Why Do Fanboys Turn Into Bigots When It Comes to CBM's?

Yes your right changes in CBM,s are great remember
X-Men origins wolverine.
I,m racist for not liking Deadpool too or is that OK cause you probably did not like it either.
I like my characters the way they were meant to be, not the way you think they should be or what directors and writers think they should be.
If that makes me racist then so be it.
For the record african americans were not allowed to fight in war, they built roads and bridges, fed the troops and did pretty much every menial job there was.
Women were not treated with a whole lot more respect then either.
So your scenarios to me are not plausable,so to you I,m a bigot.
Well to me you have a communists attitude, agree with me or I,ll punish you.
Be careful when you start calling people bigots and racists, I am neither but by your logic I am

@TheDurkinKnight's first post- Agreed. I think it's, also, a good idea to dig into the mythology for diversity. (i.e. include Battlestar in a Cap movie or Goliath in an Ant-Man movie) But, really, it's all about the end product. A good movie is a good movie no matter what.

@Scarface-Even if African Americans didn't fight in WWII (which they did), neither did a super soldier in red, white, and blue tights. I think that's kind of @canadianturd's point.

I'm too tired to get into this.. good article though!

@MsKyle08- Racist! ; )

I feel that since I was the one who brought up the historical inaccuracy, quite a bit of this is directed at me. However...I loved Michael Clark Duncan as Kingpin (You're right about the director being a hack)

If you'll recall, I didn't say that Nick Fury shouldn't be black, I just said it's sort of historically problematic (oh, but excuse me, you don't care about history...because there are robots. Yeah, that makes sense. because if one thing about the world is somewhat fantastical, everything has to be just as peculiar.) I even went so far as to say that the best way to maintain continuity (by allowing Fury to be in WWII and be played by Sam Jackson) was to make the Howling Commandos a Tuskeegee Airmen-type group, meaning they would all be African American. Yeah...clearly that's racism.

In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of Fury being "immortal" in the films, as I think that's somewhat of a needless stretch. I wish they'd just take a page from THEHAWK's Nick Fury fanfic and set the escapades of the Howling Commandos in a more recent (but still not current) war. That way we could have a fully integrated force without there being anything to complain about history-wise.

On a final note, regarding historical accuracy...within the existing movies, we are led to believe that the things these people do (i.e. Tony Building the arc reactor "IN A CAVE...

WITH A BOX OF SCRAPSSSSS!!!!")

...are not normal occurances, meaning that their world at least somewhat resembles our own.

Ah, well, I may not agree with your article, but at least it's well-written. So, you've got that going for you. (I'm sure you're so glad you got my ringing endorsement... heh)

1) If you want a woman with powers fighting in the war why not go with Spitfire as a part of the Invaders? It fits the movie and marvel history.
2) And why can't Hitler be in the movie? He is a marvel character after all. He just goes by the title "Hate Monger" now.
3) Since people want more racial diversity in CBMs, I always thought they should have cast a minority as the Joker. No one could argue too much on that one.
4) would you back people wanting to cast a white actor as a black character? It has to go both ways, otherwise its just as racist.
5) If anyone is keeping count...I AM CANADIAN!

LOL i know dude. :)

See what happens when we all get along:

There are some racist on this board, and they all showed up and put on their white hoods and sheets when posting about Idris Ebla taking that part in Thor. There has been other instances of racist talk on this board concerning casting in some post.

Blackcat14@ Umm....just because someone wants Heimdall in Thor being cast as a white actor as opposed to black does not make them racist. I am so tired of people playing the race card, just because they disagree with a casting decision based on their interpretation of the source material.

1) I hesitate to call anyone racist. I know they are out there, even if they don't realize it, but it is also, I think, poor form to lump a group of people into that category without first checking to see if there are less heinous motives at play.

