Hollywood Babble On & On #1261: Whitewashing or Stereotyping?

Sorry I've been so lax with the posting lately. Things have been pretty busy lately, and there just wasn't enough time in the day. It's getting even tighter, but I will try to squeeze out what wisdom I can in the moment I can spare.

Today the term "whitewashing" gets tossed around a lot. The biggest uproar being over The Gods Of Egypt, which featured no Egyptians or anyone who looked Egyptian.

But I'm not talking about that film, because there was a bit of a point behind the criticism.

What I am going to talk about is where some critics are demanding that what they see as whitewashing be fixed by replacing it with a stereotype.

Allow me to explain.

Marvel cast a British actor to play Daniel Rand, also known as Iron Fist, a martial arts master who is partnered with Luke Cage as the Heroes for Hire to be featured on Netflix in Jessica Jones and probably Daredevil someday as well.

A Daredevil appearance is likely since Iron Fist was Daredevil for a while.

Well the outrage was quick in coming.

"WHITEWASHING!" they screamed, or tweeted, and demanded that an Asian actor get the role.

This made me ask 2 questions:

1. Is it really whitewashing?

2. Isn't the proposed solution of replacing Iron Fist with an Asian character stereotyping?

Let's think about it.

1. Iron Fist was always a white character. The whole premise of the character is that he is a Westerner who is taken in by Asian friends of his father after he is orphaned and is fully absorbed into their culture to the point where he dawns the mantle of the Iron Fist.

I guess you could say that it's all about cultural appropriation, but that's another story.

But let's get to stereotyping...

2. If you're an male Asian actor in Hollywood you get cast in one of three roles all the time, and they are:

A. Martial Arts Master

B. Triad Gang Member 

or

C. Math/Science Geek

How will pigeonholing an Asian actor into one of the three stereotypical Asian roles somehow right this perceived wrong?

Wouldn't it be better to show that there's a commercial viability in seeing an Asian character in a non-stereotypical role? Or if you're not willing to take that leap, at least try to get Marvel to bring in Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu.

Maybe, folks are just looking for something to be offended over so they can tweet about something without the effort of trying to be interesting.

That's what I think, put what you think in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1233: Will DuVernay Do Marvel?

There have been reports that Kevin Feige the brains behind the Marvel cinematic/TV universe wants Selma director Ava DuVernay to direct a Marvel superhero movie, possibly either Black Panther or Captain Marvel.

Naturally this sparked outrage about how racist and sexist it is of Marvel to consider a female African-American woman to direct either a female or African character.

Pretty nonsensical, because if they offered DuVernay Avengers 3 the same people would condemn Marvel for asking her to make a movie about a team that's mostly white and male.

It's literally a no win situation when it comes to the outrage of the perpetually outraged, but it could be a win-win situation for DuVernay.

Why?

Because there are three kinds of film every filmmaker should do at least once, regardless of their personal tastes.

They are:

1. Action film.

2. Horror film.

3. Comedy film, but not a vehicle for an established comedy star.

Why should they do these films?

Because they are challenges that brings out a filmmaker's real talents and prove their worth for all time.

If all you do are action films, you can coast on CGI and explosions. If you only do "important dramas" then you can coast on the quality of your actors and the script. If you only do comedies for established stars you can coast on that star's popularity and charisma. If you do only horror films you can coast on gore and cats jumping out of closets.

However, doing a variety of projects can only help establish your credibility as a filmmaker.

DuVernay's background was mostly backstage in broadcast journalism, public relations, documentaries, and very serious dramas. If she sticks with that strategy she will expect to be the director equivalent of Sean Penn, someone whose career only exists for Oscars noms and internal Hollywood adulation. That can only offer diminishing returns because Hollywood people don't pay to see movies. After a while you risk reaching a point of no return, where even if you try to go more mainstream, you can't, the audience just isn't into you.

