# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/101 "2019-06-14T19:12:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > My point was that a character is more than just what’s inside that one person, but all of their interactions with the rest of the world. And skin color might or might not change that, depending on the setting. You could write about a green-skinned Superman in any setting, but he would definitely end up being a very different character than the one we have. You could write about a dark brown-skinned Superman in any setting, but in some settings he would end up being a very different character (though in other settings, he might only be a slightly different character). > > And no, you don’t have to make your version of Superman consistent with the versions of Superman who have come before. But it’s certainly an option. And if you choose that option, then that constrains how the character can look. > > Or, of course, you could write a story about a completely different character who flies and is bulletproof, but who looks like an Earthling human from Africa. Or you could write a story about a flying, bulletproof green alien. And of course a black Superman might be set in a Metropolis where his race is inconsequential. Plenty of movies have depicted New York with almost no minorities or as hell-holes of crime, or where there’s no racial tension, or as a place where people spontaneously burst into singing and dancing on spotless streets. Realism has always been relative. ---
**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 14, 2019, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/102 "2019-06-14T19:38:35Z")
Present-day Metropolis, sure, and I stated as much. Or in the past, if it’s a fantasy aspirational version of Metropolis. Heck, if we relax our requirements of realism enough, we could even have a Metropolis where green people are mainstream. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/103 "2019-06-14T20:13:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Present-day Metropolis, sure, and I stated as much. Or in the past, if it’s a fantasy aspirational version of Metropolis. > > Heck, if we relax our requirements of realism enough, we could even have a Metropolis where green people are mainstream. Yes, we certainly could. But a Metropolis in which a black Superman faces no negative racial consequences is somewhere between the green people Metropolis and an absolutely racially realistic Metropolis. And, as I said before, the movie business can certainly escape any accusation of having a history of being 100 percent realistic in terms of racial issues. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/104 "2019-06-14T20:17:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > And of course a black Superman might be set in a Metropolis where his race is inconsequential. > > Plenty of movies have depicted New York with almost no minorities or as hell-holes of crime, or where there’s no racial tension, or as a place where people spontaneously burst into singing and dancing on spotless streets. > > Realism has always been relative. This really is an awesome point. If I am watching a super hero movie, my disbelief is already suspended. If I can believe that the average Metropolite is uunfazed by a guy flying around in the air in his underwear, then it really isn’t that hard for me to imagine that Metropolites could be enlightened enough not to be wigged out by his skin color. Just because we have that hang-up doesn’t mean people in alternative universes have it too. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/105 "2019-06-14T20:36:42Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Yes, we certainly could. But a Metropolis in which a black Superman faces no negative racial consequences is somewhere between the green people Metropolis and an absolutely racially realistic Metropolis. And, as I said before, the movie business can certainly escape any accusation of having a history of being 100 percent realistic in terms of racial issues. To add more to this… It is not important for every hardship and challenge a character has faced in his life to be fleshed out in full detail. Because an audience has an imagination. Frequently it is more important just to know that the character has faced some hardship and challenges than to know the specifics of those hardships and challenges. I just watched the movie “Ma” that is now playing in theaters. Spoiler: The hardships and challenges that Octavia Spencer’s character has faced in life are shown in flashbacks, but we never find out why she was the target of such suffering. We just have to guess at it. Was it because of her race? Her physical appearance? Her nerdiness? We never know. No one ever calls her an ugly nigger nerd. All we know is that she was bullied by the popular kids in high school and that it made her crazy. Octavia could be white and skinny and her character could have had the same arc. