this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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I think race swapping is a non-issue, unless doing so messes with the character's backstory or story arc in a meaningful way. So I could care less about that.
I'm all for racial inclusivity but just create a new fuckin character.
If you can't be racially inclusive by making a whole new character then all you're doing is pandering/race baiting.
Why does it matter that the characters retain their original races?
Imagine if you just made Peter Parker black. Cool, I guess. But is it enough just to swap the skin color? IMO, it is not. You have to represent the culture as well. So you change the family dynamics, the character background, relationship dynamics etc... after all of that is it still essentially Peter Parker? If so you have succesfully race swapped a character but most of the time I think it fundementally changes the character. At that point I believe it is better to create new character like Miles Morales and call him Spider-Man. But that is just my opinion.
How is that any different than any of the multiple other times they changed the "fundamentals" of peter parker?
Like when he is the sidekick of iron man who gets free robo spidey suit upgrades? Which completely changes everything important to his character?
Or when they make him a completely different age? Fundamentally changing the relationship he has with his romantic leads, with aunt may, with his villians, with his job, with his school (college? High school? Neither?), etc etc?
Short answer? Its fuckin not. Its the exact same as every other time theyve altered a key aspect of parker to shake up the story and tell a new angle with new spins and twists and turns.
It literally doesnt matter. Its just a big deal because its race this time.
Look, I kinda get both sides here.
I strongly agree with you that the skin color doesn't really affect the acting or the story in general. I believe that the last Lord of the Rings show on Amazon actually did a spectacular job at it. It was probably the best fantasy show that I've seen in awhile. However, I can also understand it from a Lore perspective that I feel the other guy is trying to to point out. If there are other ethnicities of Hobbits (which there are actually three), then at least explain why they are there. Did something bring them together? Your not wrong that by just changing the skin color of a character doesn't really affect the story at all, but when you want to understand what's behind the story, you really need to look at and consider everything.
[As an interesting aside. It turns out that the Harfoots are actually a dark skin type of Hobbit, and the Fallohides are taller and fairly light skinned. I just wish the show explained that more and perhaps provided a reason as to why those two groups merged. If they did, I must have missed it. I would love an excuse to go back and watch that show..]
Like, if we were writing a script about a tribe in Malaysia, or about a K-Pop group in Korea, it would be really jarring to see a white or black guy play any of those rolls in effort to avoid a "diversity problem". Like....will it affect the overall story if the script and acting was the same? Honestly, probably not. But I'm still going sit there the entire time and ask why is famous actor Whitey McWhiterson playing the lead role as a singer in a K-Pop boy band.
The point I'm trying to make is that yes, I agree that race does not affect a story at all, but to be frank, including every race for diversity's sake (take many of the new Disney Star Wars shows, for example) is colorblind, and I feel antithetical to racial justice in general. It's denying that these people are different. I don't care what the skin color of someone is, but I would at least expect there to be some sort of explanation as to why things are the way they are. It just feels lazy, political, and shoe-horned in.
That kinda strikes me as weird, though. There's not really a justification that I need for why peter parker might be black, and not white. I don't really need to justify why he's white by default, anyways. I understand where you're coming from in terms of like, yeah, if they're black, or indian american, or whatever, make them actually be that race, you know, make them have that culture. It's a common sentiment. At the same time, there are many people, mostly your second or third generation immigrants, that are going to basically have a relatively "normal", or whitewashed, upbringing. There's usually still an amount of discrimination happening, you might still have a mild amount of cultural traditions passed down, and a feeling of being pulled between two different worlds is pretty common, much like what happens with multiracial people. But for most external observers, these groups will tend to externally show many of the same traits as a white person. That's all also kind of moot, for a lot of stories, where the point is less, like, character exploration of a personal identity, and the point is more about like. Something else. So, there's not really much of a reason, in my mind, why a writer might need to explain why someone's black, or whatever.
