|
Everyone posted:It's a superhero movie. The good and bad guys are going to be clearly and melodramatically defined. *looks at Watchmen, can't find a good guy*
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 16:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 02:28 |
|
|
Serious question - given the historical and cultural issues of race, can you make a villain of color NOT problematic?
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 16:50
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Serious question - given the historical and cultural issues of race, can you make a villain of color NOT problematic? Sure you can, it just takes a bit of effort. It certainly helps if they're not the only POC in the movie/story, for starters.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 17:05
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Serious question - given the historical and cultural issues of race, can you make a villain of color NOT problematic? The Mandalorian seemed to do okay.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 17:13
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Serious question - given the historical and cultural issues of race, can you make a villain of color NOT problematic? Electro wasn't problematic; the movie was just flawed.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 17:23
|
|
|
Darko posted:Electro wasn't problematic; the movie was just flawed. Minor thing, but through casting they made it so that a black guy gets electric powers. Which is a bit of a comic book cliche.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 18:11
|
|
|
Everyone posted:It's a superhero movie. The good and bad guys are going to be clearly and melodramatically defined. I'm not sure that they were. One succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in provoking an attack on the middle east and the other rampaged around the same middle east without really touching America's catspaw in the region. While superhero movies might have particularly simplistic and archetypical characters (though I feel like they usually don't; the bad guy of Homecoming very sympathetic), it's not always that those characters are smeared every which way specifically to distract from the fact that what they're actually doing in the story is perfectly justified. Compare Killmonger to, say, Thanos, who is objectively mongering way more kills but is in line with fascist population control fantasies and therefore comes off as much more respectable and thoughtful.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 18:50
|
|
|
I wonder what was up with Val Kilmer being scheduled for DC Fandome before he didn't show up. Lol if they last minute decided to not release the Schumacher Cut.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 19:50
|
|
|
Spacebump posted:I wonder what was up with Val Kilmer being scheduled for DC Fandome before he didn't show up. Lol if they last minute decided to not release the Schumacher Cut. Isn't he pretty sick with cancer? I wouldn't be surprised if he had to cancel for medical reasons.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 20:16
|
|
|
Violator posted:Isn't he pretty sick with cancer? I wouldn't be surprised if he had to cancel for medical reasons. He had treatment for throat cancer four or five years ago. He's cancer-free, but his voice is gone after multiple surgeries and tracheotomies, and I believe he uses an NJ tube for feeding because he has difficulty swallowing. Supposedly he has a role in Top Gun: Maverick, though, so I guess we'll see how he sounds there.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 20:20
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Serious question - given the historical and cultural issues of race, can you make a villain of color NOT problematic? Absolutely Just don't be a shithead about it. I have more indepth thoughts on this but it always drives me nuts when big hollywood projects, and this was an issue in the early to mid 2010s especially, would go out of their way to recast traditionally PoC villains as white people. loving Hell, villains can be some of the coolest role in a story, let them not be white!
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 20:50
|
|
|
Timby posted:He had treatment for throat cancer four or five years ago. He's cancer-free, but his voice is gone after multiple surgeries and tracheotomies, and I believe he uses an NJ tube for feeding because he has difficulty swallowing. Watch it be that he injured himself stopping a 9/11
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 21:34
|
|
|
Burkion posted:Absolutely What's a good example of one? I saw a couple people mention the Mandalorian, but neither Boba or the assassin are particularly deep or compelling. It seems difficult to give a vilain depth of character without stumbling on a trope that's been coded as "PoC are like that". Crackbone fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Mar 6, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:01
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:What's a good example of one? Darth Vader  Non-comedy answer for a movie that still might as well be a superhero movie: Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man. I mean, he's a gangster and talks gangster stuff, but make him white and he's just a slightly more physical Joker.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:10
|
|
|
Mandalorian was already mentioned but yeah. Also Gus Fring. Giancarlo is just the best villain actor tbh.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:11
|
|
|
Grendels Dad posted:Non-comedy answer for a movie that still might as well be a superhero movie: Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man. I mean, he's a gangster and talks gangster stuff, but make him white and he's just a slightly more physical Joker. The "ultimate supercriminal" being a black male isn't problematic? Especially in the context of the 90's "super-predator" poo poo the media/government was throwing around. CelticPredator posted:Also Gus Fring. Fring's a good answer, thank you. Crackbone fucked around with this message at 23:19 on Mar 6, 2021 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:16
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:I'm not sure that they were. One succeeded beyond his wildest dreams in provoking an attack on the middle east and the other rampaged around the same middle east without really touching America's catspaw in the region. Speaking only for myself, I had much more sympathy for Killmonger than I did for Thanos. Thanos's quest was very much self-chosen and kind of idiotic on its face. Killm-, you know what? gently caress that. Killmonger is kind of the "slave name" the CIA coined for him. Erik Stevens was a child with a mother and father who loved him. T'chaka came in and destroyed their family, leaving Erik to rot in Oakland, California foster care, his mother to rot in prison and his father's corpse to rot on the floor. Erik Stevens's return to Wakanda was the definition of "You reap what you sow."
