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Doctor Strange
BillCable:
--- Quote from: McMetal on April 13, 2016, 09:39 AM ---Looks cool but it seems to me if you are going to film an origin story about Dr Strange you would at least need the Ancient One and Baron Mordo. If they can't even be bothered to cast those roles properly, why even bother to make Strange a middle aged white dude?
--- End quote ---
It is tiresome. And it's been explained. These characters were invented back when racism made diversity impossible. Disney/Marvel is using this opportunity to correct that error. They also hope to appeal to a wider, diverse audience for better financial success. So when the opportunity presents itself to cast someone as something other than a white male, they take it.
Strange, Stark, Thor - those characters are iconic. Casting against ethnicity doesn't fly as well in those cases (see Johnny Storm in Fan4astic). So you pick your battles.
If Mordo being black gets your panties in a bunch, I feel kinda bad for you.
McMetal:
Yeah, but if you're playing that game, how do you justify taking one of the few prominent Asian roles in the MU and re-casting with an impossibly WASPY white woman like Tilda Swinton? If the idea is to champion diversity, why replace a non-white actor with a white one? That just doesn't make sense to me. (I wont even go into the whole ageism thing)
That's where I am coming from with the whole change for the sake of change complaint. If it serves to drive the narrative in some way, that is one thing, but this example just seem capricious at best.
I do respect there are different, valid opinions on this, I just struggle to understand their (Hollywood's) logic sometimes.
JediJman:
Exactly. I am not against bringing more diversity into the roles, but eliminating an Asian role and adding an African American doesn't scream increased representation to me. It's just some BS Director's way to make the movie their own and drive PR by getting people to react. I don't get why this is prioritized over positive PR for finding a great likeness to the original source material, especially when you're making these B-List off shoot movies like Strange. RDJ is the perfect likeness of Tony Stark...that seemed to work out pretty well for everyone. I can't wait to see the new Heroes for Hire starring Melissa McCarthy as Power Man and her lesbian lover Kevin Hart (in drag) as a Mexican Billionaire Iron Fist.
Nicklab:
There was an issue that popped up recently during the whole #OscarsSoWhite issue leading up the Academy Awards. Notably, that while there may be a lack of award worthy roles for African American actors, there are far fewer for Asian actors. And when it comes to Asian actors who work regularly in American film and television in notable roles, there's a much smaller group to draw from. So Asian actors may have more of a bone to pick about how roles are cast.
I tend to agree with Bill about the general casting issues. It seems important to try casting a lead actor who resembles a comic character. Casting a character like Thor, and you need someone who LOOKS like Thor who can fill the role. As for supporting roles? I think there's a lot more leeway that allows filmmakers to cast the actor who would work best in the role, rather than trying to cast someone by racial/gender/age demographics. Something like this popped up in a film that's currently in theaters that deals with drone warfare. Helen Mirren wound up with the role of a general in the British military, even though the role was originally slated for a male actor. The filmmakers felt that she was the best fit as an actor.
BillCable:
--- Quote from: McMetal on April 13, 2016, 03:49 PM ---Yeah, but if you're playing that game, how do you justify taking one of the few prominent Asian roles in the MU and re-casting with an impossibly WASPY white woman like Tilda Swinton? If the idea is to champion diversity, why replace a non-white actor with a white one? That just doesn't make sense to me.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure if this was a business decision or an artistic one. On the one hand, Tilda Swinton is an Oscar-winner that just about any director would kill to work with. But on the business side - one thing Marvel has been openly cautious about is casting Asians in stereotypical/racist Asian roles. There's legitimate beef with how Marvel portrayed Asians back in the 1960s and 1970s. And that's why The Mandarin wasn't played by an Asian guy. Marvel very may have concluded that Asian audiences would rather see a white or Indian person cast in a formerly racist Asian role than someone who is actually Asian. That might be more agreeable than seeing an Asian in the token wise monk role in an otherwise mostly-white cast.
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