I brought up previously in the thread, "what if we made superman black", and I still don't think much would have to change there, for that story, cause that's just kind of what superman is. Well, beyond the normal superman critiques of like, why doesn't he just solve all the world's problems and kill the ruling class or whatever, but comics has a kind of suspension of disbelief eternal stasis that it has to enforce in order to keep a perpetual narrative going forever. I'm also not sure that in terms of a meta-critique, what the people "need" is a like, pure kind of power fantasy, that portrays their own politics as entirely correct, but maybe people do, I dunno. This is all getting a little off topic though.
So, back on it, you can kind of understand why it's a weird question to ask, right, "why are you (insert ethnicity/race here)"? Especially when I put it like that, right? Certainly, it's not something I would ask a white character, which is kind of the core problem there. If we had a total opposite, where everybody's a kind of racial stereotype, and is forced to be the kind of platonic ideal ultimate representation of their culture, and justify their own existence and role in the story, mostly except for white people, that also seems bad, and also, kind of seems like what we've been doing for forever. Minstrelization. I dunno. I get the sense that a lot of people are seeing it as something that's shoehorned in because they're not used to non-white people taking more central roles in their media. If you even just had proportional representation, that would be a pretty huge step out of what the norm has been, for a lot of years.
I also don't think anyone's really been asking for like, more diverse casting in terms of historical works. Maybe in some flanderized and inaccurate historical dramas, I might be able to see where they're coming from, but I still haven't really seen that critique. If anything, the critiques I've seen have mostly been about portrayals of historical periods focusing more on white characters, or casting lighter skinned actors, or white actors (see: colorism), in roles where, historically, that doesn't really make any sense. This applies more broadly to all works of fiction, and I'm basically just talking about whitewashing, actually. Less of a problem more recently, but it still comes up sometimes, like with that ghost in the shell movie which is probably super old hat by now.
I also won't say that it's not the case, that disney and other fucking companies have been trying to wear identity politics as a way to be on the "right side" of the culture war and appeal to squishy liberals. But I can still hate the corporate bloodsucking, power centralizing, IP buying, underpaying disney machine, while recognizing that, if companies feel the need to do this, in order to stay appealing, that's probably not a bad thing at all, and this being done, in general, isn't a bad thing.
Yeah. I get what your saying. There is sort of a grey area in my argument when it comes to, "What if we made X character Y race?". Because I totally agree that it doesn't provide any sort of bearing to the story (unless race actually pertains to the story, somewhat). For example, the recent Little Mermaid movie, was totally fine. No issues with any of it. I'd write more, but work calls.
It's interesting that you picked Spider-Man as the example of creating a different character being a better alternative, because there are plenty of racists out there that really hate that Miles Morales is even a thing. They would say "Why do we need a black Spider-Man? The original was fine!"
It's almost like racists are only ever going to whine about inclusivity, and "characters remaining their own race" vs "creating new characters" is a moot point because the people out there who are upset by the former are going to be upset by the latter anyway.
Imagine if the new scooby show had a cast of all white kids and a single black, well written character was added and made a pivotal role in the gang. The exact same people complaining now about race swapping would be complaining then about the new character being shoe horned in because of "woke" inclusion. Just like they do with Miles Morales.
The answer is just that we need to keep creating media with both of those scenarios and accept that shows created with a single color cast are products of their time and we can do better now. Racists aren't going to be happy either way.
Edit: Bring on the downvotes. If you consider "they're not supposed to be that race" as a valid, lone criticism of a character, you might have to ask yourself some difficult questions.
I am someone still somewhat bothered by ethnicity-swapping (though not really for any of the reasons you described), but here's an annecdote:
When I first started engaging with the Hannibal franchise, I started with the Mads Mikelson TV series.
The character of Jack was played by Lawrence Fishburne.
Then, I watched the old movies, and shocker - Jack is a white guy.
Yet, I didn't care that Jack was black in the reboot. The only conclusion I could draw was that it didn't annoy me because I had always known Jack as black.
Now, I could be totally wrong about this, but I think a lot of people get bent out of shape because it's distracting above all else.