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/106 "2019-06-14T20:46:43Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > So if Elves or Dwarves or Goblins or Klingons really existed, they wouldn’t resemble any modern ethnicities except by coincidence. Sure, when JRR Tolkein imagined Elves, he probably imagined them as white people. But even if they were “fair”, meaning pale skinned, that wouldn’t mean they should look like northern Europeans, any more than dark skinned people from South Asia always look like dark skinned people from Africa. It’s a failure of imagination. Just like Japanese people imagine mythological beings and aliens that look Japanese, Indians imagine Indians, and white Americans tend to imagine white people. But we all recognize that’s a failure of imagination, right? . I don’t mid elves that look black, or elves that look Chinese, or elves that look Polynesian. Any or all of these would be cool, and relatively original. My problem is seeing a community of elves, some of whom look white, some of whom look black, and some of whom look Asian, because I’d have questions: are some of them immigrants? Are they different castes? Are elves racist (with other elves, I mean; obviously they’re racist against humans, because, you know, elves)? Because let’s be honest: in many cases, race is evidence of racism. It’s not normal for people of different races to live alongside each other, because in a normal society, everyone has sex with everyone, and within four or five generations, everyone looks more or less the same (within the normal range of human appearance). A multiracial society is either a society in flux, or a society that places social restrictions on people fucking. Either way, I want to know the story. Ignoring it is lazy worldbuilding. ---
**Author:** ![Snake\_Plissken\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Snake\_Plissken\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snake_Plissken_1)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/107 "2019-06-14T21:02:16Z")
…had Pam Greer play ‘Jackie Brown’ in the movie of the same name. In Elmore Leonard’s original novel, ‘Rum Punch’, Jackie is a blond white woman. He didn’t do it on purpose. He just didn’t read the book. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/108 "2019-06-14T21:35:02Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don’t mid elves that look black, or elves that look Chinese, or elves that look Polynesian. Any or all of these would be cool, and relatively original. My problem is seeing a community of elves, some of whom look white, some of whom look black, and some of whom look Asian, because I’d have questions: are some of them immigrants? Are they different castes? Are elves racist (with other elves, I mean; obviously they’re racist against humans, because, you know, elves)? > > Because let’s be honest: in many cases, race is evidence of racism. It’s not normal for people of different races to live alongside each other, because in a normal society, everyone has sex with everyone, and within four or five generations, everyone looks more or less the same (within the normal range of human appearance). A multiracial society is either a society in flux, or a society that places social restrictions on people fucking. Either way, I want to know the story. Ignoring it is lazy worldbuilding. The traits we associate with racial categories will continue to exist in a population even when everyone is fucking each other. Because we not talking about paint being mixed together. We are talking about genes. So in another four-five generations, you will still find people who could be classified as “black”, “Asian”, and “white” according to today’s standards. It is just that the “Asian” person will have curlier hair and the “white” will have a broader nose and the “black” will have more almond shaped eyes. People may stop categorizing themselves racially but that does not mean they will be so homogoneous that you couldn’t classify them racially. To whit, a typical African American clan exhibits huge phenotype variation (blue-black skin all the way to damn-near-white). But chances everyone in thay family will be perceived as black according to the rando who looks at them. People are more likely to have sex with the people who are in close proximity than people far away. So even when we do become racially enlightened, I would expect to find more darker-skinned Americans living in the Deep South than in New England and more Asiatic-looking folks on the West Coast than on the East. I would expect this pattern to last for a really long time, actually. Especially if the economy ever crumbles and people can’t afford to travel as much. At any rate, most societies–or at least the most interesting kind–_are_ in flux. That is much more “normal” than a society that has remained homogenous for centuries. If I were to watch a movie with a motley-looking crew of elves, I would tell myself the same story I tell myself when I see Vulcans of different hues. “Oh, they have the same phenotypic diversity that Americans/humans do.” Hell, maybe they have more diversity. Maybe elves are prone to more mutations than humans are. You don’t need to have a world built for you. Just use some imagination. