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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
And it's stupid that the Mighty Whitey here is "better" than everyone else (air quotes because his fighting is awful). And if he's so bad, why the hell is he the Iron Fist? I wouldn't let him lead a damn dojo, I'd throw his ass out.
It's impossible to avoid anything about race here when the show is so tone deaf about it. The in-story reasons are bullshit and so are the out of story reasons. The entire show was just Marvel rushing it out and hiring an idiot who doesn't know how to run a show properly so that they could get the Defenders ready, and it shows.
edited 29th May '17 8:19:56 PM by AdricDePsycho
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?The trope is called Mighty Whitey for a reason. Emphasis on whitey. If they had changed Danny's race, there wouldn't have been so much Unfortunate Implications.
And while you could say that there is a lot of anti-white racism in foreign countries, this show was definitely made and takes place in America, a place where there has been a long, long history of racism by white people against people of color.
edited 29th May '17 8:21:03 PM by alliterator
The conflict about race isn't about the show being deliberately racist, it's about raising awareness. I'd mind the Mighty Whitey elements inherent to Iron Fist a lot less here if the show wasn't so determined to simply gloss over them, if they showed a little more self-awareness and greater specificity regarding Asian culture, and tackled the realities of marginalization head on rather than just using kung fu mysticism as a set of props. I'll be honest, if you told me this show was going to deal with homelessness, mental illness, corporate responsibility, and what it's like to be an immigrant, foreigner,mentally ill person, or in any way displaced or other, I would've been pretty excited about that, if it reached the same levels as the other Netflix MCU shows. I just don't think it ever quite did.
You can feel the love for New York City in Daredevil or Luke Cage. You can tell, especially, that the subject matter is near and dear to the writers' heart in Jessica Jones, that it's been given a lot of thought. Iron Fist just feels kind of tossed off and workmanlike. Which might be fine if it was just coming out as a standalone work, but considering the company it keeps, and the moment in time when it's coming out, a little more of that self-awareness would've gone a long way.
edited 29th May '17 8:42:08 PM by Unsung
I mean, it's pretty clear that Marvel couldn't find a showrunner that really wanted to do the show, like they had with Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. In fact, Iron Fist had been scheduled to air before Luke Cage, but they switched it around because they had a showrunner for Luke Cage long before they had one for Iron Fist.
Honestly, I think the show wouldn't have been as "meh" as it was if they had taken a little bit more time in writing, directing, and editing it. Instead of releasing it March, they should have waited until May (perhaps right after Agents of SHIELD ended), which might have given them more time to smooth out the bad parts and make the entire show stronger.
No, this is about me disagreeing with people classifying Danny as a Mighty Whitey character when he doesn't fit the trope. He's barely better than Colleen, pretty much on the same ground as Davos, he was chosen to be the Iron Fist in spite (and not because, at least not as far as we know) of his race (and some destiny, it seems). He's shown as an incompetent fool who rushes at his problems with the subtlety of a hammer. How is he Mighty Whitey?
Yeah, ok, I'll give you that. Iron Fist suffers from following Luke Cage and Jessica Jones, both of which tackled complicated themes (with varying degrees of success, of course). Iron Fist did not, at least not successfully. In any case, that's not what I'm arguing about. I'm not denying that Iron Fist had some problems with their handling of racial issues (because that's clear as day). I'm only disagreeing that he's the problem.
As I've said, I get every single complaint about Iron Fist. Pacing, editing, handling of racial issues, fighting scenes, dubious acting... This one? It just strikes me as people getting too offended with a character in particular.
I'm not defending white people in general, I'm defending Danny in particular. Just so we're clear.
You cannot hate a character because he is both better than everyone at everything AND because he sucks at everything. Pick one or the other. You either hate Danny because he's the best martial artist in the world while also being white, or because he's actually terrible at being the Iron Fist, not both.
The thing with Mighty Whitey is that, while the character being better at whatever the non-white people do matters a lot as well, it's also about the narrative focus of having all these eastern cultures elements be so central to the story but excluding the people from the cultures in question of actually being the main characters in the story. In isolation, that wouldn't be such a big deal but when they're excluded again and again it just becomes tedious.