I couldn't care less about Jack being black or white, he's a side character in a movie I'll watch once in my life. Yet, I was thinking about race-swapping in the middle of the movie.
That sounds like the same kind of shock as a character in something you're used to being played by any different actor in a remake. And besides that, it's not racist to acknowledge a race swap. It can be distracting. It's racist when you make the point that it shouldn't be done because the character is supposed to be a certain color for no other reason than your preference.
Uhm, no?
Have you seen the reception to both Spiderverse movies? It was overwhelmingly positive. I’d say they were probably the most universally liked Marvel movies of the decade. You would really compare that to the reception the new Little Mermaid or Ghostbusters got and say “yeah, the same amount of people got upset by both things”?
It’s nowhere nearly close. Obviously, it’s also because the spiderverse movies are written much better, but that’s also a symptom of better writers being hired for better projects. The fact that raceswapping a character and writing an entirely different one are received the same way is just plain false. Not to mention, even better, just making new movies with black characters altogether. But those two things require considerably more effort than taking an old, already liked movie’s script and copy-pasting it with a random character of a different race. And Hollywood doesn’t like effort, they just like money and free advertising.
You obviously didn't hear all the people complaining about Miles in the Spider-Man game, which is what I was referring to.
Have you considered that the racists in question just didn't go see the Miles Morales movies? Also, the fact that they are independently good movies has to do with the turnout. The little mermaid remake and the Ghostbusters new movie weren't exactly masterpieces. Saying that the spiderverse movies succeeded where they didn't is wholly attributed to the metric of creating new characters vs race swapping others is just wrong. The fact is that those movies were lazy, and that was the reason they failed.
I addressed that before, in a sense. Imo, the raceswap is part of the laziness. And yes, the reason they failed is because they were lazy, but if they weren't lazy they wouldn't have been just bland raceswaps. That's what I think about it, at least.
And honestly no, I didn't hear complaining about the game, but I admittedly read very little about it online. My friends liked it a lot and that's all I know. Complaining about that seems even dumber to me though: the franchise just got a very popular movie with a new main character, why wouldn't you put him in the game too? I don't think the complaints could've been that many, at least not at the level of those two above (or pretty much any disney remake).
I would have just as much of a problem if they made blade white or asain or Latino and the same if they made black panther white. Changing some characters race is kind of a big deal as race is kind of an important issue. If all races were treated 100% the exact same and all had the same culture then it wouldn't be a big deal.
I said if your lone criticism is that they changed the race of a character, you might be racist.
Obviously, if race plays into the story, there's a valid reason to be bothered. But also obviously, if you're upset that shaggy is black despite still being the stereotypical stoner type he always has been, you might need to think about why you're upset.
The former logic should not be a sweeping ban on the latter from ever happening.
You mean Norville? Because there's no "Shaggy" in Velma. And, err, he's not exactly the same character, melanin aside.
Because of the principle of it. If your goal is inclusivity how is completely changing the race of an established character inclusive? It's not. It's just pandering.
If you're actually trying to be inclusive then make a new character. Anything else is a pathetic attempt that just shows how disingenuous the attempt is.
This take always seems a bit myopic as it ignores the fact that it cements in the exclusivity that already existed. Not allowed to change an established character's race? Only option is to tack on a new character to the already existing cast and that certainly doesn't seem like pandering. Of course maybe the new inclusive characters should only be in new content that isn't established and has no following.
Its fascinating that you can change age, gender, class, job, good vs evil, city, power origin, family, parents, backstory, goals, romantic relationship, friends, enemies, powers, on and on and thats all fun new twists on the character to revitalize the story.
But race? Woooaaah buddy, slow down! Thats too far!
Its fuckin transparent, is what it is
So, yeah, theres a lot of people that dont like it for racist reasons, but what makes it stick out for the non racist reasons when the other changes might not immediately is that its the most likely category for when the intention is pandering. It CAN be done well, but it often is done at the behest of sales/pr board
So are all the other changes I listed. All changes are done to shake up the story to bolster new sales. Thats the whole point of changing the story at all.
