Let me talk to you a moment about Spider-Man

[wolven7]

By now you may or may not have heard that there is a campaign going on to get Donald Glover, late of NBC's "Community," cast as Spider-Man in any potentially forthcoming do-over of the eponymous film franchise. If you have heard of that, by now, then you have no doubt heard the outcry and the apologists over said campaign.

This is all stupid.

Race is not a factor of Peter Parker's story, and his rise to being a hero, even in the slightest. That he was created white is a accident of the time in which he was created, more than anything else, the early sixties being what they were.

What are the key factors that make Spider-Man who and what he is? Peter Parker is a nerdy, ridiculously intelligent lower-middle class kid from Queens.

Peter Parker is raised by his aunt and uncle, who do the best they can by him, and teach him that his intelligence is a gift, not a burden.

Peter Parker's public high-school goes on a trip to Science Place™.

Peter Parker gets bullied.

Peter Parker gets bitten by Altered Spider™.

Peter Parker eventually realises that he is stronger, faster, and different, and that this can be used to make money for his family, giving them a more comfortable life-style.

Peter Parker gets dressed up in a dumb costume, goes by the name "The Amazing Spider," and wrestles for money.

The "Amazing Spider" gets stiffed for his fee and, on seeing some guy run off with the arena's money, forgets that his uncle taught him that "With Great Power comes Great Responsibility," and lets the guy go, as petty revenge.

Peter Parker is chastised by the arena manager who tells him, basically, that all he had to do was sick his foot out, or push the guy into the wall; Parker doesn't care.

Peter Parker goes to meet up with his uncle, who doesn't know about Peter's secret wrestling life, and finds his uncle shot dead in the street.

Peter Parker flies into a rage, chases after the culprit, and the man he finds is the man he let escape at the arena.

Peter Parker-- forever haunted by the fact that, had he simply used his great power and stoppped the robber at the arena, regardless of their having done an injustice to him, his uncle would still be alive-- becomes Spider-Man.

What about any of this is race-/ethicity-specific? White kids and black kids live in Queens, NY (also Asian kids, mexican kids, and, probably, Russian Kids), attend public school, go on field-trips, get bullied, dream of being able to defeat those who bully them and make life better for everyone they love, have their family members ripped away from them in senseless gun violence, and blame themselves for their loss. Nothing about the personality of Peter Parker or the circumstances which caused him to become Spider-Man necessitate that he be a white kid.

This is Not the same as Jake Gyllenhall being cast as The Prince Of PERSIA. PERSIA.

This is NOT the same as a majority-white main cast being put in place for a film based on materials where the majoriity of the cultural, physical, and mental cues are dependent on their being very obviously modeled on various Asian cultures.

"Whitewashing" happens when characters who are non-white, for a reason, are made white, or when they are based on real-life non-whites, but are made white to make them more "relateable."

Donald Glover potentially being cast as Spider-Man is not that.

Comments

[spiritualmonkey.livejournal.com]

They fuck with the Spidey-being-from-Queens angle and heads will fucking roll.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

[momentai.livejournal.com]

Race may not be a factor of Spider Man's story, but it is a factor of Spider Man's appearance. His physical appearance is apart of comic book history, and his popularity and resonance with fans have made him a significant piece of Americana. Since he is such a well-known icon, it is a lot to ask of fans, and the general populace who is aware of Spider Man's place in pop culture, to ignore the character's skin color.

Regardless of him being fictional, he was drawn a certain way and has continued to be drawn so for a very long time. Spider Man has become White. He isn't just a character that people create an image for in their minds. He isn't just a kid with a particular story that we can relate to as we will. He is a WHITE kid with a particular story that we relate to as we will, but relate to him knowing he is White and some of us are not. He was drawn White and so his fans know him as White. To ask them to accept that

"It's just a fictional character with a story faar beyond his physical appearance, and this is just a movie, and adaptation of that story, so it's ok to change what he looks like, how he became who he is, where he lives, etc b/c those asre secondary to the story and themes."

is too much. I agree that it is not a big deal and I agree with the other stuff, but this isn't about making sense. It's about a collective soul being taught that skin color matters everywhere and that if you try to claim it doesn't by adapting characters than you are just being "liberal" and have a secret evil agenda to turn Ammerica Communist.

People want Spider Man to be White because they were taught he is White and any other portrayal is wrong and fake. It would be an alternate history Spider Man and that's contemptible to these people. I don't defend the idiocy and ignorance and brainwashing, but I understand the outcry. I would love to say it is possible to override the brainwashing, but it's really not. Not as long as Marvel, and every other comic company and every TV and film producer keep tellinng the kids that White is Right by refusing to cast non-Whites in major projects.