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:27
|
|
|
I mean, Erik Stevens is the rightful king of Wakanda and T’Challa is the usurper.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:29
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:Serious question - given the historical and cultural issues of race, can you make a villain of color NOT problematic? TRICK QUESTION! We want films to be problematic. Problematization is a progressive tactic. Basically, anytime you take something and say “wait, this is pretty hosed up”. It opens up a space for new and differing perspectives. In the case of Black Panther, the story is not ‘problematic’ in some essentialist way; it is made problematic through our ideological critique. The film is appropriated for use as both an example of a problem, and an illustration of broader socioeconomic issues. In other words, a thing cannot ‘be’ problematic until you are aware that there’s a problem. The view that ‘problematic elements’ are essentially so, and meant to be eliminated, is a liberal (re-)appropriation of this progressive concept. Like, y’know, “Jar Jar Binks talks with an accent and is mistreated by the other characters, with no explicit condemnation. That just ‘is’ racist, and therefore we’ll do a ‘Phantom Edit’ that entirely removes Jar Jar from the film.” The problem with the liberal use of ‘problematic’ is, obviously, that it’s the opposite of actual problematization: the goal is straight-up to prevent that experience of defamiliarization, and stop you from thinking “wait, it’s kinda hosed up how the Jedis are racist, droids are slaves, etc.” KVeezy3 posted:I’m having trouble bridging this gap, because the film seems so utterly committed to a technocratic and ‘apolitical’ Third-Way-ism, which is embodied in T’Challa’s love interest Nakia. T’Challa goes through this journey conflicted by the protectionism of his predecessors and the traumatic figure of Killmonger, and ultimately settles on what Nakia has been pushing for all along - with her leading the vanguard of STEM schools for poor black U.S citizens. The ability to problematize a film is what makes such pure ideology impossible, and no film irredeemable. No matter how dedicated Marvel is to keeping the commoners offscreen, the films remain haunted by them - if only through their conspicuous absence. So, like, we have Zizek’s redemptive interpretation of the film - where we have the foreclosed possibility that, in sitting down and actually listening to Killmonger, T’Challa will be radicalized.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:37
|
|
|
Coming 2 America is the film Black Panther should be.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:43
|
|
|
Mordiceius posted:I mean, Erik Stevens is the rightful king of Wakanda and T’Challa is the usurper. I forget the plot; do you mean he's the rightful king by bloodline, or because he defeated T'Challa in that combat ritual? Or both?
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2021 23:49
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:What's a good example of one? I saw a couple people mention the Mandalorian, but neither Boba or the assassin are particularly deep or compelling. It seems difficult to give a vilain depth of character without stumbling on a trope that's been coded as "PoC are like that". Shredder, Rita Repulsa, Khan from Star Trek (though that was a whole thing thanks to 60s casting) Also you seem to have gotten your wires crossed on who the villain of Mandalorian is but that's neither here nor there. Those are the three that I was alluding to. Shredder was a strange case in the first Bay movie because they tried to fix the problem, but ultimately ended up still having it, where the main villain isn't actually Shredder, and instead is just the white dude they originally cast and the actual Shredder lurk around in the background. The two roles were separated, but because one gets face time and the other doesn't, it still pings off. Rita is a character who exclusively was played by Asian actresses before the reboot movie- while the new one did fine, its still a sore point to me to see her replaced with a white woman when you could have just kept it as an Asian lead. Khan I don't think I need to go into. Preferably an actual Indian actor should have gotten the role but instead we got the whitest white man at the time up. Are these deep and compelling characters? Probably not, though you could make a case for Khan in a well written story. But if they're traditionally supposed to be PoC, played by PoC, why would you change them to white people? What does that help? Who does that represent? Villains get to be fun. They're often show stealers. They dominate the screen and our minds. People love a good villain. And if you're worried about a villain being a PoC because the rest of the cast is white, maybe the villain isn't the problem. This is very unrelated to the issues with Killmonger, mind. This is a separate thing that's just in the same racial ballpark.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 00:03
|
|
|
Burkion posted:Shredder, Rita Repulsa, Khan from Star Trek (though that was a whole thing thanks to 60s casting) All good. You're right that I totally blanked on Moff Gideon being the main villain, but I think to that speaks to the paper-thin characterization of most of the Mandalorian characters. Also, I appreciate you pointing out good examples, a lot of the reason I asked the question was because I was drawing blanks.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 00:17
|
|
|
2house2fly posted:I forget the plot; do you mean he's the rightful king by bloodline, or because he defeated T'Challa in that combat ritual? Or both? The latter. They went 1v1 for the throne and T’Challa lost. Then T’Challa went “nuh uh” and illegitimately overthrew the rightful king.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 00:35
|
|
|
Crackbone posted:The "ultimate supercriminal" being a black male isn't problematic? Especially in the context of the 90's "super-predator" poo poo the media/government was throwing around. In that case the answer is probably no, you can't make a villain of color NOT problematic in the 90's.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 01:12
|
|
|
Wesley Snipes in Demolition Man is the superpredator myth, right? That's the whole point?
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 01:48
|
|
|
I just thought he was cool and funny...
