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I forget what it is called, but what does this community think about when a movie takes a character that was white or a male and makes it a different gender or race for the sake of it?
To the point of advocates, I was cajoled into seeing the recent spiderman movie and I remember there was a cameo of some black superhero, and all of the black kids in the audience went nuts over it. And it was clear in that moment that there's a compelling need, to some extent, for more representation of x demographic, because, for instance, it can't be positive to grow up watching superhero movies and none of them look like you.
At the same time, I think it's often done in an absurd and borderline incompetent manner. I think there are three basic situations with respect to a character's race and gender. 1. Where there isn't really any implied gender or race, so the character's demographic profile can reasonably be whatever the producers want it to be 2. Where there may be an implied demographic profile, but it isn't unambiguously clear, there is a degree of ambiguity, and it isn't crucial to the structural integrity of the film (for instance, the bond films. The characters have historically been white, but 007 is really just Britain's top spy job and it's totally plausible that a black guy could land that job) and 3. Where there is clearly an implied demographic profile and absent the character fitting that demographic profile it's just confusing and nonsensical.
I don't mind the first 2 all that much, but the third is increasingly common. For instance, in House of Dragons, the princess is married to a black guy. However, he's gay and they have an arrangement where they can each sleep with whoever they want, and as a result all of her kids are white. There's a challenge to the succession claims of her kids, but all of the arguments against their succession are like 'I just have a sense for these things. I just know they aren't her kids' or there will be a quiet and vague reference to the fact that her kids don't look like her husband. But no one is ever just like 'she has 5 kids and they are all white. She has blonde hair and her kids all have curly black hair. Obviously they are not her kids'. Or in the recent lord of the rings show, in the hobbit community they are all white except for two people who are not married to each other, and one of those characters had a kid with a white hobbit, and their kid is white. And the producers/writers never thought to or saw the need to address that. I mean the hobbits are a genetically distinct and notoriously insular group and have been for thousands of years. Even ignoring that a white woman and a black man had a paper-white kid, how is it that in a community that has been self-enclosed for thousands of years only two people are black? Or you can even take Bridgerton (which I confess I have not watched), where one of the lords is a black guy. I mean this is in England several hundred years ago. One show might be a period piece for that same time period and cast characters that are black so they can write scenes that highlight how they were treated unfairly, and then another will go the opposite direction and cast a black character that would obviously have been white and you're supposed to ignore their skin color. Like it just doesn't make sense. Another example that really bugged me was in the Foundation show. I read all of those books. And one of the main characters was named Salvore Harden. His whole thing was that he was super masculine in a conventional sense. And they made his character a black woman. It's just not even the same character. I mean that's a character that they perhaps could have made black (so probably in the second category of characters), but making him a woman was just absurd and desperate.
They don't even try and explain this stuff. They just put it out there. I see the general need to increase diversity in film, but it's being done in such a stupid way and I think highlights the sometimes superficial and low quality thinking that comes with DEI lenses. Like if you google these instances I'm talking about the articles all have this tone of 'to all the racists out there:' like you didn't just make a king of england a black trans woman (not necessarily that I've seen that, but just as an extreme). By all means, write more demographically diverse characters into the first or second categories I mentioned earlier, but at some point there has to be some sort of recognition that there are parameters you have to work within in some cases, most prominently a historical drama.
I consistently feel like the current influence progressives have is little more than the dog that caught the car. I think they have been given a 'lets see what you've got' moment in culture and society, and once the current environment, which is more politicized and emotionally charged and thus does not apply a normal degree of critical thinking to ideas, passes, I think people are going to look back and observe that they really fucked it away and lacked serious recommendations when they were given the reigns. There is a way of doing this shit that makes sense, but that is not the way things are being done.
The responses to this are a little out there IMO. They tend to be 'not seeing diversity in film has no impact' or 'it's not weird for two white parents to give birth to a black child'
It's kind of funny to watch this conversation play out here as I'm taking a break to watch House of Dragons. The guy who would inherit the throne if the princess hadn't ostensibly had kids with his brother, meaning they are the true heir to the throne, is currently laying his case down in court and making the formal allegation that they are not his brother's true kids and when he talks about how he knows they aren't his kids he's just like "vibes are how I know! I just have an instinct for this sort of thing!" Like even within the premise of the show, that a black guy is married to a white woman, they are just so afraid of stating the basic fact.
