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Welcome to the main discussion thread for the Marvel Cinematic Universe! This pinned post is here to establish some basic guidelines. All of the Media Forum rules still apply.

  • This thread is for talking about the live-action films, TV shows, animated works, and related content that use the Marvel brand, currently owned by Disney.
  • While mild digressions are okay, discussion of the comic books should go in this thread. Extended digressions may be thumped as off-topic.
  • Spoilers for new releases should not be discussed without spoiler tagging for at least two weeks. Rather, each title should have a dedicated thread where that sort of conversation is held. We can mention new releases in a general sense, but please be courteous to people who don't want to be spoiled.

If you're posting tagged spoilers, make sure that the film or series is clearly identified outside the spoiler tagging. People need to know what will be spoiled before they choose to read the post.

    Original post 
Since Thor and now Captain America came out this year, I wanted to get what Tropers thought of the concept and execution of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. Personally I love the idea and wonder why this idea hasn't been seriously tried before. It sorta seems to me like the DCAU in movie form (And well, ummm, with Marvel), and really 'gets' the comic book feel of a shared universe while not being completely alienating.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#23226: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:15:28 AM

"Stopped" shouldn't really be in past-tense there.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
unknowing from somewhere.. Since: Mar, 2014
#23227: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:16:25 AM

tobias: when multicultiralsm become a thing people just retcon the whole irsh thing and pretend it never happen..yeah

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"
kostya (Unlucky Thirteen)
#23228: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:16:42 AM

When most people see an Irish character they see a white guy not an Irish guy. It's like calling Greek people a minority or something.

@Luke Cage and Panther: Yes, we now have two black guys. How many Asian stars? Hispanic? Middle Eastern? None yet we can have 5 white guys. This is an ongoing problem and that's just focusing on the races of characters. There are other kinds of minorities that haven't even been acknowledged.

swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#23229: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:18:18 AM

Whoever says that Irish are not a minority in America, should read up on topics like "Irish Slavery", "Religious Issues" (keep in mind that American immigrants tended to be protestants until the Irish and the Scotts turned up, who were catholic) and general Anti-Irish sentiments. They have become less an issue with time, but it has certainly been a thing in the past and to a certain degree the attitude hasn't died out yet.

One doesn't need to have a different skin colour to be a minority...hell, woman are minorities, even though they make up more than half of the population.

Ithilgore Since: Jan, 2001
#23230: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:18:50 AM

Anyone with a sentiment of "I don't like Cumberbatch because he's too popular/in too many movies"....Jesus Christ grow up.

BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#23231: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:19:57 AM

Blah blah complex issue yada yada yada decades of history I'm not writing that thing out again.

Basically, what everyone in this thread is mad at when they complain about the lack of diversity is the year 1963. Personally, I think there are more productive ways to bring about change than complaining that most of the characters created when segregation was a thing are white.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#23232: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:20:45 AM

We DO see an Irish guy if he's shitfaced. Come to think of it, the only time Irish people are even represented as their own distinctive race separate from The White Folk is when they're living down to stereotypes.

That's not really progress at all, is it? We forgave Irish people for being a race rather than accepted them.

edited 5th Dec '14 9:23:46 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#23233: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:21:15 AM

Like... letting those characters be played by POC actors? Because it's 2014 and that's a thing we can just do?

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
LizardBite Shameless Self-Promoter from Two Galaxies Over Since: Jan, 2001
#23234: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:22:15 AM

Irish-american. As far as I'm aware, Catholic Irish-Americans have been a minority in Northern America since the dawn of the US, no?

Yeah, but prejudice against us is mostly gone except for a few isolated pockets of super conservative protestants here and there. My dad who grew up in The Deep South in the 60's has felt anti-Irish Catholic sentiment in his life, but my siblings and I have not. JFK provoked a similar reaction in Conservatives in this country that Obama does, but like most assassinated public figures, he's since become a martyr and people tend to gloss over that nowadays. People seem to have redirected their hatred toward Mexicans, and now we're usually just considered white. Like Tobias Drake said, the jokes about Gingers and drunkenness are probably the only real remnants of anti-Irish sentiment in the US. So it's not totally gone, but people aren't full of Irish hatred anymore.

Daredevil may have been considered a part of an oppressed minority when he was created, but those days are long past.

edited 5th Dec '14 9:23:25 AM by LizardBite

BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#23235: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:24:11 AM

Mukora: That's not progress. It's a band-aid. In many ways, it's counter-productive because all you have then is a white character with a different skin colour, instead of an actual hispanic, asian, black or whatever else character.

swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#23236: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:25:27 AM

[up][up][up][up]To be fair, it is kind of an equal opportunity stereotyping...Germans for example are always Nazi-type villains, or jolly guys in leather pants, French (and boy, is the anti-French sentiment still obvious in the American Media) are usually womanizers and untrustworthy charmers, English people keep drinking tea and are kind of posh, unless they cockney, naturally, and love to talk about the ancestors, Scots are stingy, Italians belong to the mafia, Russians too, aso.

edited 5th Dec '14 9:26:07 AM by swanpride

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#23237: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:25:53 AM

Except... not? Like, if they made Spider-Man Hispanic they could totally make that A Thing in the movie.

