly remains that the casting choices were wrong wrong wrong. So take your bullhorn and…well you know the rest 
I wish to emphasize because, due to the tone of the rest of your post, I think you have the impression that the above is my personal opinion, that I have already stated that I think it would be possible to portray a black Peter Parker, I just think it’s unlikely to happen.
That doesn’t mean every character can be as easily made into another ethnicity. I’d hate to see an entertainment world where suddenly all the leads had to go to black people to prove how enlightened we are, leaving everyone else out in the cold. There are some instances where the ethnicity IS important to the character - having a white man play Othello would sort of negate the storyline, wouldn’t it? (unless you completely reversed the casting and made it a white man in a black society. And yes, I know white men used to play Othello in blackface. Men used to play women in Shakespearean theater, too. I’m talking about today’s world, not 1653 or whatever.)
In my lifetime I’m seeing more and more roles being cast without regard to race, which is a good thing. When I was a child there was no such thing as a “black Hollywood leading man”. A role like the lead in I Am Legend is really not bound to race, race doesn’t enter into the story, heck, for most of it he’s entirely on his own. Why shouldn’t a black man have an equal shot at it? But Henry VIII should be cast as a white man just as Chaka Zulu should be cast as a black man, because you’re talking about a historical figure of a very specific group of people. Even if the actor playing Henry VIII isn’t English he should at least have a chance of passing as such, and whoever plays Chaka, if not a Zulu, should have at least a resemblance to one.
Now, does Peter Parker require a set ethnicity? Honestly, I haven’t thought about it before this thread.
Maybe. I’m not sure we’re at that point yet.
Now - there are some comic book characters for whom their race/ethnicity is so integral to their character I don’t think it can be changed. Luke Cage, for example - recasting him as something other than NYC black kid turns superhero wouldn’t work, because he was created specifically to be a black hero. The villain Magneto’s character is founded upon the persecution he suffered as a European Jew during WWII - changing that would really fundamentally change the character. If he’s not played by an actual Jew he still has to be played by someone who is believably an Eastern European Jew of that era. Thus, Jackie Chan and Will Smith are both out of the running. And you know what? Ian McKellan, who played Magneto in the movies, is a fine actor but I don’t think he would have been convincing in the martial arts roles that made Jackie Chan a star.
Does Peter Parker fall into “immutably white”? Interesting question.
Why not, indeed. 50 years ago Will Smith would never have been cast in that role - and 50 years ago a black man would not have been elected President of the United States. Our society has changed significantly in regards to race. I think most people who went to see I Am Legend never blinked at the Will Smith casting. It really is a character where race/ethnicity is irrelevant to the story.
Now - Will Smith in Wild Wild West did NOT work. The setting was the US in the immediate post-Civil War era and while there were obviously black men in the country earning a living I just don’t see it as even remotely plausible that a black man could be James West during that period.
Yes, I think there are substantial amount of people for whom recasting Parker as anything but white would be “vandalism”. Making him Asian or Hispanic would be just as jarring to such people. There are, after all, bigots still at large in the world, as well as people lacking in imagination for whom the first sets the tone for all that comes after.
To be fair, Broomstick, I think making Peter Parker blonde is pretty much just as much vandalism to the character as making him black. Easier rectified by makeup, but you get my point?
And, I should point out that we have had people who wanted to make Lex Luthor Kryptonian and have him engage in a kung fu fight with Superman.
Broomstick, do you honestly think that anyone who would resist a non-white Peter Parker is an unimaginative bigot? Seriously? If so, I have to say that insinuation is extremely offensive to me and I would question whether or not you had read and comprehended the posts in this thread that have argued against a non-white PP for reasons totally unrelated to racial bigotry.
I don’t want a black Peter Parker for the same reasons I don’t want a white Shaft; you want a black superhero with Spidey powers, make up a new one, and if you want a white tough streetwise private dick who gets all the chicks, then you had better not call him Shaft. Has NOTHING to do with racism or bigotry, has everything to do with established characters.
No, not everyone opposed to a black Peter Parker could be classified as a bigot, but it’s foolish to think that’s not a factor in a certain fraction of people who hold that opinion.