You say it was an accident of the time, but that time is 50 years gone. Every new and major Marvel character since then has been White, even in the Ultimate revamps where we were told that the old origins and ideas don't matter. So, it's not surpring that the masses react negatively to proposed changes to their history and mythology. Nor will it be surprising when a non-White actor is not cast as Peter Parker or any other mainstream comic book character.

Stupid sure, but the way things work till someone breaks the entire machine and does an actual reboot.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Again I point to Nick Fury, arguably the most intelligent and strategically-minded character in the entire Marvel Universe.

But, still: For now, I'll grant that it's a part of his history and cannon that he was created as such, but let's stop a second: Are we willing to dismiss this, because that's the way he was, and "should be" drawn, in the minds of so many, or do we as a comics/animation/entertainment community use this to have a serious discussion about portrayals of race and ethnicity, in our media?

I think that casting ANY major character whose personality and story aren't contingent on their race/ethnic heritage as non-white is a great way to start having this conversation.

This is rambley - and I'm not sure I actually made a point ...

[drgnsyr.livejournal.com]

But it's based on a comic book ... not a novel. For a novel, sure, everyone imagined the character differently to begin with. But the comic book is a visual medium. Everyone has the same idea of what the character looked like. When you're casting a historical film (based on recent history anyway), you pick an actor who looks as much like the real person as possible, because people know what he looks like and will have trouble associating someone who looks too drastically different with the character. A comic book character is similar.

From movies we expect realism and accurate depictions of adapted materials (which is odd since we almost never get the latter - but still we expect it). Make a Spiderman stage show and you could cast it with a black kid, because color blind casting is an accepted part of theatre at this point (even though Tom Collins is always cast as black in RENT despite there being no real need for it). But movie adaptations are expected to be faithful portrayals.

Is it right or wrong? I don't really have an opinion. I think the white washing of Prince of Persia or Avatar is wrong, sure. But I also understand why it happens. Do I think color blind casting in other movies is the appropriate counter - I don't know. But I don't think people's refusal to accept it is latent white supremacy (as implied above). I think it's just that everyone has the same idea of what he's supposed to look like, and if he doesn't look like that, they'll have trouble. Just like if they cast him with a carrot topped, freckled, pasty white boy. The actor's still white, but would be equally unaccepted - because every one knows that's not what he looks like.

Re: This is rambley - and I'm not sure I actually made a point ...

[momentai.livejournal.com]

not sure if you're referring to me or damien, but i wasn't implying White supremacy, and I am pretty sure he wasn't either. I was actually saying what you just said.

There is a "need" to cast Tom Collins with a Black actor and it's the need we both presented: people, as a collective, have come to know the character as a certain color and have been taught that color matters.

Sure, some of us know otherwise, but enough do not. That majority makes it dangerous to buck the trend because that jeopardizes the profits.

Re: This is rambley - and I'm not sure I actually made a point ...

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Again, I'll agree that that's the look a character's associated with, down through time, but even that gets changed and manipulated. Tobey MacGuire as Spider-Man was bitched about, for months. Any time a new animated version of Any comic property is done, people harp on voice acting.

I guess what I'm saying is, the perception is still mutable, even if it is bounded.

[momentai.livejournal.com]

Nick Fury is one character out of 5000 and he is a secondary character. From a continuity standpoint, his existence is not crucial to the Marvel Universe. Both of those points render him a token character which goes back to the premise that entertainment executives are not going to promote your stance regardless of it being what should be promoted.

So, yes, when the We=entertainment studios, we are willing to dismiss serious discussions about color blind casting and writing. They do this because serious discussions do not make money. These discsusions, and the chnages they'd sweep in, do not make money because the masses have been brainwashed to not buy things when non_White actors are presented in a positive, significant manner.

I'd love to have this conversation, I'd love to cast characters w/o regard to race, or any other trivial trait, but executives don't right now and I am not sure how much hope I have it will happen in my lifetime.

Also, Annie makes my same point, or at least have of it. Even if Hollywood wasn't practicing racism, it would be hard to change any comic or cartoon character from White b/c the audience identifies the character with its race. They shouldn't be so rigid, but they are and so it's a tricky question to ask:

do I force people to think out of the so called box or go with the staus quo so most are happy?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

That question is the one that, if we don't answer it in the former, more often, will cause things to get far worse, before they get better.