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/109 "2019-06-14T22:09:31Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > Ah, but you’re missing my point regarding Susana. Race may not matter, but sometimes it _does_. Othello is ALL about race. That’s the whole plot! Yes, but Othello doesn’t have to be black - he just has to be different than everyone else in the play. There has been at least one reversed-race _Othello_ with a white man cast in the title role and everyone else in the play being African American (way back in 1997, so more than 20 years ago). You could have an Asian Othello and everyone else either white or black. A black Othello and everyone else Asian. The major point of the play would still work. But an _Othello_ with a cast all mixed up racially and ethnically? No, I don’t think that would work, the primary message of the play would be diluted to meaninglessness. > [@RealityChuck](#): > > Historical figures have to be the correct race? > > Tell that to Lin-Manuel Miranda. What? Both Miranda and Hamilton are/were Puerto Rican… Oh, you mean the _rest of the cast_. 😛 Funny how no one seems to get their nickers in a twist over a black George Washington… but _Hamilton_ works with casting that ignores historical race/ethnicity based on its popularity. I haven’t personally seen it myself, but it would seem to be a production where musical and dance talent are primary requirements, and with the entire cast being all “mixed up” it seems to work because you don’t expect the actor’s race/ethnicity to match with the historical figure’s. I think if the majority of the cast had been tightly selected for matching with the historical physical appearance of the people they portray with only one or two standing out that might be problematic. > [@N9IWP](#): > > I thought Michael Clarke Duncan was a great choice to play Kingpin (since Kingpin’s main physical attribute is bigness) Vincent D’Onofrio was also a great choice - another big man, one who happens to be white just as Michael Clarke Duncan happened to be black. Given that Kingpin is from New York, which has long been a multi-ethinic, multi-racial city with lots of people from all over the world “typical New Yorker” could really be any race or ethnicity or any combination of them. I think you’re right - Kingpan’s main physical attribute is that he is a big man - not a fat man, but a tall, strong, physically imposing man. His ethnicity/race really could be anything. That’s not true for all characters in all contexts, though. > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I think a black or Asian cast doing Fiddler on the Roof in a Russian village setting would be a bit jarring. Actually, my father’s family is from the part of the world portrayed in _Fiddler on the Roof_ and looking at old photos of people in grandma’s generation and further back on her side… it’s very clear there’s Asian in that family tree. There actually were/are Jews of both part Asian descent, and there used to a branch of Judaism in China that were very much ethinic Chinese. Given the time and location someone of African ancestry as a random casting in that play would look odd to me. On the other hand, if you made the entire cast African-American I could probably go with it after the first few minutes. Yes, you’d know it wasn’t precisely historically accurate, but if they were true to the character and the text/music (that is, it was done respectfully and not as a farce or a joke) and were good at their roles I frankly wouldn’t have a problem with it. What, are you going to say kids in a high school drama class in a predominantly black neighborhood aren’t allowed to do that play because they’re the wrong ethnicity? How sad. And if kids in high school can do it why can’t a group of live, professional actors? > [@](#): > > On the other hand, doing Fiddler on the Roof with a multi-racial cast in any setting would take a substantial amount away from the plot and reduce the musical to essentially a concert. Or it could reflect the realty that Jews aren’t all just one skin color - it depends on how it’s done. I mean, sure, I’m Ashkenazi, but even the tiny little Jewish community in my neck of the woods have Jews of all sorts of backgrounds, from Ethiopia (CEO of the local Jewish Federation) to Argentina (the local Orthodox rabbi) to folks born and raised in the American Midwest to folks even more Russian than I am. The local Jewish-run nursery school looks like the United Nations. Maybe if we had more multi-racial productions of Jewish themed stories it would sink in that not all Jews are European in appearance. I’m sort of reminded of an on-line recreational outrage about the casting of Skye/Daisy Johnson in _Agents of Shield_, a character revealed to have an “Chinese” (actually Inhuman) mother - outrage! They cast a white girl as a half-Chinese girl! No, actually, they cast a [_half-Chinese, half-European actress to portray a half-Chinese, half European character_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloe_Bennet). A lot of people don’t seem to know what multi-ethnic people look like, or the possible range of variation. Seems you can’t win no matter what you do. “You can’t have an X that’s also a Y” - um, yeah, actually a lot of the time you can. It’s just that we’ve had such a long history of stereotyped casting that we no longer remember, or never learned, that the past was not as “pure” as film and TV have portrayed things to be. > [@Cheesesteak](#): > > Context matters. > > As mentioned already, you can cast our founding fathers as minorities (Hamilton) and not skip a beat. I’d say you could cast a black Superman, or James Bond, play it dead straight and it would work just fine. > > However, if you’re doing a serious Civil War