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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Former English teacher. I went back and read that twitter thread. Your analysis of the conversation at issue is unsupported by the objective evidence and relies entirely on personal subjective opinion. D+.
I was wondering something along those lines.
Would Batman receive the same kind of criticism for putting a shiny space man in an arm bar that turned out to be consensual?
We might never know except I'd actually be surprised if Batman never grappled with any shiny space men.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersDraghinazzo already pointed out why it isn't a strong argument in this situation, and did it with every bit of the politeness that you so highly value. At least acknowledge their point and formulate a counterargument if you insist on having this conversation.
Nah, that already happened. (Mostly joking.)
Also, if the show had been in the hands of people who were willing to make him Asian, it would in all likelihood have turned out to be a better show in other regards as well. Rather than hanging out in (checks) the high teens on Rotten Tomatoes.note
You do realize that you need to say why if you want to make an actual point.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Wait, wasn't Iron Fist's comic version also new yorker? Like, wasn't the white washing controversy about Ancient One and not Iron Fist?
Anyway, pretty sure Iron Fist wasn't bad because of the concept though, I remember seeing some of those "so I have benefit of hindsight, but I think it would have been better if written like this" videos that made rather good case. That said, I wasn't interested enough in marvel netflix shows to watch them, so not sure how bad Iron Fist really was
Anyway, anyway, while I'm preeeeeeeeeetty sure as well that GKG isn't debating in good faith(pretty sure they ignored the "Rotten Tomatoes rating wise its about 8 as well, 99% is just about how many of them rated it above 50%" part when it was brought up), not sure you guys are accomplishing much by taunting them. I mean, not sure what forum rules say about taunting people since I guess thats not same as personal attacks, but I kind of dislike ganging up on people on principle even if they are acting on agenda. Call it trauma from high school days
Like, posters not debating in good faith tend to eventually get banned anyway unless they wise up and stop being inflammatory, so no real need to feed the flames.
...But yeah, seriously, there was Iron Fist whitewasing controversy?
edited 8th Feb '18 11:54:07 AM by SpookyMask
Yeah, the problem with Iron Fist isn't whitewashing (and anyone who says that's what's wrong with it, is wrong themselves), it's with Mighty Whitey. The Ancient One suffers from both, primarily the former.
To be 100% clear here, nobody who was well-informed about the situation was complaining that Iron Fist had been whitewashed. He was always a white character and the casting reflects this.
The criticism was that he's a very dated character archetype and that Marvel is continuing to perpetuate it instead of doing something about it. It doesn't help that Daredevil had previously dropped the ball on this too with an embarrassing Yellow Peril stereotype that basically destroyed the latter half of its second season.
edited 8th Feb '18 11:56:01 AM by Draghinazzo
Not whitewashing. It was only ever called that by people reporting on it from the outside who weren't as versed in the issue as they should have been, thereby further muddying the waters and opening the doors to roughly ten thousand "but it's not technically whitewashing" semantic arguments.
It would be more aptly described as a Mighty Whitey issue.
And
'd approximately ten thousand times, appropriately enough.
edited 8th Feb '18 11:56:16 AM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."There wasn't an Iron Fist whitewashing controversy. There was an Iron Fist Race Lift controversy. People wanted Iron Fist to be race lifted to avoid the unapologetic Mighty Whitey elements in the story of a white kid from New York who crashed in a Tibetan monastery and then became the supreme Chosen One and master of their culture, then took their culture and fled with it back to America so that he could be Best Asian in the comfort of white society.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I'm sorry, but if I prefaced my answer to someone with "that's great and all", or finished them with "but sure. do you." after engaging the convo with a "...are you for real" then yes, you'd call me rude and dismissive too. You don't get to engage a conversation with snark and then pretend that you did everything to keep it level.
"Also, if the show had been in the hands of people who were willing to make him Asian, it would in all likelihood have turned out to be a better show in other regards as well. Rather than hanging out in (checks) the high teens on Rotten Tomatoes."
Why exactly? How does the willingness to Race Lift a character have anything to do with the ability to produce good TV? That's a mighty big assumption you're doing here.
Because a lot of the show's flaws are the product of the tone-deafness on display.
Like. Someone who's woke enough to recognize why Mighty Whitey is a bad trope that should be avoided at all costs probably also wouldn't have made Danny a sexual predator.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.@Tobias: Oh, okay, got confused there, so thank you for explaining it.
