Hey, as long as you are playing racial spin the bottle…
I’ve already gone over how idiotic it would be for Iron Fist to be played by an Asian actor (here). My biggest problem with Hollywood’s new hobby of changing the races and genders of beloved characters is how absurdly random and arbitrary it is. As though they decide at the beginning of the year what percentage of characters will be each race and gender and then start spinning a big lottery pong pong ball tumbler and mark them as they fall out.
Case in point- the black guy being the human torch. Iron Fist being white is integral to his whole mythos, Luke cage being black is integral to his whole mythos. There is NOTHING in the Fantastic Four Mythos that connects them to their race…EXCEPT that the human torch and invisible girl are brother and sister. SO…if the human torch is black…WHY THE F*CK NOT JUST MAKE THE INVISIBLE GIRL BLACK?! See my point? It’s just silly and random. You could make the entire FF black for all I care, the only connection to them and race is that two of them are siblings.
What’s worse, there are characters that could actually be better if their race was changed. Take Dr.Strange. As a white guy, his origin never made a lick of sense to me. He’s a surgeon who has a mental breakdown and goes off the to the orient and somehow finds his way into the world of mysticism …so deeply that the worlds greatest sorcerer becomes aware of him. Wha? Why would he go to Orient? and why would anyone who knew anything about the hidden mystic arts give some middle aged white tourist the time of day? Over the years Marvel tried to tack on some extra backstory, about his future teacher saving him at a young age as a way to connect the dots…which just added more questions.
Now, wouldn’t it make way more sense if Dr.Strange was ASIAN? And has a breakdown and goes off the orient to trace his roots or something? Then him stumbling into the deep dark inner circles of Asian mysticism seem more plausible. Perhaps his family line connects him to such entities. Dr.Strange would have been BETTER if they changed his race…but nope. He’s some white 39 year old. That makes ZERO sense. The only conceivable reason he was ever white is that he was thought up in 1960something by a old white guy who probably grew up reading about Hairy Houdini and thought of an Italian a suit and top hat when he heard the phrase “magician”
The random change they made here, which makes no sense, is he is way way waaaayyyy to young to be Dr. Strange. Dr.Strange was a rich, famous neurosurgeon when he started his journey, best case scenario to become a neurosurgeon is 14 years, I guess you could get real lucky and become rich and famous right out of the box with some high profile case…after you have spent a year building up your private practice. Then tack on several years wandering the orient and then time spent learning all there is to know about magic. How long you figure that takes? Longer than med school maybe? hmmm? maybe it takes a bit more time learning 6000 years of mystical knowledge than how to become a surgeon. maybe? But, let’s say it’s the same…14 years of med school+ at least 1 year of private practice before being rich and famous +3 years wandering the orient/dealing with a mental breakdown+ 14 years studying the mystic arts = 32 years going by AFTER he gets out of high school. He should be early 50s AT THE YOUNGEST.
Dr.Strange is an old wise weathered guy, like Nick Fury. The guy the have playing him, if I was a bartender I’d ask him for his ID, and if I was some Asian guy connected to the mystic arts in any way, I’d take one look at this guy from Vanilla Village somewhere, and let the street rabble roll him for his wallet, passport and travelers checks. He’d spend more time at the U.S. Embassy filing incident reports than learning any ancient hidden secrets from the mystical underworld.
Onto the newest rumor. Ice Cube as J. J. Jameson the curmudgeonly editor in the Spider man mythos. I……love this idea. Hear me out. There is nothing about J.J. that connects him to any particular race. He needs to be cranky, boisterous, he has to scowl and shout a lot, and complain, be a cheapskate, and frighten his staff…and he has to be old. Guess what genX…Ice Cube is old. I know you don’t want to hear that, but he’s not a 20 year old punk anymore. He’s old. Spray some grey in his hair and picture him yelling…”Parker! Where the hell is that kid at?! When you don’t want him he’s underfoot, when you do want him he’s off clowning around somewhere. These kids ain’t have no damn commitment”.
I not only am okay with this idea, I love it. If you don’t love it, just wait..it’ll seem like casting brilliance in a year or two after they gender/race swap who knows who else. Maybe that’d be a good contest- We try to predict which marvel Character who was originally a white male that they change and to what race and gender. Let’s see here, who’s left to screw up? Black Bolt? Sure, he’ll be Latino, and just to hit us over the head with it, he’ll be able to talk so as to have a Latino accent. “madre dios!!!!” (and pillars shake from the vibrations).
When Douglas is not busy complaining he is at www.arseniclullabies.com
***don’t forget to come and see him at Wizard World St. Louis April1-3rd and Wizard World Madison April 7-9th***
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