2) Comic fans have waited a long, long time for this. I've been waiting over 3 decades to see a Green Lantern film, or Captain America, or Iron Man, etc. Hollywood is only just getting to the point where they can bring these characters to the screen, and as such we really, really want them to do it right.

Now you must know that fans of ANY body of work tend to have fits when even minor changes are made. There are still LOTR fans who hate the fact that the movies omitted any material and ran less than 40 hours. These may be the minority, but they are a very vocal minority. Most of us understand some changes are needed, and indeed, I think Iron Man and XMen and made some significant improvements on the comics. However, in the end, comics are a visual medium. We want our characters to look like our characters. No one would have been happy to see Iron Man in blue and white armor, and its not because we're anti-semetic.

Similarly, its hard to justfiy a change of ethnicity as something that is actually necessary, save for marketing or political purposes. If a change is going to be made, please for the love of God have a good rationale for doing it.

For example, Michael Clarke Duncan was a great idea for Kingpin, and he could epitomize the character better than most fat white guys (or skinny white guys in a fat suit). Now if they tried "pimping up" Kingpin, that's another matter.

Similarly 6'+ Hugh Jackman was terrific in the role of 5'3" Wolverine. Not a change in race, but fans bitched anyway. But he could do the role, and brilliantly, and so the issue of size was quickly forgotten.

Along these lines, I love the idea of Daniel Dae Kim as Namor. Other than the eyes and skin tone, he looks the part - muscular body, but not overly so, and strong chiseled features. Best of all, he can actually act. I can picture this Namor more than one played by Shia Labouf, Jet Li, or Will Smith. None of them look the part, no matter their race.

At the same time, there are some characters that would be changed if the race was altered. That is especially true for the "ethnic" characters (Luke Cage, Black Panther, Shang Chi etc) because they were specifically created around their ethnicity.

Most of the white characters (Peter Parker, Bruce Wayne, etc), ethnicity wasn't an issue, but in some cases the change would matter.

Look at Frank Miller's Batman screenplay - he changed Alfred to "Big Al" a black, urban, auto mechanic. Clearly that completely changes the character as fans know him. One day, we may be more open to such changes, but for now, leave the Elseworlds and AllStar stories in the comics.

Another example is Iron Fist, a character many (clueless) fans say could be Asian. But that misses the pointof the character, who was supposed to be an "outsider." Technically you could do that with an asian, but thematically and visually it will work better if the character is white, or black or just plain "not asian."

Captain America is another one. As long as one is sticking with the WW2 origin, no one will believe that the US was using a black man (or Asian, Jewish, etc) as their poster boy. Blue eyes and blonde hair are more negotiable.

I don't even want to touch on the gender issue - I think it is blatantly obvious thata change in gender is even greater than a change in race. If you are completely reimagining the franchise, ala Battlestar Galactica, and changing almost every thing, that's another matter.

And this brings me to

3) Suspension of Disbelief. SoD is a fragile thing. It is a contract between artist and audience. The audience will have some preconditional expectations walking into the theater, things that they set aside the moment they bought the ticket. But that is very limited in scope - it doesn't give the filmmaker carte blanche.

Walk into a Superman movie, you are accepting flight, super strength, etc. But once you have "turn back time" and "amnesia kiss" powers, the audience rolls its eyes.

We'll be fine with aliens in an alien invasion film, but will raise holy hell if the green men find their way into a Bond film.

We'll accept giant transforming alien robots, but won't accept that a giant battle in downtown LA was not seen, recorded, and YouTubed, allowing a near complete government cover up.

Similarly, we'll accept a man wrapped in a flag and chainmail beating the Nazis armed only with a shield. But we won't accept that a woman stood by his side, or that people of that time accepted blacks as their equals. We know what things were like then. It is too ingrained in too many of us. Ignore those ugly issues, and you may as well toss in a cell phone and a lap top.