I do kind of find it interesting. Like, they had choice to either stick to the comic or change it to be less jarring by modern standards and they chose the comic(well, I assume not completely since I'm not aware of Iron Fist having huge fortune, but could be wrong about that), while with Ancient One they changed character because... Actually, what was the reason? Because original Ancient One was stereotype or because they really wanted the actor?
edited 8th Feb '18 11:59:44 AM by SpookyMask
That's great and all, but she never pretended that she did "everything she could to keep it level," nor did I. She engaged him and didn't hide her incredulity at what she perceived as his hypocrisy. If you think that invalidates everything she said and by extension the entire issue, then I guess that's something for you to sort out.
Also, Iron Fist is, conceptually, a boring, outdated, and offensive character who is in dire need of updating in order to be brought into the modern age. A Race Lift would mitigate (if not eliminate) many serious problems with the character, but would require creative courage to execute - a willingness to make changes where warranted and divert away from the status quo.
Not coincidentally, these same qualities make for a good storyteller.
I'm still waiting on some of those points that I requested you elaborate on, by the way. Shall I just keep waiting indefinitely?
The stated reasons were "because the character is a stereotype and we're not good enough writers to fix that, so we decided to just erase their racial identity in some vague hopes of mitigating the problem" and "China doesn't like it when people acknowledge the existence of Tibet." (Though the Marvel PR department walked that one back.)
Neither of those hold much water, suffice to say.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:01:21 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."...Litterally how is he an actual sexual predator?
Yes, because Thor 1 and 2 clearly are the pinnacle of great storytelling because they did a Race Lift on Heimdall.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:02:56 PM by GKG
It was apparently both of those but they missed the point. Removing the asian person from the story was not exactly the best solution, and keeping the orientalist trappings just made it worse.
I wouldn't have phrased it like that but the main thing he's getting at is the romance in Iron Fist is awful and makes both Danny and Colleen look horrible. It makes Danny into a clueless entitled douche who constantly invades people's personal space, and makes Colleen look like a masochist with horrible taste in men.
All of this is a symptom of the lack of care and effort that went into the show.
You're basically creating a straw man because those situations are in no way equal. The Race Lift from Heimdall basically changed nothing about the character. Changing Iron Fist's race changes a lot about the character. This is coming from someone who didn't even like Thor either.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:09:37 PM by Draghinazzo
I don't know about predator but his interactions with Colleen are incredibly skeezy.
He is constantly just making decisions for her without her input
Forever liveblogging the AvengersThe same lack of care and effort that went into choosing Finn Jones over Lewis Tan for their martial arts hero, despite stringing along the latter on vain hopes for quite a while, then giving it to the former who couldn't fight to save his life and learned his stunts twenty minutes before shooting.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Ooh, I'm interested to see where this is going. Please elaborate on how you think what you just said is relevant.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."Hmm, yeah, if they really wanted to go with celtic thing, they could have actually bothered to make character celtic. Which is pity since more people should be aware of celtic mythology stuff. Like Gae Bolg is just really gruesome
@GKG: Umm, I have no strong opinions on race lifting Norse Mythology Gods', but you do realize Heimdal and Iron Fist aren't comparable in this situation since there aren't Mighty Whitey (again could be wrong) elements to norse mythology due to being self contained to, ya know, norse?

You're going to have to explain to me why that "bleeds dismissiveness and contempt", because it seems pretty civil to me.
I keep hearing this. "You're not allowed to criticize the decision to cast a white actor in an ethnically uncomfortable role because you haven't seen it. You don't know if they could fix it in the work itself! The show or movie might totally justify the decision! You don't know!" But it never does.
I spent all thirteen episodes of Iron Fist waiting for this scene defenders kept insisting must exist somewhere, in which Danny pulls off his mask and reveals himself to have not been a white guy this entire time. It never happens.
The shocking reveal where the Ancient One isn't Tilda Swinton after all is nowhere to be found in Doctor Strange either.
Every time one of these cases come up, people crawl out of the woodwork to cry foul at the controversy, saying that you can't criticize the casting choice until you've seen it in context. And every single time, it's actually significantly worse in context.
It's a pretty heavily discredited argument at this point.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.