Why is Spider-Man White?- Page 5

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 3:56pm

I just can't believe that people can suspend disbelief to the point where they buy that he was bitten buy a radioactive spider and got superpowers, but can't accept him if he's black. I don't even know why you'd have to suspend disbelief on the black part, unless it's Yawper's point from earlier about how black people don't go to college.

Like I saw on Twitter earlier, if Jake Gyllenhaal can play a Persian, a black man can play Spider Man.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:17pm

And what if Superman was Turkish?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9oI7Fd3Uec&feature=related

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:22pm

At least with the Turkish one, you can sort of pretend he's white (and not a Muslim!).


India's Superman is totally offensive to white people

[twinbelters]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:30pm

Gyllenhaal as a Persian is unacceptable too, much like Tom Cruise, ridiculously, was the Last Samurai for no justifiable reason. If they played these roles in the theater it might be different, but that would be a circumstance with many variables. Prince of Persia is based off a video game, though, so how serious are we supposed to take that?

Spiderman has its own rules like any piece of genre fiction (including musicals!), and the rules of this particular fiction include radioactive spiders and costumed vigilantism. Suddenly changing up the race of a character for no reason besides seeking equality in Hollywood does not make for good storytelling. It makes for intense politicizing.

It is strange to me that some of you seem to look down on the work Marvel has been producing successfully for decades considering how many people look down on musicals and theater as fluff or "too highbrow." Perhaps a parallel can be drawn to the aforementioned issue of multitudes of gay men being surprisingly racist and not recognizing the irony?

Seriously, Donald, write the script yourself and prove, nay earn, why Peter Parker should be recast as an African American teenager living in Queens. It will certainly shade the murder of Ben, and the single mother/aunt status of Aunt May. Maybe he shouldn't be a Spider at all. Maybe we should be reaching out to the underserved platypus community and he can be Platypusman. Do the ethnicities of Mary Jane and Gwen need to be altered too? Where does it stop until it is just another property all together? I mean, really. I respect wanting to do something "fresh" with the material, but this is not it.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:33pm

It is strange to me that some of you seem to look down on the work Marvel has been producing successfully for decades considering how many people look down on musicals and theater as fluff or "too highbrow."

Yeah, now you're just inventing things. I don't think anyone is looking down on Marvel or comic books.

I respect wanting to do something "fresh" with the material, but this is not it.

So what would you respect? If something as simple as having him played by a black actor is enough to make you lose it, what WOULD you consider an acceptable fresh take on the material?

[Craww]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:34pm

I have a suggestion for all the comic book fans who become apoplectic over the slightest changes to their long and storied (and often contradictory) canons:

Grow up. Get over it.

Comic book fans are the worst offenders at being proud of just sitting around steeping in their immaturity and privilege. Proud of their lack of adaptability. I'd rather Hollywood cater to "the PC police" than a bunch of overgrown kids.

Accepting other things will be changed, including a probable change in timeline, there's absolutely no reason Peter Parker could not be portrayed by a minority actor.

[EVIE]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:35pm

"Why am I white? That's what I want to know. Why, God, why?"

LMFAO!!

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:43pm

"Prince of Persia is based off a video game, though, so how serious are we supposed to take that?"

Wait. What? You're telling us not to take the Prince of Persia seriously...and then ask us to revere the white world of Spider-Man? I mean...

Persia is in the title. One expects the Prince of Persia to be, well, PERSIAN. There is no good reason why Spider-Man can't be black...or Asian...or Latino. None. Ethnicity plays not part in who Peter Parker is.

And using The Last Samurai as proof of anything is bizarre. Did you SEE the movie???

As a resident of Queens, I can confirm that there are many a black teenager there. And comparing platypus to black people?

Alright...I'll say it. You're being racist.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:44pm

Turkish/Indian Superman? What about Red Son that basically regurgitated a lot of alternative history of the Cold War a la Watchmen? Come on, I cannot be the only one who read this:

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:51pm

At least he's still white! Whew!

