# Switching the Race of Characters **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 13, 2019, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460 "2019-06-13T02:53:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/441 "2019-06-27T19:32:10Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > And speaking of Batman, it would be a bigger change to make Bruce Wayne Black simply because of how wealth and race and vigilantism intersect in the American culture; in short, White Batman can say he has an obligation to Gotham and can leave it at that. Black Batman has to either say he has an obligation to the Black people of Gotham or he can pointedly _not_ say that; either way, said or unsaid, it’s there, and it can’t not be there. > > I think Idris Elba would make a great Batman. I also think he’d be meaningfully different and that any script written for Elbatman would have to take that into account. Granted I am not a Batman fan. But I don’t understand why a black Batman would have to profess his allegiance to black Gothamites. I mean, would it be reasonable to assume that white Batman only cares about white Gothamites? Why would we hold a black Batman to a different standard than a white Batman? Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/442 "2019-06-27T20:42:43Z")
> [@CAH66](#): > > When I said “character trait” I ONLY used it in the sense of “one element of all the things that make up an indivdual.” Character traits are not that. They are specifically [behavioural elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait_theory).\*\*\* Being tall \*\*\*is _not_ a character trait. _ **Being shy** _ because you’re much taller than everyone else is. _ **Being old** _ is _not_ a character trait. _ **Being grumpy** _ because those darn kids won’t get off your lawn, is. Having dark skin is like being tall or old, not like being shy or grumpy. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/443 "2019-06-27T20:46:08Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > For that matter, another change the MCU made to Spider-Man was making Peter into Tony Stark’s Li’l Pal. This was a comics thing way before the MCU. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/444 "2019-06-27T21:59:13Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > Why would we hold a black Batman to a different standard than a white Batman? In short: Black Lives Matter Modern Batman is outside the Gotham police system. He might have a Gordon on the inside to work with, but the whole point of Batman in modern incarnations is that he can do things the GCPD won’t do because most of them are owned by the mob, at least to begin with. He’s a symbol of justice in a city where the police are anything but. (I say “modern” above explicitly to mean not Silver Age, and not 1960s TV show.) So a Black man exacting justice outside the context of the police and normal legal system in modern America is doing so in the context of everything BLM and similar groups are fighting against. His justice is untarnished by racism, implicitly or explicitly in contrast to what the police are doing, whether or not the Gotham police are ever explicitly shown to be racists in the work. The point that Batman doesn’t kill is suddenly in contrast to the fact police kill Black people at a higher rate. Maybe this is still true when Batman is White… but we didn’t have this discussion around the Bale or Affleck Batmen, did we? I’ll leave you with this: The film _M_ by Fritz Lang was originally meant to be titled _Mörder unter uns_ (_Murderer Among Us_) but he got death threats and was denied the use of a studio because the owner of the studio was a Nazi concerned that Lang was planning to call Nazis murderers. All art exists in a context, and even relatively escapist fiction is interpreted relative to the events of the time it is made. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/445 "2019-06-27T22:12:10Z")
> [@CAH66](#): > > The only thing different about Stark being Peter’s mentor was that they moved it up in time (because they are trying to cram plotlines from almost 60 years’ into a cohesive cinematic continuity.) When Peter was an Avenger and his home was destroyed during a battle, Tony Stark let Peter and family live in Stark Tower for a while, and they developed a close relationship. He hired Peter for his science and engineering skills at a pretty generous salary, and Stark made the Iron Spider suit you saw in the movies. For a time, Stark was every bit a mentor/father figure to Peter who kind of hero-worshiped him in return. They had a significant falling out during Marvel’s Civil War event, and haven’t ever really gone back to that closeness they once had. Interesting. Shows you how long it’s been since I read comics. Not sure how I feel about that. It’s very different from what I’ve always understood Spider-Man to be. But then there’s no shortage of comic book plot developments that I don’t care for. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2019, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/446 "2019-06-27T23:05:50Z")
> [@CAH66](#): > > That has been a very gradual change, year after year. Comic characters always exist in the nebulous recent past. Also, PP has grown gradually older over the years and is now an adult. It’s not like coming to work and saying “Oh, Bob’s Asian this week. Looks good on him.” Is he the same Peter Parker though? Gradual or not there’s a pretty big difference. ---