Say Danny wasn't a white guy. That would have less baggage, yes, but it wouldn't be ideal either because it's still a story that centers very heavily on asian mysticism but revolving around a person from some other cultural and ethnic background. People have complained over and over that this would be stereotypical but most asian people don't actually seem to care all that much? Martial arts ARE a part of their culture, most of them would just like it if they could tell their own stories about their own culture for a change.
Danny himself comes across as Innocently Insensitive at most, and when called out on it he usually does try to mend his ways. It's just that the show doesn't always call him out on it.
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I don't see why we can't hate both those things if both those things are being presented on the show. He can beat anyone in martial arts, but he's not actually very good at martial arts, as far as we can see. It's frustrating.
edited 29th May '17 9:46:42 PM by Unsung
It's blatant Character Shilling. He's presented as an immortal weapon and yet Finn Jones can't fight and he's portrayed as a naive buffoon.
Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?So Danny is simultaneously a better fighter than everyone around him and the worst Iron Fist. He rushes into danger without thinking and yet somehow it pretty much all works out (see: where he rushed off to China, fought one guy, and then captured Madame Gao, a woman who previously was shown to be able to knock him down without even touching him).
What I don't get is why people were asking for Iron Fist to be specifically Asian-American.
I get the argument for not having him be white, because of the Mighty Whitey cliche. And I can even kind of get the argument for having him be Asian, since the martial arts and mysticism the character practices are rooted in Asian culture, so having the character who masters those arts be from Asia makes sense. But having the character be Asian-American contradicts that whole argument. If Danny Rand had been Asian-American, then he'd still be an outsider appropriating a foreign culture; he'd just happen to look similar to the people whose society he's fallen into.
edited 29th May '17 11:44:28 PM by RavenWilder
Iron Fist's story has always been about an outsider proving they can fight just as well or better than anyone who was born in K'un-Lun (which going by Davos might be multiethnic anyway). In that regard, the character's race doesn't actually matter. It's just that excluding Asians or Asian-Americans from the running out of a desire not to be stereotypical seems wildly counterproductive— avoiding stereotypes may be well-meant, but not if it means avoiding casting Asians altogether.
The interest in an Asian-American Iron Fist comes from how it affects them once they're back in America, as it gives the story an excuse to be specifically about the experience of being Asian in America, assimilation, integration, tradition, all of that. It's not really something that's depicted very often.
edited 29th May '17 11:58:32 PM by Unsung
I think there is a distinction here that we should take into account.
Asian-Americans understandably take this kind of thing more personally; but native Asians living in Asian countries, while there are people like me who do care about the issues when it comes to the representation of our cultures, would not be too broken-hearted if things didn't turn out ideally, as for example, we have an overabundance of Asian martial artists in our own media already.
So we tend to just find the "white guy good at martial arts" trope kind of amusing. Like, you wouldn't believe how much my dad is into Steven Seagal movies.
edited 30th May '17 1:19:09 AM by Nightwire
Iron Fist is in terms of themes no more or less complicated than the other shows, the show is just more subtle in it. Plus, Iron Fist is philosophical, which is way more common than a show about morality, psychology or culture. More or less every movie maker tries to be philosophical.
And before someone asks: Iron Fist is about destiny vs self-determination, Tradition vs forging your own path. The show is also very millennial, which might be why so many people dislike Danny as a character.

Again, if he had been latino, hindu, black or jewish this conversation wouldn't be happening. So yeah, we're making this entirely about his skin colour while disregarding the in-story justifications of why is he the Iron Fist.
And it's not like the show presented him as this flawless white saviour of mankind. One character flat out says that he's "the worst Iron Fist ever" (or something to that effect). In no point the show even entertains the idea that he's better because he's white. He's better because he's better, period.
Also, there's some destiny and The Chosen One bullshit in play, too, so there's that.
edited 29th May '17 8:06:42 PM by ExplosiveLion