[bakeneko.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I agree with you.
"Color-blind casting" is not the point necessarily. . . casting a white actor as a character traditionally of some other ethnicity is not the same as casting a black actor in a traditionally white role. Because when it comes to leading roles in big-ticket hollywood productions, the bias is staggeringly in favor of white (male) actors. When people make lists of top 50 directors, the names are almost all of white men. Things definitely lean towards the white male perspective as the norm. Other things are deviations: "chick flicks," "black comedies," etc.

I guess which stories have race as a critical factor, and which ones don't could be debated. One could talk of the normalization of whiteness, and how that makes it hard to determine whether a character's whiteness is an important aspect of them (and of course, different viewers will feel different ways). Or of how that normalization makes white characters more "relatable," because non-whites in the US are generally far more aware of "white" cultural experiences than whites are of minority cultures (though that's certainly a self-fulfilling prophecy of mass media). But I think it's clear that the context isn't the same. There's something different happening politically in Avatar than in the proposed spiderman casting.

I think it's okay to not like the idea of casting a non-white actor as spiderman, but I think there's some ignorance involved in someone saying that is the same as whitewashing.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That conflation of "Different Ethnicity" with "Whitewashing" is precisely the reason I wrote this, because it didn't seem like anyone else was tackling the fallacy inherent in doing that.

And yes, I agree that the character has traditionally been shown a certain way, so it makes sense that there would be backlash, but the sense of needing to be aware the "Why" behind the backlash is what I think you clearly get at, here. I'm not saying it's necessarily the case that All of the backlash is due to the kind of cultural immersion you mention, but some of it definitely is.

[kitsuchan.livejournal.com]

There's another thing here. For a lot of people of color, I think having the Avatar characters was a big deal: "Look, heroes who look like us." Whereas I've never had to look at Spiderman or any other fictional character to go, "Finally, a character that's white like me, who I can identify with!" (I have done that when strong female characters show up)

So whitewashing Avatar or Earthsea is taking something away from people who already feel a lack of sympathetic characters. Making Spiderman black or Hispanic, while it might mess with one's pre-conceived notion of the character, is not really depriving white people of anything. It's not like we don't already have 800 other protagonists.

People who make "reverse racism" arguments seem generally unable to process the concept of asymmetry.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

And I don't understand why that is. Something so inherent in the privilege and structure of the society, I guess.

And so, I will not be paying to see "The Last Airbender," because of the hypocrisy of M. Night Shyamalan, and the inability for a studio to do the right thing by several cultures.

[kitsuchan.livejournal.com]

I think part of it has to do with People never wanting to admit to anyone, including themselves, that anything has come to them unearned. You see it with wealthy people, too.

I wasn't going to be spending any money on Avatar anyway, really. The original show had a lot of issues that bothered me: making the Tibetan-analogue character look white, making the Tibetan-analogues all be wonderful peaceful monks, having the "good" Chinese-analogues be the ones who stick with traditional culture while the bad ones are the ones who embrace technology. Also, making all the female characters gradually less prominent and more one-dimensional as the series went on. And what was up with the yoga guy?

It's frustrating for me, because I feel like the show itself failed to do right by several cultures, but because of the even bigger mistakes of the live-action film, there's no longer a good opportunity to discuss the problems with the cartoon.

[karishi.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm disinterested in the M Night Shamwow interpretation of the show because of this: http://rufftoon.deviantart.com/#/d2q8ca6

[theapplethief.livejournal.com]

geeks are always going to get crazy when you take their favorite characters and change them in any way.

And just to set the record straight: there was a black Nick Fury (also referred to as "Ultimate Nick Fury") that appeared in the Marvel universe in 2001 that was purposefully made in the likeness of Samuel L. Jackson.
However, the switch-a-roo did happen with Kingpin who is a prominent supervillain in the Marvel universe.

hardcore fans don't want Mary Jane's hair color to change, Superman to wear anything but that ridiculous suit, or Halley Berry to go anywhere near Storm ever again. It's a thing, ya'll. Geeks take pride in knowing their geek world inside out, they are incredibly resistant to change of any kind to their beloved graphic novels. Do you remember what happened when they cast Jessica Alba for Sue Storm? Outrage. When they cast Kristen Dunst as Mary Jane, I remember fans crying out because she didn't look like Mary Jane.

Geeks are ridiculous and relentless about how things are "supposed" to be.
In my opinion? I'm kind of in love with Patrick Fugit playing Peter Parker.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

He looks like someone went back in time, 25 years, and stole a young Jerry O'Connell.