I read all those books when they came out, and I can assure you that the only confusing thing is what the Endless are supposed to be—obviously, they are not “real guys” as in flesh-and-blood heroes, nor are they gods, precisely, nor are they pure archetypoi (how come Dream has “issues”? Cf., e.g., the princess in the fur coat at the end of Der Spiegel im Spiegel (1983), though she is a subtly different archetype). In other words, Gaiman is crafting his own mythological figures. But one thing that never comes up is what they “really” look like.
I have every issue of every “Sandverse” comic on my tablet right now, and just started a reread yesterday. What are you looking for?
Well, you say:
So my curiosity is, which artists draw her that way, and which artists draw her as having skin in the normal human spectrum?
Asserting that the race/skin color of a character–who is supernatural and whose significant traits have nothing to do with human notions of race–is so fundamentally and essentially defining of the character that casting a black actor in the role fundamentally changes the character … is kind of the defnition of racism. Even more so than the recent outrages over casting of M.J. in Spider-Man or that character in Hunger Games.
I disagree. With the latter part for sure.
And i don’t like the general piling on and the strawmen.
If in the recent casting of Martian Manhunter they didn’t make him green (as Jonn Jonnz)…and i objected…thats not a racist statement. Its very silly! And i think this whole thing is the definition of American privilege, but its not racist.
I heartily recommend we drop it. It’s been noted, and pretty much all points have come out. Some even accidentally. (EG: representation among a 1990s marginalized community…rebuttal: “I think they’ll be allright”)
Who would that be? White girls in Chicago? Please!
What are you talking about, exactly? What about “this whole thing” is the definition of American privilege? Who is benefiting from privilege in this scenario?
I don’t know who is supposed to be the American and who is supposed to be a non-American in this scenario.
However, I will say that the fact that American studios often refuse to cast black actors in roles because that “wouldn’t be accepted in Asia” (“black doesn’t travel”) is also a racist practice, in more than one way.
Are you saying that casting a black actor should be considered offensive to 1990s goth girls? Goth girls cannot by definition be black? Please explain.
Skimming through a couple of thousand pages…
Two things I noticed. Death actually shows up much less often than I remembered, and almost all the Endless are almost always shown as the same pure white as Death. Of the times one is shown with some skin color, it is almost always Delirium.
(The pages, of course, contain potential spoilers)
Something like that actually happened in Titans. Beastboy isn’t green and Starfire isn’t orange.
Ironically enough for “Death”, her defining features appear to be the Eye of Horus and an ankh.
Wait, is this one of those Sargon of Akkad type things whereby there is a unique American disease of racism that makes us do crazy things like allow the casting of black actors in roles that “naturally” or “logically” can only be played by white actors, and because Europeans don’t suffer from the American disease they sensibly don’t try to give opportunities to black actors and do the right thing by reserving roles for white actors only? And it’s the privilege of Americans having such a strong entertainment industry to impose the crazy notion of allowing black actors to play naturally white roles on the whole world? Is that what American privilege means?
Right. And I have a lot of criticisms of that show but this wasn’t one of them.
Similarly, I wouldn’t have thought much about Snyder changing Martian Manhunter’s skin color. Martians don’t actually exist, so you can choose to portray them how you want. (As it turns out, they cast that role pretty well—I don’t have any complaints about the cast of Justice League, except that they left out any Green Lantern or Green Arrow—but the movie was terrible for other reasons.)
Yes. That’s the entirety of the late 80s early 90s worldwide punk/ goth scene….just “some white girls in Chicago”.
I thought we had determined that other races could be in that scene.
Regardless reductum and sweeping dismissal is only the tip of the bad faith arguments in the last hour…so I won’t be responding to any of them. Save your breath
Well, I guess this thread has gone down this path and there is no stopping it.
I just wonder what they didn’t pick Destiny as a POC. There are a number of solid middle aged black actors with deep beautiful commanding voices that would be perfect.
Myself I would have cast Death as Asian with a “painted” unnaturally white face.
I have no issues at all with adding or changing a comic or book to add some variety. What I don’t like is -
i.e you can have a POC, but only in a sympathetic role?
I’d cast Rebel Wilson or someone like her as Delight with Margot Robbie as Delirium, and have them interchange.
And it is not racism to ask that a character in a film look like the same character in the source material. I remember lots of complaints about Tom Cruise as a short Jack Reacher. Mind you I have no real issues with the change, and if the series goes on a long time maybe white (not Caucasian, I mean an unnatural shade of pure white) goth girl or even the dude with the robe and the scythe could show up. who knows?
However, doubtless Netflix will fuck this up anyway, so there is that.
Interesting–thanks for those examples! (For other folks, the link will take you to eight images). Notice in the last one, how Death has more peach in her skin than Dream has. I don’t think it’s canon that she’s bone-colored.
The thing is, I didn’t object when Selina Kyle got played magnificently by Michelle Pfeiffer: to the best of my knowledge, the character wasn’t blonde in the comics, but I don’t believe I’ve ever said a word against Pfeiffer and so — well, look: if I am, and always have been, okay with swapping out hair color when going from comics to screen, then how the heck can I now say anything against swapping out skin color?
There should be 14 images? And that last image is the very first frame that she ever appeared in in the series, in issue 8.
Dream is sitting feeding pigeons. A young woman walks up and sits by him and starts talking. She isn’t introduced. It is only over the next few pages that we realize that she isn’t just some random person making conversation with a stranger, and that the two of them are well aquainted, and eventually realize that she is Death. So she needed to be more human-looking for plot related reasons in that first appearance.
But in the majority of all illustrations in the comic series, all of the Endless are bone-white (except for occasionally Delirium, as I mentioned). Saying that almost all appearances do not establish canon is extreme cherry-picking.
Do you really think this constitutes part of some cogent analysis of artistic adaptation?
I also didn’t object to Halle Berry’s being cast as Catwoman. It wasn’t a good movie, but that had nothing to do with the skin color of the actor cast in that role.
I also don’t object that in the magnificent Harley Quinn cartoon series on HBO, Catwoman is currently drawn as a person of color. That particular adaptation works well artistically, and it’s neither because of nor in spite of the skin color of the portrayal.
If you could actually demonstrate any of this happening as the primary counter to your arguments, that would be a conversation, but you can’t.
If you could show any significant strawmen, that would be interesting.
It’s unclear what you mean by this.
This idea that “in my head, X looks like Y” is not support for the argument that “an actor of Z race can’t be chosen to portray X in an adaptation.” And this is all before anyone has seen even one minute of the actual show.
If it amounts to saying “a black actor can’t play this role,” then, yes, it’s racism. Doubly so when we are talking about adapting a comic book character to a live action producation.
No, I think it is a objectively factual observation of the content of the comics.
Guys you can’t stop Darren from getting upset that a black actor got cast in role he thinks she shouldn’t have.
Let’s move on.