**Author:** ![CAH66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@CAH66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CAH66)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/447 "2019-06-28T04:22:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Character traits are not that. They are specifically [behavioural elements](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trait_theory).\*\*\* Being tall \*\*\*is _not_ a character trait. _ **Being shy** _ because you’re much taller than everyone else is. _ **Being old** _ is _not_ a character trait. _ **Being grumpy** _ because those darn kids won’t get off your lawn, is. > > Having dark skin is like being tall or old, not like being shy or grumpy. Having read your link and a couple other definitions elsewhere, you are 100% correct. I used “character trait” when I should have used “characteristic.” I had thought the two were basically synonymous, but I was completely misusing it. Thanks for setting me straight on that. ---
**Author:** ![CAH66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@CAH66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CAH66)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/448 "2019-06-28T04:55:06Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Does Peter Parker have to be a New Yorker? Can he be from somewhere else? Can Spider-Man be based in a different city? This is an interesting question that someone else might answer very differently than I would. For me personally, New York basically equals “big American city with lots of tall buildings.” Having never been there, things like Central Park and the Triborough Bridge are names for things that don’t mean anything to me other than, well, a big park and a big bridge. (When I read DC books, Metropolis is sort of like “clean and shiny New York” and Gotham is like “seedy and gritty New York.”) My lack of direct experience of the real NYC means that one megalopolis is basically like another as far as I know, and I don’t feel in any way connected to it. A native New Yorker would undoubtedly be able to recognize many more things that I’m utterly blind to. And it might not be only places and buildings and such, but habits or phrases or touches of NYC that I’m going to blow right by. If there’s a particular NYC “flavor” to the books as opposed to just “big city-tall buildings,” I could definitely see a New Yorker saying that’s a big deal to him to have Spidey in a place he calls home. ---
**Author:** ![CAH66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@CAH66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CAH66)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/449 "2019-06-28T05:08:17Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Is he the same Peter Parker though? Gradual or not there’s a pretty big difference. I would say so, yes. At least, for a certain value of “same” 🙂 He’s not\* identical\* of course. But he’s recognizably the same guy. in the same way that somebody who’s known you over the last ten years still recognizes you to be naita, even though you’ve undoubtedly changed some. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/450 "2019-06-28T05:47:42Z")
Didn’t keep up, sorry… > [@Chronos](#): > > > [@Kimstu](#): > > > > Not a comic book, but these discussions always remind me of the George Macdonald Fraser short story “Johnnie Cope in the Morning”, one of his “Private McAuslan” stories about a Highland Scots regiment after the end of WWII. In this story, a new member of the platoon wants to join the regimental pipe band. He’s an excellent bagpiper and thoroughly qualified but the senior officers are tying themselves in knots about it because…he happens to be black. (Scots father, W. Indian mother IIRC.) The band just won’t look right, the officers fret. > > > > And mind you, this is in a regiment that has tall men and short men, thin men and fat men, bespectacled men and bald men, hirsute men and smooth-skinned men, brown-eyed men and blue-eyed men, pale men and swarthy men, black-haired, red-haired and yellow-haired men, all of which are simply taken for granted as part of “normal” variation in appearance. But let a new guy show up with skin dark enough to qualify him for a different racial category, and somehow that’s a far more “obvious” kind of difference. (He was eventually allowed to join the band, btw.) > > And if you were to make a movie (or TV episode, or whatever) of this story, would it make sense to cast a white actor as the new piper? Would it make sense to cast black actors as any of the existing band members? For **this particular story** specifically about anti-black racist prejudice in a white regiment shortly after WWII, no, I’d keep the characters as written. But for several other Private McAuslan stories, I think they’d work just fine if the race of some characters was changed. It would ding the historical accuracy of the setting a bit (since the historical setting is a traditionally and persistently racist and anti-race-mixing society even if the particular plot isn’t about racism), but it wouldn’t hurt the story. Similarly, if a superhero story isn’t specifically **about** racial issues, then I think the race of the character can probably be changed successfully, even if the original setting of the story was a racist and/or racially segregated society. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/451 "2019-06-28T12:55:22Z")
> [@CAH66](#): > > I would say so, yes. At least, for a certain value of “same” 🙂 > He’s not\* identical\* of course. But he’s recognizably the same guy. in the same way that somebody who’s known you over the last ten years still recognizes you to be naita, even though you’ve undoubtedly changed some. Yes, but over the last 40 years I haven’t changed my birthdate, even once. ---
**Author:** ![CAH66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7bcc69/32.png) [@CAH66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CAH66)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/452 "2019-06-28T15:23:00Z")
> [@naita](#): > > Yes, but over the last 40 years I haven’t changed my birthdate, even once. Ah, I see what you mean now. It’s really just a thing that’s always been a particular aspect of comics. Characters either age not at all or very, very slowly. So you see a thirty-something Bruce Wayne with an antique looking Batmobile or using a dial telephone in one issue and 50 years later he’s driving a high-tech wonder with holographic displays, voice activated comms, and is still a nebulous thirty-something. Dick Grayson, the original Robin, debuted sometime in the early 40’s as an undefined young teen. He aged up to young adulthood and became Nightwing in the mid-80’s. So something like 40 or 45 years goes by, and Dick ages \*about \* 10 years, while Bruce doesn’t apparently age at all, at least insofar as you can see. That’s part of what’s weird is that the ages are so non-specific that you can only really guess most of the time. Occasionally you get a milestone event, like entering college, that narrows it down for a bit, but you still can’t tell how much time is passing “in universe.” My best guess is that Peter Parker started as roughly 15 or 16, and is currently hovering somewhere around 30, plus or minus a couple years. Stretchy time is also not strictly limited to comics. James Bond is a good example of a character that’s always in the “now” even though the actors swap in and out and they’ve made movies since the 60’s. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/453 "2019-06-28T15:24:46Z")