Because, amazingly enough, movies aren't restricted by comic book storylines.

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#23238: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:25:56 AM

It is only in very rare circumstances that a white character's race is actually pivotal to the character.

Like, would Tony Stark be that different if he was Japanese? Or Hispanic? Or Cherokee? How much would his story have to change to reflect this difference in nationality?

Bruce Banner shifted overnight from being The Whitest Guy to a Canadian/Italian hybrid with absolutely nothing about his character being altered in the process. He woke up one day with a different skin color and a noticeable but not entirely identifiable accent, and he just shrugged and rolled with it.

edited 5th Dec '14 9:28:57 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
higherbrainpattern Since: Apr, 2012
#23239: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:26:53 AM

@ithilgore: yeah, because how dare everyone not like this one british actor that's everywhere these days?

edited 5th Dec '14 9:27:01 AM by higherbrainpattern

Bocaj Funny but not helpful from Here or thereabouts (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Pining for the fjords
Funny but not helpful
#23240: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:27:15 AM

I don't know.

I think the movies influence the public opinion more than the comics do. Movies, cartoons, stuff like that will always be more salient in the public's mind when it comes to these heroes than the comics. So if you cast POC as the heroes in the movies, that's how people will think of them.

See also: Public perception of Aquaman, stemming mostly from the Superfriends cartoon.

Forever liveblogging the Avengers
BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#23241: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:29:02 AM

I'm not even saying that they can't be played by people of colour. But it shouldn't be considered the natural and obvious solution to a diversity problem, and it isn't something to get angry over when it doesn't happen. Get angry that there aren't more diverse heroes to begin with. Get angry that the comics don't push the ones they have as hard as they could. Get angry that there aren't more people in Hollywood willing to cast minority actors to become names big enough to make casting colourblind. That's what's going to affect change.

swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#23242: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:29:33 AM

I think the better established a character is, the more difficult it is to change his look. Let's be honest: A blond Superman would cause an uproar, too. Because Superman has to look kind of like Christopher Reeve.

[up]Exactly...and get angry that the people behind the scenes in Hollywood and the Comic world still tend to be white.

edited 5th Dec '14 9:30:45 AM by swanpride

LizardBite Shameless Self-Promoter from Two Galaxies Over Since: Jan, 2001
#23243: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:29:33 AM

Like, would Tony Stark be that different if he was Japanese? Or Hispanic? Or Cherokee?

Well, as a white American, he's probably 1/16 Cherokee. tongue

Mukora Uniocular from a place Since: Jan, 2010 Relationship Status: I made a point to burn all of the photographs
Uniocular
#23244: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:29:41 AM

To be fair, the outcry against Benny is a bit uncalled for.

I can totally get being disappointed, maybe even exasperated, but, like... why be mad? That seems like a waste of energy to me.

And while I may be upset with the casting company, I can't be anything but happy for Benedict himself. He went from basically nobody to a guy that's so popular people hate him in the course of, what, a year?

"It's so hard to be humble, knowing how great I am."
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#23245: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:30:42 AM

A key element of uplifting minority roles in storytelling is removing the "White Guy unless necessarily otherwise" assumption attached to all characters.

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
BadWolf21 Since: May, 2010
#23246: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:31:16 AM

Mukora: About four, I think. I remember my Psych professor gushing about the first season of Sherlock when I was in first year at uni, and now I'm in fifth.

higherbrainpattern Since: Apr, 2012
#23247: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:31:19 AM

@Bocaj: See also: a large swath of people unfamiliar with Hal Jordon's Green Lantern were wondering why the hell Green Lantern was a white guy in the movie because they saw the Justice League cartoon when they were kids.

edited 5th Dec '14 9:33:31 AM by higherbrainpattern

Ithilgore Since: Jan, 2001
#23248: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:31:29 AM

If you dislike Cumberbatch for actual specific reasons, sure. Disliking someone "for being popular" is completely nonsensical. That was my point. "I don't like him because he's in a bunch of movies" doesn't sound ridiculous to you?

edited 5th Dec '14 9:32:18 AM by Ithilgore

Ithilgore Since: Jan, 2001
#23250: Dec 5th 2014 at 9:33:16 AM

[up] But I never mentioned that. I said "because he's popular right now I don't like him" as a reason is stupid.


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