[twinbelters]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:52pm

I'm not "losing" it, I just so happen to think this shouldn't even be a question unless there is more to it than "there aren't enough black characters so let's make Spiderman not-white." What's the story? Why is Peter Parker black now? Just because?

To me it is like someone changing Romeo and Juliet to victorian era England. Perhaps Shakespeare had something to say by setting it in Kronborg? Maybe we should respect that these characters are Danish and not British? Maybe there is a specificity to time and place that the author intended? Now, Rockabye Hamlet is different because it completely re-conceived the whole thing and had some different stuff to offer, stylistically, from the tragedy.

And, yeah, canons are contradictory in Marvel for sure, but I don't put up with that nonsense either. I actually want good comic book to film adaptations, and I think there are few that are good. I'm not a fan of the X-Men, Spiderman, or Iron Man franchises. (Can't really recall any comic book adaptations I like outside of Ghost World and American Splendour). Burton and Nolan's Batman are suitable and Nolan's re-imagines the setting and characters as more natural and grounded thereby justifying the little tweaks in mythology. It is a completely different animal like the Hellboy movies are from the comic book source material.

I think the Alan Moore movie adaptations are terrible.

That's where I am coming from. I actually want good storytelling not politically motivated alterations for no discernible reason.

I actually get excited thinking about Donald writing his idea out for why Peter Parker is now black. I think he could make a clever satirical, and humorous, work. I think the Raimi Spiderman movies suffer incredibly from a lack of humor. I like quippy Spidey best.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:55pm

I just so happen to think this shouldn't even be a question unless there is more to it than "there aren't enough black characters so let's make Spiderman not-white."

I don't even think anyone actually said that. But I guess we're at any impasse, because I don't see the big questions being raised that you the other upset white people do.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:57pm

Are you a non-American, twinbelters? I'm getting that vibe. And the reason I ask is because all I want to do is give you the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps you don't realize that what you wrote...

"Seriously, Donald, write the script yourself and prove, nay earn, why Peter Parker should be recast as an African American teenager living in Queens."

...is dangerously close to 'know your place, boy.'

I'm hoping against hope here.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:57pm

"To me it is like someone changing Romeo and Juliet to victorian era England. Perhaps Shakespeare had something to say by setting it in Kronborg? Maybe we should respect that these characters are Danish and not British?"

Seriously. Like what if someone set Romeo and Juliet in Italy, for example?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 4:59pm

Imagine the outcry if they made Juliet Puerto Rican!

[spiderdj82]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:00pm

This thread has become one big Deja Vu with the same people saying the same thing over and over. I may have my reservations but if they want to make him black, let Peter be black. Have at it!

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:05pm

As long as Romeo and Juliet stay Danish.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:05pm

I agree. And I think people could save themselves oodles of typing time time if they just said, "I don't want to see a black person in the role because I don't want to see a black person in the role."

[Calvin]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:06pm

At least we made it five pages without anyone quoting Avenue Q!

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:07pm

Well...Gary Coleman's dead...so...

Now talk about a Spider-Man!

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:08pm

Heh.

The irony of not knowing where Romeo and Juliet takes place aside, it's a weird example because directors routinely reset the time and place for Shakespeare's works.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:10pm

I know! BUT...the rest of the paragraph was all about Hamlet, so I just took it as a titch of confusion.

Apparently, I'm going for kindness at 36. I hope it doesn't last.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:14pm

I once saw a terrible production of Othello that they reset in Afghanistan. And they actually changed Venice to Afghanistan in the text, so the meter was all out of whack. Also, it was outside in a park, and when it got dark they had no light to compensate, so the last hour was completely in the dark.

[tazber]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:27pm

Yes, but can Raisin be done with an all white cast in blackface?

That is the question.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 6/3/10 at 5:37pm

I just got back to this thread and my brain shut off when I read that alternate universe explanation of why Peter is black.