Now you bring up the idea of a super powered woman. That's a different thing. We saw several female superheroes in WW2. You want to toss in Spitfire and Miss America fine. Beggars can't be choosers and super powers aren't easy to come by, so one can believe a powered female would be used. But that's not the Howling Commandos,who were just soldiers.

@MisterD-- You know, it would be absolutely wonderful if you would just minorly expand on the ideas you posted in your comment, and turned it into a counter-article.

I think you're the first of us to actually voice all (or if not all, then most) of the logical reasons for fan displeasure at changes such as these. I also applaud you for figuring out a way to explain why just because a film has "Super Soldier Serum and Android Human Torches", we shouldn't throw reality out the window entirely.

DurkinKnight I stand corrected. I hate not heard of the tuskegee airmen. I will look it up tonight after work, you sir have caught my interest with this.
I am from canada and very little of the americans part in the war was taught to us.
I apologize for this, but other then these airmen what I said is not real far from the truth.

SHHH way to regurgitate what DurkinKnight said a few comments earlier you are indeed clever.

I just don,t like being called a bigot for not agreeing with something or someone.

Well written article but I dont think that people wanting to see these characters portrayed as they are in the comic books makes them either a bigor or racist!

Personally, I dont have a problem with SLJ as Fury because it's at least based on a comic book version of the character.

However, I dont think it would be good to start a trend of changing sex and race with the characters in these movies because I know that I dont want to end up seeing a white Luke Cage or female Iron Fist! ;)

Scarface: Hey genius, before you start being rude to people (something that I know you're a fan of) did you consider that SHHH didnt see TheDurkinKnight's comment before he replied to you?

@Blackcat14-- but the thing is, at least in regards to this, it's not that people are "stuck in time", but that the events and characters are set in a racially insensative time... Not saying you couldn't have a Captain America movie with a diverse cast, but you'd certainly have to stretch a little more to explain why a margenally above average military unit was fully integrated at least twenty years prior to any other military unit.

I'm aware of there being other occasions when people make statements that could seem racist (although, about Heimdall, though I'm sure Elba will do a good job, Heimdall is actually described as being the "whitest" of the gods...which makes it seem like Ken Branaugh was just being hilariously sarcastic when he made that casting choice) But this article actually came about, as CT mentioned, because of a fan cast of the Howling Commandos he did. I commented about the lack of integration during that time period, and that something should be done in order to explain/fix it, and also complained about the fact that he changed the gender of a character without giving any explanation (and when he did, it wasn't really that informative. It essentially added up to "because I wanted a woman on the team.") After that, he commented back that I was being ridiculous because I wanted the films to be at least somewhat grounded in reality (to the extent that the previously released Marvel Studios films have been.)

The reason I bring this up is to explain why it wasn't really racism, in that instance, that even sparked the argument, because, as I said above, it's not that people are "stuck in time", it's because the characters they're arguing about are in a time that wouldn't allow such a thing.

@jazzman-- I'm fully aware of all of the members of the Howling Commandos, including Gabe Jones, who is both African American, and a member of the WWII team. Two things to note, however, are that Howling Commandos weren't created until the 60s (and was somewhat more open to a multicultural membership due to it not actually being published in the 40s). The other thing to note is that I actually responded to these things on CT's fan cast... I could see Jones being in the unit, because he's the best there is at what he does...but there is no way in high hell that the 1940s U.S. military, fictional or otherwise, would allow a black man to lead a predominantly white unit at that time...

Also, about your Inglourious Basterds comment, I actually mentioned them, as well. I said that I enjoyed the movie, and wasn't looking for 100% historical accuracy, but that it would be idiotic to do a movie set in WWII and ignore any of the things we know about it. I mean, "Basterds" is a fictional story that kills Hitler in a non-historically accurate way, but the movie doesn't ignore the other aspects of the time. In fact, doesn't it deal with racism? If I'm remembering correctly, the only one that doesn't hate the projectionist because he's black is Shoshana (sp?)...