However, DuVernay is still relatively a new comer to the wider pop culture world. That means she can use the cachet she earned from Selma, to land a big mainstream action adventure gig, and if she does a good job, proving she can make commercially viable vehicles, then she can write her own ticket.

It's not that big a stretch. If she has at least one big box-office blockbuster under her belt, that she delivered on time and on budget, and pleased both fans and critics, do you think she'd have a problem raising financing for at least one smaller scale serious drama?

Filmmakers need to learn that the mainstream is like running water. It's where the water is deep, clean and makes the water running on the edges possible. There's no shame in swimming back and forth. In fact, it's probably a very smart strategy.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1231: On Comics, Costumes, & Coitus...

HARLEY QUINN'S FASHION CHOICES

They released the first picture of most of the cast from DC/Warner Bros. upcoming Suicide Squad movie. If you're not familiar with the property, it's about a team of super villains who are recruited by a shadowy government agency run by bureaucrat Amanda Waller to go on, you guessed it, suicide missions, led by professional commando Colonel Rick Flagg.

Before we go any further, here's the picture of some of the cast in full costume:

Now the standout in the picture is Margot Robbie who is playing The Joker's sidekick/life partner Harley Quinn. Where everyone else is trying to look tough and scary, her broad smile, pigtails, and the pent up energy in her body language, looks like she's committing 110% to this inherently over the top and madcap character.

My only problem is with her costume.

It doesn't scream super villain.

It screams "club kid who took too much Molly and now they can't stop grooving to bad EDM and texting 'OMG' repeatedly to her friends until her iPhone screen cracks."

I think we need to go back to the character's origins.

The character of Harley Quinn was created in the early 90s for Batman: The Animated Series. The reason for her creation was obvious, they needed someone for the Joker to talk to because thought balloons don't really work on animated shows.

However, her distinctive look, and high nasal voice made her an instant fan favourite. Over time they developed her character, backstory, and relationship with The Joker. It was revealed that she was originally his psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, but she lost her heart and her mind, and became his partner in crime and life. They're onscreen relationship was the height of dysfunctional and even downright abusive, sparking Harley to split with Joker and form an occasional partnership with Poison Ivy.

Her popularity on the show led to Harley Quinn being adapted into the comics, including the Suicide Squad.

However, comic book publishers decided that it wasn't enough for a character to be interesting. They had to SEXY.

But not just sexy as in physically attractive, they had to look like strippers.

A classic example is the Suicide Squad's top boss Amanda Waller who went from looking like this...

 To this...

And it was decided that Harley Quinn needed to be improved as well, and she went from this…

To this…

Went from looking like a comical villain, to what you might find on a porn website if you put in a search for "Goth skanks."

Is it really an improvement, or is it just another failed attempt at sexy resulting in something that just looks sleazy, and makes the comics and its readers look sleazy.

I'm a bit relieved they didn't go full skank for the movie, but I would have liked if her outfit was just a bit more ridiculous. Remember, a comically ridiculous appearance masking a homicidal maniac is the essence of the character. Also it would make a nice counterpoint to the deliberate drabness of the outfits of her squad-mates.

But powers that be at DC/Warner Bros. apparently want that stoned club kid look.

WHERE'S BLACK WIDOW?

It's been noticed that Marvel's Black Widow, the sexy-secret agent played by Scarlett Johanson, is missing from most of the Avengers: Age of Ultron merchandise, especially when it comes to toys like action figures.

Now the first reaction to this was to assume that Disney, Marvel's parent company, is a sexist monstrosity that won't acknowledge female fans of female characters, ignoring that their empire was built by little girls seeing Disney Princess movies and buying Disney Princess merchandise.

However, that's probably not the reason.

The reason is the fear of the outraged mother.

I'll bet dollars to dungheaps that somewhere in the bowels of Disney's headquarters they were looking at designs for Age of Ultron toys, and realized that if they released a Black Widow action figure that remotely resembled how the character looks on screen or in the comics, it would most likely spark some internet outrage from angry mothers worried that little Timmy might look at that action figure and figure out some unclean actions.

