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The problem with race swapping is that people (rightfully) associate it with lazy cash grabs. Characters like Miles Morales generally have pretty high approval ratings because he is an interesting character in his own right and they didn't just make Peter Parker black. They actually put them in the same movie in a pretty creative way and I think most people appreciated that they actually put in effort. But when I see a "diverse" character that is just making Ariel black with some woke tropes inserted in the old story then I make the jerk off hand sign until the end of time. I also think people aren't dumb enough to not realize it's anti-white and essentially iconoclasm as part of a coordinated demoralization campaign. But I honestly have no problem with race swapping in theory. I would have probably watched an Idris Elba James Bond for example as long as they made his back story interesting.
To clarify, are you arguing that people only get upset that they're not being pandered to?
No I mean it is literally the laziest shit ever and terrible art and is rightfully hated. It should be hated even by people who love diversity and hate white people. I also personally don't like it because I think it's anti-white iconoclasm that is part of a coordinated demoralization campaign. However, I also don't agree with hippies and the New Left from the 1960's, but even I can admit they made a lot of amazing art. If woke people were making good art, I could appreciate it even if I disagree with the messaging. But it's terrible and it's woke so to me it is just absolute dog shit. It's in the same tier as Christian movies like God's Not Dead just with higher production values. Often it's even worse than fan fiction. It's the perfect snapshot of America: trying the same tired ideas over and over again with worse and worse results and with less and less white people.
But I think in theory you can do race swapping well. I used Idris Elba as an example because if they redid the backstory where Bond is a code name and they created an interesting and unique black character it could be good. And I Thought the Miles Morales movie was pretty good even if it's pretty "woke" for lack of a better term. And as much as I don't like it, we do live in a more diverse society so that will be reflected in movies, but at least they could bother to make them decent occasionally.
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People can repeat this as many times as they like, but I refuse to believe it. At best, it just feels like historical revisionism.
Miles was very much made as a black Spiderman, and only worked when they actually, y'know, killed Peter off. It's telling that the only way they made Miles work as a character when matching him up with the original was by changing the original completely - making him older, wiser, and a little more cynical.
No, Miles is just a bad collection of racial tropes pasted onto the original, and very much a racial takeover of the worst type - oh, and he has a hot blonde girlfriend, because that's what always happens with black characters in American comics, for some reason.
'Comic book popularity' is a worthless measure when the entirety of comic book sales in America are outshone by a single manga series. 'But the movies' are a worthless measure given all the sheer effort they had to do to make it work, and when people talk about 'Into the Spider-verse', all I hear is stuff about Miguel O'Hara.
So, no, I disagree. I place Miles alongside all the other race-swaps - worse, because people keep trotting him out as 'one of the good ones', when he really, really isn't.
I've never read a comic book in my life so those could be different. I thought the first movie was pretty good though and I went in expecting to hate it. Also isn't he gay? All I know about him is that movie and people's impression of it and the video game which people seem to really like.
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I agree, but I think the problem is the lazy cash grab, not the race swapping. All of Disney's live action remakes have been dull and uninspired, and the race swap in The Little Mermaid was hardly its biggest problem. Let's start with the fact that they somehow turned a lean 83 minute movie into a two hour and 15 minute slog!
Obviously, I prefer good storytelling and craft to bad storytelling and craft, when deciding my media diet. I would like to hope the vast majority of people do, though the evidence is strong that the masses prefer "junk food" more than works that are profound, thought-expanding, etc.
This is me, though I think a lot of the mania for “race swapping” has more to do with the terrible state of Hollywood writing and, as someone mentioned below, cost cutting than any desire to create minority heroes.
The evidence comes through quite clearly.
First of all, other than Morales, these are not new characters telling new stories in ways that are different than the “white” versions of these stories. In almost every case, what changes are made to the character are almost always superficial, and can often be very obviously inserted into the white character by adding a few throwaway lines of dialogue, or simply recasting the role. If you took those bits away from the character, they are still the original version. The little mermaid isn’t really that different from the original 1990s version. Rey, other than falling for Kylo Ren doesn’t do very much specific to being a woman. She’s a male character played by a woman.
Second, the way these films are marketed is pretty obvious. There had been female leads in adventure stories before. Aliens has a female leas, and she’s pretty badass in my opinion. Star Trek Voyager had a female captain (and a black captain in DS9). The stories weren’t sold as “minority character takes over”, but as stories in their own right. The preening of telling the audience, repeatedly, and at every opportunity that the minority protagonist is superbadass and has it so much harder than any mere man isn’t there.