Pandering is a limp dick excuse for the real reason this change is "too far" of a change when literally any and every other possible change is no big deal.
Its just racist shit hiding behind a mask of dripping wet newspaper.
I mean I think the problem here is the like, "changing the race of an established character", right. What established character? Black superman, or whatever else, isn't superman, he's black superman. That's it, basically, that's my justification. It's not the same character text to text, even. Is it the same bilbo in every lord of the rings book? Is it the same bilbo sentence to sentence? It's not like girlboss velma and dumb rich white guy fred are the same velma and fred, they just share the same symbols. If you actually dissect the characters and compared them, then you'd find very little in common. The show doesn't even have scooby fucking doo, it's not even called "scooby doo", it's, in my mind, and I think it should be in everyone else's mind, it is tangentially related to scooby doo, at best, you know? I see it as a standalone work, and in that sense it's just kind of a mediocre show that I don't think anyone should really care about, rather than this kind of abomination on the face of scooby-doodom and this thing that we need to all be frothing about because scooby-doo has been done so dirty.
SO, all of that can be true, right, they just share symbols. But this is also true of race as a whole, the symbol of race, here, being like, whether or not somebody is black or white or asian or whatever. If you're race-swapping superman, you know, I think it's kind of more in line with the message of superman, if he's the same guy, regardless of whatever race you decide to cast him as, you know? If you don't change the backstory, if you do change the backstory, whatever, he sort of exists beyond it, as a kind of human ideal for everyone to live up to. For that to be true, superman has to be possible if you put him in basically any circumstance. So, even though superman himself is the same, have we "made a new character", even though we've changed his race, maybe changed his background, and then, in line with that, we've maybe flavored him different in terms of like, say, what music or food he likes? I dunno if we really have or we haven't. Made a new character, I mean. The character has changed, but the core remains the same, the label is the same, the symbols are the same. That's kind of the question I'm asking, where do you draw the line as to what's a "new" character, and what's not? You could just as easily draw it to be where any change in surface level characteristics, from eye color, to hair color, to skin color, results in a "new" character, even if the character, of that character, remains the same. Red shirt shaggy vs green shirt shaggy.
So I dunno, really, like, I've never got this critique of like oh no we're not being inclusive in the right way because we decided to make velma indian, instead of deciding to call the series Shmelma or whatever. What if they did that, what if her name was Shmelma? That's an extremely surface level difference between the two, but now they have a separate set of labels, so are they separate characters now, or what? I think if I'm going to critique the show, it's not really going to be on the basis of indian people not having their own shmelma, or even just their own separate scooby-doo, you know. I'm not going to condemn all indian people to forever only engaging with goobert and the ghost chasers, or whatever. If I'm going to critique the show, I'm gonna critique the show because the show itself is mediocre to bad, and has mediocre to bad writing, and cost too much money, and maybe I will critique it for, for some reason, the most popular multiracial iteration of scooby-doo has to also be the one that has the worst writing, where everyone can easily punch at it for that, and producers can also maybe try to use that as a smokescreen for putting out a mediocre show.
I dunno why I'm even talking about this shit, scooby-doo is bogus gen X bullshit. I'd rather watch like, the muppets. Nobody's ever gonna really complain about kermit being race-swapped, I'll tell you that.
It doesn't necessarily matter. Did you watch South Park: Into The Panderverse or whatever it's called? I can only find this super short cut down clip of Eric Cartman's nightmare he's explaining to his psychiatrist
It misses the most important line: and finally I wanna scream, and I was like, "WHY ARE THEY REPLACING EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER WITH SOMEONE WHO IS DIVERSE??"
It's weird, it's hokey, these remakes look & feel very forced, agenda driven. I ask for more than original characters; I want actually new fucking ideas. New stories! We're not seeing very many of those lately; we're getting re-skinned versions of established characters, they just cut off their face & wear it around, and we're supposed to act like we don't notice. If we do notice, we're racist, or sexist, some -ist or -phobe. No, your work is just a lazy, contrived retell of a story that was already told pretty well. Wrapped up nice & neat with a bow on top.