**Kimstu** , what if they made a TV series of the Private McAuslan stories, and they started off with mixed-race casting because it didn’t matter for the stories, but then got to the one about the black bagpiper? Do they re-cast everyone for that one episode? Do they just skip over that one story? Do they keep the same cast, and pretend that it somehow makes sense? What if they started making the TV show while the stories were still being written, and didn’t know in advance that there was eventually going to be one about racism? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/454 "2019-06-28T18:27:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > **Kimstu** , what if they made a TV series of the Private McAuslan stories, and they started off with mixed-race casting because it didn’t matter for the stories, but then got to the one about the black bagpiper? Do they re-cast everyone for that one episode? Do they just skip over that one story? Yeah, I think they’d have to skip that one story. If they do mixed-race casting, they are altering the historical context of the stories in that specific aspect, by eliding the pervasiveness of racial prejudice and racial segregation among mid-20th-century white Britons. You can’t really do “Johnnie Cope in the Morning” without having one black soldier joining a previously all-white battalion. (Even back then the “colour bar” wasn’t absolutely ironclad, of course—witness the fact that the black bagpiper on the “Johnnie Cope” story did actually get into the battalion and the pipe band; but it was salient enough to be the primary point of that story. Come to think of it, though, it might be possible to have some non-white soldiers elsewhere in the battalion, and have the officers worried simply that the pipe band would “look odd” with one non-white player? Not sure.) Anyway, as long as they do a good job with “General Knowledge, Private Information”, which I am [on record as declaring to be the funniest short story in the English language](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19299182&postcount=4), the series will be fine. > [@Chronos](#): > > What if they started making the TV show while the stories were still being written, and didn’t know in advance that there was eventually going to be one about racism? 😕 You mean, if screenwriters nowadays were writing an original series set in that historical setting at the end of WWII? I don’t see how such a situation could arise in that case, because obviously the screenwriters for an ongoing series know what race the cast members are and how that could affect potential story plots. Now you have got me seriously frustrated over the fact that there **isn’t** a cinematic version of the Private McAuslan stories. There should be, mixed-race casting or no mixed-race casting. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/455 "2019-06-29T00:45:47Z")
Yes, they’d know who the cast members are, but they wouldn’t know all of the plots of the stories. Though your answer of “skip that one” would still apply, in that case. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/456 "2019-07-03T23:41:37Z")
[Disney casts Halle Bailey as Ariel in the live-action “Little Mermaid”](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/disney-finds-little-mermaid-star-singer-halle-bailey-1220951) I’m guessing there will be some white tears shed over this. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/457 "2019-07-04T00:28:36Z")
I originally read that as Halle Berry! Perhaps it’s just me, but is anyone just sick of reboots in the first place? How many Superman/Spiderman/Batman movies do their need to be? Can’t they just come up with something new? No matter WHAT their race is. Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn’t. Again, switching the race of Roland Deschain would indeed affect the plot if you did the _Dark Tower_ entire series. You’d have to leave out pretty much everything about Susanna’s entire backstory. Or if you did _Anne of Green Gables_ – not only could not have a non-white Anne, you couldn’t even have a blond Anne, or a brunette Anne. Anne HAS to have red hair. Imagine Anne with black hair??? No freaking way – Anne absolutely, positively MUST be a ginger! Or a white Shaft, for that matter? On the other hand, I could see a black Bruce Banner, provided he turned green when he became the Hulk. (Hulk has to be green) 😉 But once again, enough of the reboots!!! ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/458 "2019-07-04T01:01:20Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Or if you did _Anne of Green Gables_ – not only could not have a non-white Anne, you couldn’t even have a blond Anne, or a brunette Anne. Anne HAS to have red hair. Imagine Anne with black hair??? No freaking way – Anne absolutely, positively MUST be a ginger! I dunno. I think redheaded little orphans named Anne have been recast as African American children before :). ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/459 "2019-07-04T01:16:37Z")
A simple change: > [@](#): > > Yes, it’s curly," she said resignedly. "Now you see why I can’t be perfectly happy. Nobody could who had curly hair. I don’t mind the other things so much—the freckles and the green eyes and my skinniness. I can imagine them away. I can imagine that I have a beautiful rose leaf complexion and lovely starry violet eyes. But I cannot imagine that curly hair away. I do my best. I think to myself, “Now my hair is gloriously straight, straight as falling water.” But all the time I know it is just plain curly, and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2019, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/460 "2019-07-04T01:17:31Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > On the other hand, I could see a black Bruce Banner, provided he turned green when he became the Hulk. (Hulk has to be green) 😉 Actually, the Hulk has been grey, red, blue, and white (not really, but let it go) at various times. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460.md?page=24)