Nick Fury started out in the comics as a white guy, but I don’t remember the same outcry when they made him black in the comics and then cast you in the movies as they’re making now over Michael B. Jordan playing Human Torch in “The Fantastic Four.”
*I was surprised that there hadn’t been more outrage or outcry, but I guess the audience now that’s watching these films – a lot of them haven’t gone back in that comic book history to see that, you know. When somebody says David Hasselhoff played Nick Fury, people kind of dismiss it as, “Well, that had to be f**ked up because David Hasselhoff did it.” So, they don’t see it that way, but yet, still this week, I look online and, you know, now people are all bitched out because Quvenzhane (Wallis) is playing Annie (in the new film version of the musical “Annie”). It’s kind of like, it’s a fucking fantasy, you know. People do this kind of thing all the time. It’s another iteration of Annie so accept it or don’t accept it.
There definitely was a slightly less outcry about Nick Fury (so I concede that point to you, totally), but I think that had more to do with Samuel L. Jackson than anything else. Jackson has the luck of being well known already, and very well liked, and having been in a superhero movie in the past already (Unbreakable). His statement above, I think, touches on that. He acknowledges that while his character didn’t receive too much outcry, other characters in similar situations have and still do.
Samuel L. Jackson is the exception, not the rule. That was his point.
I mean look at the reaction about Idris Elba playing a Norse god in Thor – google it. There was a LOT of racist hub-bub. Idris Elba was largely an unknown back then, just some “random black dude playing a Norse god” and people DID NOT LIKE IT AT ALL.
I am so not going to answer that! I admit my reply was sort of clunky and I’m trying to remain respectful and avoid stereotypes and all that but I’m not sure I succeeded.
Oh believe me, I saw that first-hand. Some Facebook friends-of-friends are apparently Thor worshippers, which translates to “racist and sexist as all hell”, and the outcry was embarrassing to watch.
Sam Jackson’s totally on-point. Fantasy can be fantasy. I guess my feeling is that when Marvel was making these first big movies, they tread carefully. They cast conservatively. They tiptoed a bit. They stayed with the old Golden Age versions of characters for the most part. With all their success, I’m looking forward to them pushing the boundaries.
A gloss for @nungesseret alia - Nick Fury was written as a black man for the Marvel Ultimates line, although he wasn’t at first, he was shortly drawn based on Samuel Jackson [1].
Didn’t see marilove’s additional comments on NF when I wrote this.
Right, he is actually Nick Fury, Jr., I believe? His FATHER, however, was white (and played originally by David Hasselhoff). I think that’s what I’m gathering, here. [link from my last comment]
What a fascinating character and back story and progression. One of the most fascinating parts about the comic book superhero mythos and the chatacters and their back stories, imo, is actually the back story of not the characters, exactly, but how those characters changed, and why, and who lead that change and why they decided to make the changes.
That sentence is rather fubar but I think I make sense lol
There’s something of an overlap between students of Norse mythology and racist fuckwits Volkisch Asatruar. Casting Idris Elba as Heimdallr, traditionally described as “the whitest of all the gods” was some epic next-level racist-baiting stuff and a very neat way to avoid the fetishization of the character that casting a white dude in that role would bring.
Yeah totally, I kind of already knew some of that, and it’s a great point. I am pretty positive the writers and producers did that on purpose. It was fucking glorious.
Apparently Idris Elba HATED the filming of these movies, though (it’s just not his “thing” and I don’t blame him – these movies are complicated, long-arching, and very physical).
when I was doing the gonzo-religion thing, I hung around some of the same message boards as them. The concentrated wave of butthurt was simply staggering. And really, really funny.
I still reckon he’d make a damned fine Doctor Who. Good actor, really got the chops for a role like that.
Wait, there are white supremacist neo-vikings? I just assumed the people who got super hurt over it were your run of the mill racists and/or hyper-obsessive-tending-towards-OCD nitpicking fans.
I thought Idris Elba did a good job myself. His eyes were mesmerizing.
I would like a TV show where there are two main cast members, or even a main cast member and a secondary cast member, with the same name – two Mikes. Or two Sarahs. It’s more realistic when ever few minutes someone is saying “Which Mike?” or “Sarah Anderson?” or the like.
And again the problem is what kind of movies Hollywood makes. The conventional wisdom was that a movie like “The Hunger Games,” with a female protagonist, couldn’t be a big hit - it only got made because it was an adaptation of a successful book series. It’s the same as when we look at the fact that the directors of top-grossing films are almost all male - that’s only because within Hollywood, female directors are almost never offered directing gigs on blockbusters.
I won’t link to any of the websites, but their underlying idea is that Germanic/Norse neo-paganism is the proper ancestral religion for white people rather than any of the recent Middle-Eastern imports such as Christianity.
Mix in a nice set of heroic warrior tenets in the form of the Havamal, season with imagery that’s bordering-on-but-not-quite-Nazi-only-we’re-reclaiming-it-honest and you’ve got a nicely toxic mix that appeals to, well, nationalistic internet Viking wannabes who want to live free and struggle against oppression or something.
Serve with mead and an axe.
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!!!)