Personally I'm not super invested in the whole debacle, and I simply choose to not see the new stuff & remakes. I'm an adult man, I have no kids, anyway. No dog in this fight. It's alright. If it's truly better and/or a fantastic story, it will probably bear out at the box office & I'll hear about how what an incredible movie it is.
For me, it's an uncanny valley thing. If the only thing they change is skin colour or gender, and it's also relevant to the plot, it's too close to the original for me to enjoy it as a new thing, but too far to be enjoyed as a new thing. It fucks with my suspense of disbelief, since I'm supposed to know stuff from other movies, but not all the things, so I'm fucked if I pretend that it's just another episode of the same thing, or it's a completely different and new thing equally.
That said, Velma is different enough that it's "past the valley" for me, it's so far from the original that it could be enjoyed as its own thing, if it didn't fall flat for other reasons.
My thing is if it's so far removed, why use the IP to begin with? Why not just make a new show, or adapt something that hasn't been made or made well or as ubiquitous as Scooby Doo? Like, ok, if you don't have an original idea, fine, just adapt something inclusive like Raisin in the Sun and do a damn good job of it. Or just make a show like Arthur, not a live action Arthur ffs, but a show inspired by that with drawn human characters that is inclusive.
Things can be done, the lazy writing just sucks and I talk shit about ALL remakes (started with the Total Recall abortion) and most reboots. It isn't "anti-woke" that gets me, it's that Tim Burton is seemingly the only one tapping into the wellspring of original thought since around aught-nine.
I don't agree. If they'd just written a new character there would be grounds to complain that the new character was pointless tokenism.
So maybe actually integrate that character into a new concept entirely. Make a new story where you can choose whatever race everyone is supposed to be from the start. Don't take an existing story and change the races just so you can go "See guys! I'm being inclusive! I made this character black! I'm so progressive!"
Scooby Doo doesn't have the best track record when it comes to integrating a new character.
I'm honestly speaking generally not just about Scooby Doo. It just so happens that this portrayal of Scooby Doo is just pure blatant pandering.
Why did they even call it Scooby Doo? Why even attach the show to that franchise when it's so separated in it's basic concepts?
The answer is because they were trying to use the franchises name to push some stupid race pandering bullshit.
They put in all the effort to change each character to the point that they only resemble their original designs by physical appearance. They literally could have just come up with a completely different show that had nothing to do with Scooby Doo at all.
Is it "race pandering" to make a cast more diverse in order to broaden its appeal?
It is when you're just taking an existing character and basically giving them black face.
It would be infinitely easier to integrate a new character entirely than to just race swap a character without changing their cultural identity.
I don't think I understand what you mean by "race pandering". Is it a kind of pandering? Pandering to whom? And how?
I call it pandering specifically because it's disingenuous. It's not a real attempt at racial inclusivity it's going "Ah fuck we're getting bitched at for not being inclusive. Fuck it this characters black now. They act exactly the same because we can't be bothered to actually put in the work to make the cultural changes, but, good enough. Fuck you"
And that's why it's pandering. They literally just change the color of their skin without giving a single fuck about cultural identities.
Edit: Removed my first paragraph because I phrased it wrong.
My only takeaway was the writing is bad.
We are more concerned with airing grievances than writing.
It kills any nostalgia I have for the character, because race swapping very rarely means just a change in skin color
I'm fine with black characters. I prefer female characters. Ultimately, I don't care that much. Give me good writing
Make me care about them for who they are. Oh, you want to make my beloved character Pakistani? Go fuck yourself. I don't care about the actor, don't change my character.
You want to make a Haitian main character? I'm listening.
Write well, pay respect to the characters and the work. That's the only rule...I don't know why it's seemingly impossible to follow
To do that, you need these special people called writers and you need to give them time and money, and that seems like a hassle, doesn't it? Can't we just make unpaid interns brainstorm stuff and figure out what will drive engagement on social media instead?
You could care less? So you do care at least a little bit?