drama, and cast black actors a slaves, white actors as slave owners and politicians and a historically accurate mix of other actors, you can’t just throw in Denzel as Robert E. Lee and let it go at that. You can’t really play that change straight and have it work, the casting pulls you out of the narrative. Yeah, in a historical narrative like that I think it only works with 1. An ethnically accurate cast 2. A fully mixed cast (like _Hamilton)_ 3. A “race reversed” cast, like that production of _Othello_ I mentioned. You have a cast that is almost entirely 1 or 3 then make an exception I think it pulls you out of the narrative in a was #2 doesn’t. > [@WOOKINPANUB](#): > > I’m almost as ignorant of superhero culture as I am of Christianity, but isn’t the canon surrounding Thor steeped in Norse mythology? It seems like that aspect is a pretty crucial part of his character and, to my mind, yes, Norse = big, blonde white guy. Except in the original myths Thor (and Loki) was portrayed as red-haired… so your image of a “big blond white guy” is already deviating from the source material. Perhaps because Marvel’s blond version in the comics set the image for a lot of folks who never went to the original source myths. > [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I think Balder was described as handsome and fair, which I took as fair-skinned, aka white. That implies that Thor was also white since they were brothers. There were different “races” in Norse mythology, but the races were gods, men, dwarves, giants, and I’ve probably missed a couple. I don’t think any were portrayed as dark-skinned. Hel was in some myths - but then, she was supposed to be half living woman and half dead woman. And her father, Loki, also fathered a giant wolf, a giant serpent, and _gave birth_ to Odin’s horse Sleipnir (which somehow never made it into the Marvel version, I just can’t imagine getting that past the Comics Code back in the Silver Age of comics). Since Loki was a shape-shifter who could turn from humanoid into a fully functioning female horse there is absolutely no reason you couldn’t cast anyone as Loki. Actually, Marvel’s version of the Norse deviates all over the place - in the original myths Odin and Loki were blood brothers and thus Loki was a sort of uncle to Thor and not his brother, Hel/Hela was Loki’s daughter, not a sister to either Thor or Loki. Heimdall was described as “the whitest of the gods” on at least one occasion and had golden teeth and not one but nine mothers - a lot different from the Idris Elba portrayal with golden eyes. You know what? I’m totally OK with that - with Elba being Heimdall, Loki being a brunette, Thor being blond, Marvel’s Asgard being multi-racial/ethinic. Why? Because they tell a good story. Because it’s fun. You know, the reason entertainment like that exists in the first place. > [@naita](#): > > TAnd to be honest the only thing about it that really irks me is when someone thinks they know Norse myths and they’ve only got drips through the Marvel universe. ^ This. I thoroughly enjoy the Marvel mythos, but I also know it’s not the historical Norse mythos, which I _also_ enjoy. It’s fine to like both, but I think it’s a good thing when people know the difference between historical accuracy and a modern re-imaging. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/110 "2019-06-14T22:23:23Z")
A for those responses that say, “but that’s different than race!,” it’s not because there’s something inherently different about race, but because we as a society have serious hangups about skin-color race. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/111 "2019-06-14T23:12:16Z")
> [@Omniscient](#): > > But… > > …they basically made Sam the new Captain America at the end of Endgame > (Overly cautious spoiler which is hard not to give context on without spoiling it) Yeah, that spoiler works because the change is made in 2019. It’s a situation where context in time actually does matter. > [@MrDibble](#): > > The svartálfar are dark skinned. Um… maybe. “Dark” could have referred to hair color. Or maybe they’re “dark elves” because they live in a dark place (underground). Frankly, I loved the fact that Marvel just ripped up the preconceptions on that one and hired an actual dwarf to play a Dwarf then made him a member of a race of “Dwarves” that, apparently, average 10 foot tall or so, completely dwarfing (sorry) Thor. At this point, Marvel is having fun with casting decisions and they could hire a gecko to play a lion and I’d probably pay to see it because they seem to be able to make non-traditional casting work more often than not. > [@Acsenray](#): > > And that’s not even going into whether a female Bond might be a womanizer, a man-izer, or an equal-opportunity-izer. I could go for a lesbian Bond womanizer.. but you’d still wind up offending several categories of people. Hiring a man of any other ethnicity than Caucasian to play Bond is probably a safer “unsafe” choice. Hmm… wonder if you could make a homosexual Bond “man-izer” work? Bisexual? Is sexuality really THAT important to the character, or is Bond really more about spying, assassination, and cool gadgets? > [@Odesio](#): > > But when I saw they cast a black actor to play Johnny Storm I figured the producers weren’t going to give a damn about making sure the latest Fantastic Four