Well, you know what they say: a norse is a norse, of course, of course.
I agree, but doing it on purpose would be stupid. If Morgan Freeman played the role of Odin, there’d be no question that he was chosen for the role because he’s Morgan Freeman and not out of tokenism, just like Samuel L. Jackson was chosen to play Nick Fury because he’s Samuel L. Jackson.
Choosing an actor despite it changing the race or gender of the character is fine, choosing an actor because it changes the race or gender of the character is more iffy. And it’s easier to argue the latter has occured when you don’t have obvious things to point to that say why this actor was the best choice.
I guess I don’t really feel that strongly about it. But creating the United Colors of Valhallah really sort of sounds like the politically correct results of some marketing focus group. “I need Loki to be more ‘edgy’ and ‘in your face’. And can we ‘rastafy’ Odin by about 10%?”
Things have apparently changed. The gods appear to be an alien race that happen to resemble humans.
I also think they can’t change the main guys because people would have seen depictions of them, either in the comics or in historical form.
You know that there’s been a Mongolian Asgardian (Hogun the Grim) since Kirby and Lee first started the Thor comic, right? Strange ethnic diversity is nothing new.
Or Michael Clark Duncan as Kingpin! He was the only good thing in that movie.
I swear I was going to make a post anticipating a MLK-played-by-a-white-guy rant but I didn’t think it would show up on the dope. It was all over the comment sections of the articles about The Hobbit casting snafu.
I have no idea but the argument against is that Tolkien based LOTR/Hobbit on medieval England so no POC’s. I saw one comment that I can’t find anymore that said it would be plausible to have a POC because trade and exploration would have made contact possible.
I really had to double-check to make sure that story wasn’t from The Onion.
It’s hard to believe these are real quotes from real people. I guess all that hate really does make a person stupid (or maybe it’s a chicken-egg situation).
These people do realize it’s a fictional movie about magical beings, right?
I’ll let Idris Elba himself get in the last word: ““Hang about, Thor’s mythical, right? Thor has a hammer that flies to him when he clicks his fingers. That’s OK, but the color of my skin is wrong?”
Heathen! Michael Clarke Duncan as The Kingpin was the best part of Daredevil. He nailed it in a way few actors have ever nailed a comic book character.
Wait, now Hollywood has to be respectful of religions nobody follows any more?!
Thor is, of course, the whitest superhero in comic-book history – makes (the original blond) Captain America look like a person of color – if they had cast a black to play Thor, maybe you could make a case for political correctness run amok. But who gives a crap about Heimdall?!
According to some mythology (although it’s a Christian interpretation), the Asgardians were refugees from the fall of Troy, so portraying them as blonde and blue-eyed is also innaccurate.
Plus, y’know, fiction.
The Asgardians are like the Eternals, and they are space-aliens-as-gods, and it has been that way since Kirby invented them as the backstory for Marvel’s Thor.
They have nothing whatsoever to do with the “manifestation of the faith(s) of the Scandinavians”. Heck, they barely have anything to do with Scandinavians.
This is Marvel’s Thor. Not some whacky Asatru re-imaging.
Well, sure, but nobody follows them because of a bunch of middle easterners!
-Joe
I wonder if this was done to help Thor reach black audiences or to keep the white supremacists away. It would have been terrible press for the movie if neo-Nazi thugs like these guys were publicly encouraging their fanclubs to go see the movie.
I could see where a mythology pedant might get their knickers in a tiny, tiny bit of a twist over this, but since it’s white supremacists we’re talking about:
FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU WITH THE GIANT, THROBBING BLACK HAMMER OF THE GODS!
Chowderheads.
Nice.
Marvel’s “Norse Gods” are not and never have been the physical manifestation of the Norse Religion. They are sufficiently advanced aliens who had some contact with the Scandinavian people, and were worshiped by them as gods. Norse mythology was created about them, not the other way around.
My definition of political correctness is “whatever pisses off the skinheads is alright with me”.
And besides if it hadn’t been Idris Elba, they’d have just complained about Stanley Lieber and Jacob Kurtzberg instead.
Huh? Are you referring to the Will Smith version of Wild Wild West? There really were black cowboys. And that movie sucked for other reasons.