And in all honesty, I really hope Feige was kidding about the Marvel version of WWII, because the Marvel (Timely) version would piss so many people off with its buck-toothed and fanged Japanese... No, I'm not kidding. Look it up. That's what they printed in WWII...

also, funny side-note about Krasinski... he's not even Jewish, so that antisemetic mouth-breather shouldn't have had any problem... Also, ironic that this anti-semite (sp?) in question was a fan of Captain America's, considering that Joe Simon and Jack Kirby (Cap's creators) were both Jewish...

@contrast

actually Feige was not kidding about the Marvel version of WWII cause he did say it in a interview on Comingsoon.net. he only mean that the History will not be the same since we have superheroes in WWII.

"fictional or otherwise, would allow a black man to lead a predominantly white unit at that time..." - it should not matter if a black man lead the unit cause it is fictional comic book movie that is based on WWII. Howling Commandos can be unit that History never want to mention who was lead by a black man.

also i guess you have not seen Churchill: The Hollywood Years it had a black man leading white soldiers. its was fictional comedy WWII movie but still.

i know Krasinski is Jewish that racist user was an idiot i could not believe that user at all.

heres the audio of Kevin Feige saying its Marvel version of WWII

Kevin Feige interview

@CorndogBurglar

he was not really talking about characters like Captain America and Luke Cage. his talking about supporting characters that have changed race i.e. Kingpin, Agent Zero, etc

This is ridiculous!

People were not contrary to a woman being a soldier.
Nowadays they are pretty much on equal ground in the
military. People, I was one, didn't like the idea of
rewriting history so badly as to make the truth of
WWII unrecognizable! There were absolutely no U.S. women in
combat in WWII! NONE, 0! To put a woman in
combat in WWII in a story is so wrong as to be a mean lie!
That is rewriting history too much!

It's not racism or bigotry! It is only a matter of the
facts! That is a fact that is too well-known and true
to change just so you could put a woman in the Howling
Commandos to be PC! It is a ludicrous idea because it
is against the persona of The Howling Commandos who had
to be all men because of the rule of no women in combat!

Don't screw with the truth! U.S. Men back in WWII felt
women should not be in battle because they bear children
and are mothers who should stay with the kids
while the men fight the enemy! That was an American
attitude back then! It was quite chauvinistic but it is the
absolute truth and fact!

In ancient times a lot of women were warriors. Wives and
sisters who fought along side their husbands and
brothers to defend their land. From the land of the Kelts
(Irish, Scotts, Welsh and Gaelic Bretons) to
the Norse country and clear in Japan and China.

But in WWII USA military women did not go into battle,
period! It's almost believable that a black man would be in
the Howling Commandos 'cause there were the Tuskegee
Airmen so in the 60's when Gabe was put in there
it slid by! But there were no women anywhere near anything
battlewise, not ANY COMBAT! It is just
absolutely moronic to try and say otherwise!

This was not and is not a racism or bigotry matter!
It's a screwing TOO MUCH with history matter!
WAY TOO MUCH!!! It's simply ludicrous!

The same with Nick Fury! It's screwing too much with
Marvel history to make Nick Fury African American.
The real Nick Fury is Caucasian! He took a serum that
extremely slows his aging so he is the same Nick Fury
of the Howling Commandos as the Nick Fury who heads
S.H.I.E.L.D. He has been that same Nick Fury for decades
until just recently when he was erroneously
made a totally different dude because of the stupid
Ultimates! DAMM I HATE THE ULTIMATES FOR THIS VERY
THING! SCREWING TOO MUCH WITH MARVEL HISTORY!

It's not a race thing or sex thing it's a Marvel
history thing! Making Nick Fury someone else is
a DAMM LIE! Making Steve Rogers a big goofy looking
guy with big ears and nose is a DAMM LIE! I HATE
LIES!

IT'S NOT A DAMM RACISM/BIGOTRY THING AT ALL!