movie would be a good adaptation of the comic. I imagine having a little more diversity in Hollywood would help. I would have been a lot happier with a black Johnny Storm if they had also had a black Susan Storm. Having an interracial Sue/Reed relationship isn’t THAT outrageous in today’s world. Making either Sue or Johnny adopted was a cop out - just hire two people who could conceivably be biological siblings without a lot of plot contortions. > [@Chronos](#): > > Let’s look a bit more closely at the Superman question. Could he have green skin? Well… then he’d be the [Martian Manhunter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_Manhunter) (While we’re on the topic of trangressive casting and decisions - in the current TV version of the Martian Manhunter his human form is played by a black man and the character has imitated Supergirl, an alien who looks like a Caucasian human woman, and said male African-looking alien commenting that the miniskirt was surprisingly comfortable in a very mundane, ordinary manner might be missed by the inattentive but is delightful for someone with the cultural background to realize just how different such a thing is than what was permitted 50 years ago. Oh, and in the same multiverse on the Flash’s version of Earth the police chief is a man married to a man and it’s treated as so ordinary and normal - a good example of how to write a homosexual character that isn’t a caricature) > [@Acsenray](#): > > Maybe a black Thor is a distraction to you and creates disbelief to you, or to some set of viewers. That doesn’t mean it does to everyone. And the second time everyone views it, the distraction and disbelief goes away. Eventually, you have a generation of viewers for whom this is nothing unusual. … and that’s how progress is made. > [@Acsenray](#): > > For example, in _Kindergarten Cop_, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Los Angeles police detective named John Kimble. Schwarzenegger has a heavy Austrian accent. So far as I can recall, there is never any explanation given why John Kimble, an L.A. cop, would have an Austrian accent. Sure, they could have explained it. But really an explanation wouldn’t have fundamentally changed anything about the story. Okay, an L.A. cop with a strong Austrian accent. Maybe it could happen. Yeah, I mean, it’s not like you’re trying to sell the public on a character that’s a California governor with a strong Austrian accent, how ridicu-- oh, wait… I’m sure you could sift through the population of LA and find more than one person who speaks with a strong Austrian accent, even if Arnold is out of town that week. It’s a very multi-racial, multi-ethnic city with people from all over the world living there, not just a mix of stereotypical white people with American accents and brown people with Spanish accents of one sort or another. Maybe if more white people in productions set in LA spoke with a variety of accents it would no longer stand out so much but just be part of the fabric of the setting and seen as authentic (which, in reality, it is). (I mean, hell, where I live isn’t nearly as cosmopolitan as LA and the owner of the laundromat down the road is a native German speaker which you can tell the moment he opens his mouth - don’t know what \*particular \*brand of German-speaker he is but maybe he’s Austrian. And my former landlord of 20 years is half-Austrian - German accents aren’t THAT unheard of in the US on either coast or in fly-over country between those two.) > [@Chronos](#): > > Or, of course, you could write a story about a completely different character who flies and is bulletproof, but who looks like an Earthling human from Africa. Or you could write a story about a flying, bulletproof green alien. Then he would be the Martian Manhunter… who in at least one iteration spends quite a bit of time looking like a brown-skinned human of African descent… when he’s not imitating a flying, bulletproof alien who looks like a human Caucasian woman… And it works. It actually works pretty well. The reason a green-skinned superman would not work is because it’s part of Superman’s backstory that by happenstance Kryptonians look enough like human beings to pass as one easily - and there are no green-skinned humans. Now, if you set the Superman story in a future/alternate timeline where there ARE green-skinned Americans then a green-skinned Superman would work because he could blend in. (The Martian Manhunter is a shape-shifter - that, more than his other Superman-like powers, defines the character. So he can blend in literally anywhere even if his real skin is green because he can change his skin color.) ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2019, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/112 "2019-06-14T23:21:44Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don’t mid elves that look black, or elves that look Chinese, or elves that look Polynesian. Any or all of these would be cool, and relatively original. Actually, the Marvel universe does have [black-skinned elves](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelcinematicuniverse/images/c/ca/Malekith_and_Algrim.