Plenty of people are non-bigots but resistant to non-traditional casting. THOSE people I’d call unimaginative. They may or may not also be bigots.
Sure, I’ve read the posts regarding reasons other than bigotry why a black (or blond) Peter Parker is “vandalizing” the character. Folks are, as always, entitled to their opinions. 40 years of a character always being portrayed as white does carry some weight… but there have been other characters that had a similar history portrayed by “non-traditional” actors that worked well, so it’s not an iron-clad reason.
I just finished watching Avatar: The Last Airbender (thanks to recommendations from Dopers). I was really impressed. I don’t think I would object to having white people cast in lead roles per se. (Lots of non-Asian actors did voices in the series too, and the animation style leaves race somewhat vague in many cases.)
BUT the way they cast it I do find somewhat offensive. It looks like they asked specifically for white actors (“oh and all other races can try out too”) for the leads, but put calls out for Asian/Inuit/Etc. extras and smaller roles. That says clearly to me that the studio knows the story is saturated by these cultural influences, but that for the important roles, only the more worthy Caucasians will do. That’s a much different situation from “Anyone of any race should audition, and the most capable people will be cast, regardless of race,” which I would have been fine with.
I grew up reading comics (father owned a comic book store) and I’ve always thought - if you want a new character, make a new character. So, Peter should stay a white, male, nerd from Queens.
Making him a female, black, russian imigrant triathlete from Wisconsin named Pietra Parker and insisting it’s the same person just doesn’t make sense. That character may be great, but it’s someone else. And you don’t need to make all of those changes to ruin the character. Peter is Peter, someone else is not.
As far as Airbender, I don’t think I know enough about it to have a strong feeling one way or the other. However, my gut tells me that there may be enough people who have no idea what it is that it really doesn’t matter - but I’ll reserve judgment for the more well informed. So, I guess my answer is that it’s OK with me, but I could be way off base.
I just realized that I made my post without mentioning the racial/racism issues that the thread is kind of about. I don’t know - I guess I just don’t think of it that way. I don’t see that it matters. If you screw up the story, I’m not happy.
If they made Luke Cage or Storm white - that would be equally annoying as making Peter black. I don’t consider any of the above racist or uncreative; just a desire to see some respect for the classics.
As to whether making Airbender characters white is somehow racist - I have no clue, I’m not least bit familiar with the source material. Is not making them white also racist, in the same way that not making Parker black might be racist? I can never remember the rules…
But that’s not what they did. Mind you, I haven’t seen the movie, but from reading the complaints here and elsewhere, they didn’t replace good guys with one race and bad guys with another, or make any other such racist substitutions – they just didn’t match the “races” people were “imagining” on characters of the movie, pretty much across the board. I stick by my bullhorned clause: they were making a movie about a fictional world, and chose actors based on properties other than race. I really, really don’t see the issue. No, stronger; I’d RATHER that race wasn’t a deciding characteristic when choosing actors for fictional character roles, except when the race matters (which in non-Earth settings, it doesn’t). They were deliberately NOT making a statement about race, and if we’re going to start calling that racist, well…
As for your specific example, I suspect that if a movie was made of your proposed book, that people would complain vehemently if they DIDN’T leave the racist casting, because “it’s not true to the source material” – basically the same issue discussion we’re having now about Airbender. And yes, I’d argue they should have mixed it up. In fact, I’d be arguing exactly what I’m arguing right now. Your counterargument seems to support rather than deny my position.
And since I didn’t answer the OP before: black Peter Parker is fine. We’ve seen several of these race-switched (e.g. Jim West of Wild Wild West) or gender-switched (e.g. Starbuck of BSG) or both (e.g. Boomer of BSG) characters in fiction and the world didn’t come to an end. The more we present the idea that race just doesn’t matter, the better.
I’m okay with either. The only time I think I ever objected loudly to such a change was when the Sci Fi channel made all the people of Earthsea white, when they were quite obviously black in the novel as a way for white American teenagers to relate to black people. The production subverted that and made the author and I very unhappy. Usually Ursula LeGuin has a stick up her butt, however, in this case she was correct.