What if we limited the number of white men in film and TV?

I think Marvel has really upped the game when it comes to remakes, though, and what is possible, and with each new movie (and hopefully TV show) they continue to push the envelope. Certainly they aren’t perfect, but there is an obvious effort within Marvel to feature diverse characters, and with casting choices like Idris Elba, they are making clear efforts to change up expectations of superheros and how they can be represented and written, regardless of “original canon”. And the Marvel movies and TV shows are WILDLY popular and HUGE money-makers. Marvel beats out DC by a very large amount.

Hopefully this bleeds into other areas of television and movies, too, and I think we’re starting to see that. (Again, shout out to Kal Penn’s Nerdist interview!!!)

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Actually. Queen Latifah should be lady Dr Who. She is bad ass and incredibly talented and versatile. QUEEN LATIFAH FOR DR WHO.

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How about Lisa Lopez? That’s who I was originally trying to think of.

Even a small part like his involves wearing a ridiculous helmet, yellow sclera contacts, and a huge heavy outfit… which I’m sure he spent many, many hours just standing around in, sweating balls. I can see why he wouldn’t enjoy it.

I once took a Norse mythology course in college; half the class was made up of those guys. They wore their hair in braids, little Thor hammers around their necks, and constantly berated the (female) teacher for “not doing justice to their Great God” and managed to slip racism into amazing places.

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Wait, who is Lisa Lopez? All I can think of is Left Eye from TLC. And now I’m sad. :frowning:

Oh Rosario Dawson is apparently excellent in Daredevil which I still have to watch and I’ve always loved watching her on screen. She’s got a certain swagger about her, too. I could TOTALLY see her as Iron Lady (I just made her up).

Her, yes. I didn’t use the googs.

Could you, or somebody, create a side-thread for Crazy Doctor Who casting ideas? I’m on mobile right now and can’t.

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Yep, that’s them. :laughing: Touchy as all hell and stupidly easy to trolley.

Meryl Streep already did that role.

Of course she did, Meryl Streep does everything.

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I created a new thread but for some reason I am prevented from using the “Reply as linked topic” feature? This has happened before? Maybe I should PM @Falcor.

Should probably talk about them not being picked to direct big budget films not top-grossing films since no one is picked to direct a top-grossing film.

In fact, there is a serious selection bias if you limit anything to the top-grossing films because we can’t know if they were popular because they tend to have male protagonists or not.

I’m not so willing to give Marvel cinema a passing grade quite yet - all their film and television franchises so far are white-male led, with one exception (Agent Carter), with diversity only in supporting characters. (Ok, Agents of Shield is a more diverse ensemble piece.) So far it’s more about what they’re going to do. We’ll see. (The comics seem to be doing better, in that when retooling some characters, they’re willing to be more diverse. The cinematic universe doesn’t have the same luxury in some ways to change familiar characters, but they could have been making more use of those existing characters.) DC seems like it might be taking some cues, though - e.g. “Gosh, maybe we don’t have to have a blond white guy play Aquaman…”

That’s just wrong. An American?

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Hahaha. You know, I didn’t even think about the American aspect of it. I admit that I am not that knowledgeable about Dr. Who, even though a LOOOT of my friends are super into it. I am a bad nerd. :frowning:

I agree with the rest of your comment, as well. The leading characters all being white men is problematic, for sure.

I forgot about Aquaman, great example for DC.

Um. Blade? Men in Black?

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Yeah, but those movies got progressively worse and worse and weren’t nearly as well done as the new MCU stuff and that was some time ago, and I don’t think it’s part of the new cinematic universe?

Men in Black is a Sony movie, I believe. Based off of Marvel characters, yes, but not produced by Marvel from what I understand.

Actually what I said was that female directors aren’t given gigs on blockbusters - in the sense of “a high-budget production aimed at mass markets,” not necessarily a film that actually does well with those expectations.

But if we look at blockbusters (in the above sense, rather than box office take) they’re almost uniformly with male protagonists, and when they are successful, it simply feeds Hollywood’s assumptions that they’re successful because they have male protagonists, etc., even though, realistically, there wasn’t anything else that could have been successful in that way, given the films that Hollywood is(n’t) making.

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Yeah but they were still Marvel films. They just weren’t produced by Marvel Studios and were done at a time when Marvel was having financial difficulties and couldn’t get Stan Lee a cameo or that little flip book imagery at the beginning of the film. They are what led Marvel back into financial solvency though.

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True.

I wouldn’t mind a well done Blade re-make in the new universe, maybe a Netlifx series or even an animated series aimed more for adults.

Neither were Marvel movies - and specifically I’m talking MCU here. I.e. the movies that Marvel actually has control over. Also not counting: Howard the Duck, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider, Kick-Ass, etc.

They are going to make a Black Panther movie. Oh and there is going to be a Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Iron Cage tv series.

Edit: yeah, Mike Colter is going to be Luke Cage.

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Yessss. I am super excited about Black Panther, actually! Maybe @Shuck isn’t aware of the upcoming stuff. Very exciting stuff. I know people sometimes take issue with “remakes” and all of this “superhero stuff” but personally I think the superhero universes (plural) are the BEST way to present a large, diverse cast of characters and back grounds. There’s already a great, solid foundation to build stories off of, including lots of great characters, and the history of comic books, as I mentioned previously, already has a history of constantly growing and adapting to changing times.

I mean, Iron Man can’t be played by Robert Downey, Jr., forever (as one example).