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20131018141528) > [@Alessan](#): > > My problem is seeing a community of elves, some of whom look white, some of whom look black, and some of whom look Asian, because I’d have questions: are some of them immigrants? Are they different castes? Are elves racist (with other elves, I mean; obviously they’re racist against humans, because, you know, elves)? Or maybe for elves varying skin colors are about as big a deal as varying hair colors are for humans and while they have different skin colors they all have the same hair… like in that picture I linked to. Maybe they’re hair-color bigots instead of skin-color bigots. > [@Alessan](#): > > Because let’s be honest: in many cases, race is evidence of racism. It’s not normal for people of different races to live alongside each other, because in a normal society, everyone has sex with everyone, and within four or five generations, everyone looks more or less the same (within the normal range of human appearance). Except, as already noted, mixing human genes isn’t like mixing paint. Even if in a 100 years most people are some intermediate shade of brown skin/brown hair/brown eyes the genes for things like blue eyes or red hair or really dark or really pale skin are still in the population and will manifest themselves from time to time when recessive traits or the required grouping of genes come together. ---
**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 15, 2019, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/113 "2019-06-15T01:41:34Z")
For comparison, there’s very little discrimination based on hair color, but you still see blond hair and brown hair and black hair and red hair (and shades in between all of those). And blue hair and green hair and pink hair and purple hair, because people have decided that hair colors shouldn’t be restricted to those determined by genetics. Maybe, by the time the race-mixing has happened, people will similarly view skin color as a mere cosmetic detail that can be changed on a whim. And yeah, I figured someone might mention Martian Manhunter, but I didn’t want to get into the whole shapeshifter thing. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/114 "2019-06-15T04:41:51Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Yes, but Othello doesn’t have to be black - he just has to be different than everyone else in the play. I agree, but I was referencing Susana from the Steven KIng’s _The Dark Tower_ series. She HAS to be black because so much of her character is about the crap she went through in 1960’s America. So bad that she even lost her mind. Her character arc is to learn to trust people again - even if they are the same race that abused her. So, to make that work, they have to be of the same race of the ones she hates. That is my one and only problem with Idris Elba as _The Gunslinger_. He’s perfect for the role in every way except for that subplot. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/115 "2019-06-15T05:05:20Z")
And another thing just to address the the thread in general. This is not “a lack of imagination”. This is a question of how far you can take imagination and still have a cohesive story. Sure, you can have Thor be an actual frog or whatever, but what does that do to the world building? And the world stories are set in _matters_. There’s a corollary to that, though. If it’s comedy or satire everything goes out the window. If it’s an episode of say, _Drunk History_, then a black woman playing Abraham Lincoln is freaking PERFECT. ---
**Author:** ![Wrenching\_Spanners](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecb155/32.png) [@Wrenching\_Spanners](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wrenching_Spanners)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/116 "2019-06-15T06:04:23Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > You state this like it’s a universal truth. It’s not. The idea that plots need to be focused, and that storylines should support the plot and avoid useless diversions, while not a universal truth, is a fairly decent general principle. > [@](#): > > Maybe a black Thor is a distraction to you and creates disbelief to you, or to some set of viewers. That doesn’t mean it does to everyone. And the second time everyone views it, the distraction and disbelief goes away. Eventually, you have a generation of viewers for whom this is nothing unusual. Or maybe viewers evaluate the work on its artistic merit, and decide that a black Thor was a confusing element that added nothing to the plot, the movie is derided, and nobody tries that idea again because it’s already been done and failed. > [@](#): > > It _needs_ to be explained? Maybe to Wrenching Spanners of 20 minutes ago it needed to be explained. Now that Wrenching Spanners has read Mr. Dibble and Little Nemo’s posts does the Wrenching Spanners of now need it to be explained? And what about all the other people who might never have _needed_ an explanation? > > The human mind is perfectly capable of understanding and accepting stories that have unexplained elements that might seem strange or incongruous. You just note it and move on. > > For example, in _Kindergarten Cop_, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Los Angeles police detective named John Kimble. Schwarzenegger has a heavy Austrian accent. So far as I can recall, there is never any explanation given why John Kimble, an L.A. cop, would have an Austrian accent. Sure, they could have explained it. But really an explanation wouldn’t have fundamentally changed anything about the story. Okay, an L.A. cop with a strong Austrian accent. Maybe it could happen. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter to the story. Schwarzenegger was playing Schwarzenegger. For a better example, Dwayne Johnson did Hercules. But he didn’t really play Hercules, he played Dwayne Johnson. And he certainly didn’t play Hercules as a Greek or Roman. Keep in mind, I’m not arguing against a black Thor regardless of setting. I’m arguing against a black Thor in a 9th century Norse setting with strong Viking imagery. Is that an example where switching the race of a character is a bad idea? I believe it is. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/117 "2019-06-15T08:45:48Z")
> [@Wrenching\_Spanners](#): > > I haven’t seen any episodes of the recent TV series Vikings. Were there any non-white Vikings in that production? Would non-white actors have fit in, or would they have caused a suspension of belief that took away from the plot? There were none that I recall but there could have been with little issue. Vikings in the show had a habit of capturing people during raids and bringing them back home as slaves. They didn’t particularly “other” these slaves, and some were given their freedom. Mostly the slaves were white (from England), but some were Asian. The main stumbling block would be that the show depicts the first ever Viking trips to England. It’s a plot point in the first few episodes of season 1 that Ragnar Lothbrak comes up with a new way to navigate on the open sea so they can explore new lands farther away than they’d ever gone before, and then we see them make their first ever raids on England. (Wessex.) Several seasons later we see what is implied to be the first ever Viking raids in Africa. Thus it would be weird if they already had African slaves when the show started, but only because of geography. But even then, they could have been found in the East, I suppose. The attitude and community of the Vikings wouldn’t have batted an eye about black Vikings. As far as I recall, there isn’t a single Viking in the entire series who cares a lick about race. As far as I can tell, the attitude seems to be that skin color is equivalent to hair color: Wholly irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/118 "2019-06-15T09:03:21Z")
Missed edit window: Actually, in addition to slaves they captured on raids, they were also quite accepting of travelers regardless of race. I think some of the Asians on the show were travelers who decided to stay on for a while, so African travelers who decided to settle with the Vikings would have been welcomed and been perfectly normal to them. One of the more interesting aspects of the show (to me) was the Viking attitude toward religion. They believed their gods to be literally real, but they also believed that everyone else’s gods were equally real. They were somewhat hostile to Christianity, but mainly because Christianity itself is somewhat hostile to other religions. (Thou shalt have no other gods…) One of Ragnar’s sons becomes interested in Buddha, for example, and Ragnar himself loved his Christian slave so much he almost wished he would go to Heaven instead of Valhalla so he might be reunited with him in the afterlife. (Not in a gay way, but not NOT in a gay way either.) Generally speaking, their view of other religions was that of interest and curiosity. They generally wouldn’t disavow their gods for fear of reprisal, but I get the sense that they wouldn’t care at all if their neighbors worshiped different gods. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/119 "2019-06-15T15:11:48Z")
> [@armedmonkey](#): > > And another thing just to address the the thread in general. This is not “a lack of imagination”. This is a question of how far you can take imagination and still have a cohesive story. Sure, you can have Thor be an actual frog or whatever, but what does that do to the world building? And the world stories are set in _matters_. > > There’s a corollary to that, though. If it’s comedy or satire everything goes out the window. If it’s an episode of say, _Drunk History_, then a black woman playing Abraham Lincoln is freaking PERFECT. Derek also makes sure in some eps to cast exactly according to themes. See the ep about disabled or the Natives on Alcatraz ep. Love me some Derek Waters ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2019, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460/120 "2019-06-15T16:35:54Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > Love me some Derek Waters I’ll drink to that. 😃 But to get back to thread at large, I thought of another character that I really don’t think should be played by a black guy. It’s the Incredible Hulk. I was thinking about how in the first Avengers movie Hulk has that scene with Loki where Loki tries to do the mind control thing, but Hulk, well, he just grabs Loki’s ankle like a gorilla and swings/ smashes him back and forth. It was cool as Hell, but, well, he moved like a gorilla. Unfortunately, a black guy who turns into a giant rage monster that moves like a gorilla is problematic for I think should be obvious reasons. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/switching-the-race-of-characters/835460.md?page=7)