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The problem, such as it exists here, is that our society so undeservingly valourises minorities, that race swapping functions as an aegis against people calling out your shitty product for being shitty. "They're not upset because our product is low quality, they're just RACIST! Quick, buy our shite and tongue-bath it online to show how NOT RACIST you are!"
There's also an element of "the so-called writers care more about hamfisting their precious representation and sermoning their diversity spiels through the script than about actually making a good product". The product is more often than not just a vehicle for propaganda, and so much the better if it entails the desecration of something a group of their hated enemies (whites, men, nerds) holds dear. Hollowing out an IP and puppeteering the corpse to spout your dogma is the ultimate in cultural conquest.
I think the alternative view is that they’re sermonizing and hamfisting representation as a mostly successful way to sell a shitty product that if it weren’t diverse wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. I can’t remember the last movie I saw that had me thinking about it more than ten seconds after the credits roll. That’s not diversity, that’s shitty writing. Most modern movies are playing the same CGI action tropes and the same jokes and the the same franchises over and over. The world of Hollywood writers have been drinking their own kool aid for half a century with no new ideas allowed.
I think that what you’re describing is fetishized anti racism. I’m not even sure how much the writers and producers care about anything they produce. It’s just used to avoid criticism as criticism of something with a diverse cast is racist.
But I’ll point out that even the shows that are produced without special attention to diverse casting are equally shitty, and equally as poorly thought out. Picard isn’t spectacularly diverse, but there are all kinds of plot holes and plot armor and so on that really make the show hard to watch. It’s everywhere and I think it’s a big problem.
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Elba as bond I think is an interesting point. Mainly because most of the race swapping doesn't seem to be for any reason other than race swapping.
Remember when Halle Berry was Catwoman? Aside from the movie being garbage I don't remember anyone caring that Catwoman had been race swapped and that was because they chose an A-list (maybe at the time) actor with talent to play the character. Or when Michael Clarke Duncan was Kingpin? How about Sam Jackson as Nick Fury? Will Smith as Jim West? Similar feelings I assume will resonate with an Elba Bond. How about Morgan Freeman as Red in Shawshank Redemption?
It just feels like regardless of acting ability fifteen years ago they'd race swap Bond to Elba, or Doctor Who to someone with the star power of like Chiwetal Ejiofor. But nowadays they'll race swap the doctor to a third lead on a Netflix comedy. I'm sure he's a good actor but it's just an easy trend to spot where the race swapping also ends up making things cheaper production-wise. The Little Mermaid's black, "who's playing her?" someone who's black. The doctor is black, "who's playing the doctor?" someone who's black, and gay, and wasn't born in the UK. I think it's obvious that it feels different now because they really do it different now and it has a lot to do with agenda pushing or the pretense of agenda pushing to get a cheaper actor.
Catwoman is a particularly interesting example of race-swapping, because her actresses were white, white, black, white, black, white, white, and mixed black/white. The first black Catwoman was Eartha Kitt, in the final season of the Adam West Batman TV show, taking over from Julie Newmar (TV) and Lee Meriwether (movie). Catwoman was white again when Michelle Pfeiffer played her in Batman Returns; then back in black when Halle Berry played her in Catwoman; white with Anne Hathaway in The Dark Knight Rises; still white with Camren Bicondova in Gotham; and most recently split the difference* with the mixed black/white Zoe Kravitz in The Batman.
In the live-action versions, Catwoman has firmly established a pattern of inconsistency on the question of her race. Eartha Kitt's portrayal was still part of the original live-action Batman franchise, and was long enough ago that if it was influenced by politics, it wasn't modern politics. (Plus, Kitt could chew the scenery with the best of them, and the Adam West era was extremely camp.) Berry and Kravitz can be fairly described as continuing the legacy of Kitt, rather than an appeal to Modern Audiences (/echo effect); there hasn't been a one-way racial ratchet, as Catwoman has switched back and forth multiple times; and given that Gotham is a major metropolis (no pun intended), any ethnicity is reasonably plausible.
*Technically, for the second time. Halle Berry is usually described as a black actress, but she's the daughter of an interracial black/white couple, like Zoe Kravitz.
Once again I'm reminded that American racial vocabulary is fucking weird. I have seen Catwoman and there is no way I'd assume Berry was black if not told.
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Seconded and endorsed.
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