The key point there is "for the sake of it". Unlike others here, I see no problem with swapping done for a reason. Want to tell a story where women are our soldiers and men stay at home, adapting something like the biography of MacArthur? Go for it.
There's nothing wrong with heavily borrowing from existing work, changing some characters, and trying to tell your story. There are more measures by which a film is successful than simply if its world-building is rational when it comes to race or the accuracy of its depiction compared to the original work.
I object to works that are only done in a shallow manner, where the race-swapping isn't the point, but just gets done regardless.
Not every piece of media has to be for everyone. Let the traditionalists have The Northman, let the progressives have black Ariel. Ultimately, they must be judged for more than their ability to pander to the beliefs of their audience.
In principle I'm ok with this, but there are a couple of issues when the rubber meets the road.
A lot of these things are zero sum. The Amazon Wheel of Time show is the only adaptation we're ever going to get. It'd be nice if we could have "one really faithful adaptation for the book fans, and another full of progressive politics for the woke crowd". But that isn't possible due to the cost, so we get only one and anyone who cares is going to fight over their irreconcilable differences in how the show should be made.
An all white cast simply is not allowed in modern day entertainment. So in theory we should be able to have some shows (or movies) be full of forced diversity, while others are all black, and still others are all white. But in practice, anyone who tries to make the all white show is going to be immediately shouted down as a racist. So we aren't allowed to have peaceful coexistence, much as that might be desirable.
That's an issue of copyright in this case, yes? There's a legally enforced scarcity regarding who can use Tolkein's IP. If there wasn't, the only thing stopping that show is a lack of care from the people who want it. I'm sure there has to be at least one or more fans wealthy enough to sponsor even a less-than-polished show.
And yeah, I get that it's easier to try and shift the culture to be more appreciative of maintaining the original work's details than it is to fight the economic power of IP holders, but you have to at least be willing to do something on your own.
The Avengers pre-Falcon? You had Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, and Hawkeye. Fury was and is largely a secondary character who just gives people plot hooks.
And even after that, characters like Falcon, Black Panther, and other non-whites played a fairly minimal role in what was going on. They had their moments, but they were not the main stars of phases 1-3, and arguably even after that.
For that matter, Person of Interest ran until 2016 and had its main cast as all white. Or is your argument that there can't be a show where everyone, even the extras, is white? I won't try to argue that. But that position is even more extreme than the type of shows people are complaining about where there's just more black people, not a dearth of white people in any shot. Hell, even Black Panther had white people in it (and not just as villains either!)
Taraji P. Henson was one of the main characters in the first half of the show.
You're right, I forgot about that one, or just relegated her to a side character. My mistake.
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That's not modern. The political climate has significantly changed since then.
Most TV shows can't suddenly change their cast when the political climate changes, so you have to count such things from when the series started, not when it ended. Supernatural lasted to 2020 and its main characters are all white. But it didn't start in 2020.
2012 is recent enough that the idea of having more non-white people on staff wasn't some fringe idea. Like, even in the mid-2000s as a kid, I earnestly believed that we needed to include non-white people in more media, and that was an idea given by my public education. Person of Interest started in 2011.
Sure, if you want to argue that there are now people very conscious about the race of the casts in the media they make, I won't argue that with you. But even Avengers: Endgame was written in 2015-2016, released in 2019, and still predominantly features a white cast with no backlash.
Like, people got more on their case for relegating an LGBT character to audio-only than they did the lack of racial diversity in the Avengers, and I don't see people turning on it more publicly or the MCU in general at this point.
It's not an all or nothing thing. The push for social justice casting is stronger now than it was ten years ago, even though it still existed to some extent ten years ago.
And Avengers: Endgame had a white cast for similar reasons to a TV show--the white actors were cast many years ago when there was much less social justice casting, and they're being played by the same actors now that they were played by back when they were cast.
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In regards to point two, I think you're looking at diversity in a vacuum. Diversity isn't just about what shows are released right now in this moment, it accounts for the past as well. We have plenty of all white shows historically. We also have plenty of shows where the cast is like 90% white as well. In this context, it isn't surprising that today an all-white show would be frowned upon for diversity reasons while an all black show would be appreciated for the same reasons.
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That and copyright. Even if a faithful WoT adaptation would be profitable you wouldn't be allowed to make it if Amazon owns the IP.
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