WHITE-WASHING & RACISM in Hollywood Movies

Don't recall that casting being official...but just another video created by someone who wants to fuel issues.

Minor characters, Heimdall, The Ancient One, etc that wouldnt get a lot of screentime start flamewars among the small group of super fans

Major characters, Johnny Storm, Peter Parker, etc. Its just insulting to any fan if those charactersare race switched for no reason.

Anyway can't wait for my white Black Panther, white Storm, white Black Lightning, white Steel, white John Stewart....oh wait....

"whitewashing" when the characters being casting aren't white...

@Arrowverse
Your comments are quite narrow-minded, dude. I've said this time and time again: changing a white character to one of colour is increasing diversity. Changing a character of colour to a white one is decreasing diversity.

I'm sick to death of hearing, 'Oh, so if Johnny Storm's black we can make Black Panther Asian, right?!' No. You can't. One, Panther's Wakandan heritage is vital to the character; Johnny Storm's caucasian skin is not. Two, making movies and characters more diverse is a great way to represent our modern world. It's not an 'insult'. You just can't handle it.

And if it really bothers you that much... just think of the comics of the characters in their purest form, and the movies as alternate versions.

I'm all for changing the race or gender of a character but I honestly don't know what to think about this one. I know next to nothing about the character so I don't have much of an opinion on this particular bit of (possible) casting.

Hope Marvel keeps the Anicent One and Wong Asian.

Tired of hearing this white washing B.S. I'm not to fond of this recent Acient One rumor, but it's not white washing, nor is other race changes. Coming from a black guy, Black washing is closer to a thing than white washing. Race changes are usually done to appeal to the masses, but as of late a lot of these white to black race changes has a PC edge to it.

@kurban, Johnny was created in 1961 and is very much a character of the times. the fantastic four (some of Marvels first characters) are very historical, in most comic fans opinion, maybe your not one. In some schools they want books to be censored so they don't have the racism that was prevalent in the times. I'm saying this is the equivalent. Its pandering apologetic bollocks. As i said before, Black Panther is a King from Africa, Johnny storm is a young well to do, socially loved young man from America in the sixties (originally obviously time is funny in comics) Im not saying that the description of johnny i just made that can't describe a black character, just that its far more likely. Just as its far more likely a king of Africa. The point is, culture is culture. No two ways about it.

Jeebus! It's a fictional character open to modernization. There's nothing to state The Human Torch can't be of different ethnic diversity. The Black Panther is defined by his diversity as others have stated. Why don't you pick a harder one. Luke Cage was introduced specifically as a blackxploitation character. So if you were to change him to a different diverse background, then would you be dishonor in the roots the character was designed on? Depends on your outlook. Some people would say the creation of a character that way at that time wasn't handled well. Some would say the character has truly been treated properly the last decade. If he was of a different diverse background, how different would the character be?

So what about the Ancient One? Cause he was an Asian man in the comics means we can never have a different interpretation of the character? This is where bias kicks in. Cause on one hand I can see a missed opportunity to introduce a diverse character, and on the other hand I can see the writer saying this is a different story, a fictional story, that should be open to different interpretations.

I'm not gonna state my own opinions here until I know more about the casting, and I'm sorry but I'm not watching the video either. I am just going to point out that to be a purist, is not the same as being a racist as I have heard others say. But there are racist people out there that will use being a purist as an excuse.

I myself just want a great story. I also want diversity, and I don't particularly care if they change a characters ethnicity as long as they don't ruin the foundations of the character.

@Kurban, that's why i said its almost to censoring the history books, because its changing a character created in a racist time to the victim of that hatreds race seems to me like your apologizing for the times. And why can't Africa have a different race king? There are different ethnicities here in America, and the so called minority is now the leader, i don't really see how it's any different. So its only important if they are a king? King or peasent your culture is important to who you are, just because American culture became a melting pot doesn't mean that white people in America are culturally indistinct from other people of different origins. Its just unpopular to celebrate a culture as "white" culture, that doesn't mean it that the culture doesn't influence our character as much or more as our social standing (peasent, king). Racial tensions prevent the culture to be celebrated today, but that doesn't mean that white people in America may as well be any other race and you wouldn't see a difference. There is no way you can believe that.

@huckfinnisher. So what if they had cast an Asian guy to play the Human Torch? Would that still be apologetic? So then white by default is the safe bet for every character? Nahh....I don't think so.

And your correct in one aspect of the Black Panther. A person of different ethnic background could conquer Wakanda and take the title Black Panther. But people are usually referring to T'Challa when they use Black Panther as an example. So it's a bad argument I guess.

@huckfinnisher. Why can't that be ok?

Why can't it be OK to change it? See this will never end. It's a FICTIONAL character. They made all the characters white then, cause it was the safe bet. It was a for sure sell. They could of tried to take the first step and write more diverse characters. But they didnt. If you want to call it apologetic that they want to explore diversity now more than they did then, fine. But I would say they are more trying to show respect that they didn't then.

Times are a changing, and the world around us. To try to keep things the way they were in a more racist era is a horrible idea.

But if you look around you can see cultures not being so respectful of diversity. As this article talks about Hollywood. I look at the film Exodus. Americans playing Egyptians. Do people have the right to be offended? What about all those Japanese and Chinese martial arts movies I watch? The Americans are almost always depicted as the bad guys. But we can't cast a Chinese actor to play a Chinese comic book villain cause we don't want to offend them? Not everybody is accepting of change. But that doesn't stop the world from moving on.

So to change Johnny Storm to a black man. People treat it like they cast a white man as Martin Luther King in Selma. See the huge difference there. Ones fictional. Ones real. It's ok to change fiction. How many versions of Shakespeare's plays have been adapted? Their not all the same. But we will treat a comic book character differently?

God I hate these type of articles....

White washing is something I never really understood until The Last Airbender film came out. That started my uproar of whitewashing and eventually Cultural Appropriation. In the case of the Ancient one, as many lovely people pointed out, isn't official. But if it was, it's not helping in the case of Minorities, ESPECIALLY main Asian characters in Marvel properties. Let's look at the amount of token Asian characters one moment: Hiro, Gogo Tomago, Skye, Melinda May, Helen Cho, and Hogun.

Now, if you only count live action films, that turns into only two: Helen Cho and Hogun. We need more minority representation for Asian characters! In stories, they're almost always background characters or a side Asian character, while stories about the White Savior who comes to wherever their temple or city is, and ends up out-Asianing the Asians at their own culture, UGH.

great video anyways

@huckfinnisher. So Michael B Jordan walks into a audition for a character who is NOT defined by his color. And you think the studio should tell him I'm sorry, but you can't have the role because your black? That's racial discrimination my friend.

So all those white characters that were created in the sixties, All the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the original X men, etc.......whose race does not have ANYTHING to do with the characters should remain white half a century later, because you think they should be a constant reminder of racism back then? Superheroes are supposed to be uplifting and give people someone to look up to. You want them to be a reminder of something negative just so you can have your white Johnny Storm? Makes no sense to me at all. And I think I'm done with this conversation. I was just trying to understand you, but the more we talk the worse it looks and sounds. So let's just agree to disagree.

I'm sick to death of hearing, 'Oh, so if Johnny Storm's black we can make Black Panther Asian, right?!' No. You can't. One, Panther's Wakandan heritage is vital to the character; Johnny Storm's caucasian skin is not.








So that means it's okay to change any black character who is meaninglessly black to white because it's not an integral part of their character? Yes, I get it there are too many white people. It's a fictional damn movie.