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 04:39
|
|
|
He's just playing Dennis Rodman
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 05:05
|
|
|
The United States posted:He's just playing Dennis Rodman I last saw Demolition Man as a teen in the theaters, but I can recall nothing coded about him. He just seems like Snipes doing Rodman with extra theatricality. Honestly iirc his look is quite campy.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 05:30
|
|
|
Everyone posted:Speaking only for myself, I had much more sympathy for Killmonger than I did for Thanos. Thanos's quest was very much self-chosen and kind of idiotic on its face. Killm-, you know what? gently caress that. Killmonger is kind of the "slave name" the CIA coined for him. Erik Stevens was a child with a mother and father who loved him. T'chaka came in and destroyed their family, leaving Erik to rot in Oakland, California foster care, his mother to rot in prison and his father's corpse to rot on the floor. Erik Stevens's return to Wakanda was the definition of "You reap what you sow." Oh, I'm right there with you. It's just funny to compare with Killmonger actually stands for and what Thanos actually stands for with how Killmonger was actually portrayed and how Thanos was actually portrayed. Thanos was a (provably!!!) loving father making heavy sacrifices for what he was convinced - and, honestly, what he convinced everyone else, since they never really had a counterargument - was the greater good. Killmonger just gets every possible signifier of being a stupid rear end in a top hat, such that we're supposed to understand that only some kind of pathological fuckup would ever want to do anything but buddy up with the U S of A. But, again, there's a lesson to be drawn, just by virtue of comparing who gets to be a genteel philosopher and who has to be a vortex of maladaptive behaviors and mental complexes. Why did the entirety of the MCU build to the revelation that the guy who wants to do a genocide kinda has a point, actually? Hmmm...
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 05:52
|
|
|
Ferrinus posted:Oh, I'm right there with you. It's just funny to compare with Killmonger actually stands for and what Thanos actually stands for with how Killmonger was actually portrayed and how Thanos was actually portrayed. Thanos was a (provably!!!) loving father making heavy sacrifices for what he was convinced - and, honestly, what he convinced everyone else, since they never really had a counterargument - was the greater good. Killmonger just gets every possible signifier of being a stupid rear end in a top hat, such that we're supposed to understand that only some kind of pathological fuckup would ever want to do anything but buddy up with the U S of A. The overpopulation argument is kind of BS on its face. It's something that sounds good because it lets the privileged (like, honestly, you and me) off the hook. "Welp, Africans are starving because there's just too drat many Africans. It can't have anything to do with the fact that I'd much rather use my Macbook Pro laptop to go online than sell it to get money to send aid to starving people. BTW, along with there being way too many Africans, we're facing a critical shortage of hot Swedish bikini models who want to sex up fat nerds like me. Something must be done." One of the more hosed up things about racism, American style, is how it partly arose out of the desire of slave-owning assholes to want to see themselves as good people. If they just said, "Yeah, your chief liked our gold more than he liked you, so he sold your rear end to a slave ship captain who sold you to me and now you get to pick cotton for the rest of your life. Tough poo poo for you," that makes them kind of the bad guys exploiting other people. But, if black people are just... "less than" sort of like human-looking animals who "need" the structure and security of slavery, well, then owning slaves makes you a good person for helping them out, doesn't it?
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 07:38
|
|
|
all this talk about whether black people or white people should be villains are ignoring the true villains: albinos.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 09:58
|
|
|
SolidSnakesBandana posted:all this talk about whether black people or white people should be villains are ignoring the true villains: albinos. Clearly albinos are just vampires that successfully rebranded.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 10:54
|
|
|
CelticPredator posted:I just thought he was cool and funny... He owned
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 12:13
|
|
|
Shut up about relitigating Black Panther for the millionth time. https://twitter.com/lovethundernews/status/1368294584447537166 https://twitter.com/lovethundernews/status/1367712462544453633?s=19
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 13:53
|
|
|
Cythereal posted:Shut up about relitigating Black Panther for the millionth time. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 14:01
|
|
|
SolidSnakesBandana posted:all this talk about whether black people or white people should be villains are ignoring the true villains: albinos. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 14:35
|
|
|
SolidSnakesBandana posted:all this talk about whether black people or white people should be villains are ignoring the true villains: albinos. I was wondering if there were any positive portrayals of albinos in movies/TV and looking over the Wikipedia page for Albinism in popular culture it's pretty much The Witcher and a few anime characters.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 15:32
|
|
|
Snowglobe of Doom posted:I was wondering if there were any positive portrayals of albinos in movies/TV and looking over the Wikipedia page for Albinism in popular culture it's pretty much The Witcher and a few anime characters. Moby Dick is the hero. Also Pete White in The Venture Bros... okay, kinda. Funny thing is that his visual design is an exaggerated version of one of the show creators, who has mild albinism himself.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 15:56
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 27, 2024 02:28 |
|
|
Cythereal posted:Shut up about relitigating Black Panther for the millionth time. A small part of me is looking forward to the outrage from the comicsgate/gamergate crowd, that will happen when this film and the Ms. Marvel series comes out. It is going to be delicious to watch.
|
|
#
?
Mar 7, 2021 16:56
|
|