They then calculated that the outraged mother boycott would cost them more than an outraged feminist boycott, and dropped Black Widow from most of the merchandise line-up.

That's my theory.

Which is probably right.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1176: Killing Wolverine Killing Comics

Wolverine, Marvel Comics most popular character is going to die.

Not only that, Marvel says that he's going to stay dead, forever, full stop, period.

They even have a picture showing Wolverine being carted off by the Grim Reaper in the manner of Michelangelo's Pieta:

They dug up their old art-history textbook, so you know they must be serious.

Now here's what I think:

(To be sung to the tune of "MacArthur Park.")

I CALL BULLSHIT

I CALL BULLSHIT

I CALL STACKS AND STACKS OF BULLSHIT

(And scene)

Wolverine's death in the comics is meaningless. It will have zero effect on the movies, and that's what matters these days, and we all know that Marvel has no intention of letting their biggest earner moulder in an inky grave.

As soon as the publicity dies down, and the folks at Marvel realize that it won't make Fox relinquish the rights to the X-Men, they'll make a big announcement that Wolverine will be brought back to life.

Hell, DC couldn't even keep the unpopular character of Jason Todd (aka Robin 2/The Red Hood 2) dead, even though readers voted overwhelmingly to kill him off in a phone-in poll.

Do you really think Marvel is going to let Wolverine stay dead? Because if you do, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I can sell you for a song.

And the people in the industry wonder why it's so hard to get people into superhero comics while superhero movies and TV shows sell like hotcakes.

Well, let's recap some of the reasons:

1. HARD TO GET: When I was a kid we had to walk a little under half a mile to get to the convenience store that carried all kinds of comics, ranging from the Marvel/DC superheroes at 45¢ an issue, to bags of five to seven Gold Key reprints each for $1 a pop.

Today, I have to go about fifty miles to the nearest specialty retailer. I could order things online, but then you lose a lot of the ability to discover new titles and characters you get by browsing an old fashioned spinner rack.

But that's not all...

2. HARD TO GET INTO: Even if you do manage to get comics, if you are not intimately familiar with 75-80 years of continuity, including multiple retcons, you are NOT going to know what the hell is going on. Even DC's mega-retcon "The New 52" like its last mega-retcon "Crisis On Infinite Earths" isn't completely retconning everything since the artists and writers won't give up their favourite bits, and the companies don't want to lose any potential merchandising and movie money from making people wait a little while for a character to develop naturally over time instead of just dumping them fully formed in the middle of everything.

3. SEXY SELLS SKANKY DOESN'T: Hardly a month goes by without someone making a valid complaint against the often anatomically inaccurate and usually ridiculous hyper-sexualization of female characters. The most recent being putting Spider-Woman in an impossible position and changing her costume into a thin coat of paint. 

Comics need kids to read comics to keep the audience alive and growing. However, both kids and parents are repelled by comic art that is just a few millimetres of spandex from looking like full-on pornography, and story lines dwelling on the sex-lives of superheroes often add nothing new to the characters except get in the way of what is their purpose, to give people near-mythological stories of demigods and monsters battling over issues good and evil.

4. CONSTANT SHELL GAMING: Publishers love the publicity they can get by pulling of stunts like killing a major character, or switching their race or gender. They claim that these changes will be permanent, but you know they will never permanently change the mainstream continuity they have decades of stories and dedicated fandom invested in. The whole thing is to just get some attention in the mainstream press, get a 1-week uptick in sales from the curious, who will take a look inside, not understand a damn thing going on, and never buy another comic again.

It's starting to drive people, even comics fans, nuts. Which is why they're not buying comics, but instead go to the superhero movies, who, for the most part, stick with their job of telling fantastical stories of heroism & don't rely on killing off major characters for promotion.

The comics industry needs a major overhaul, not only in what it's selling, but in how the industry is run, and it should be done while there's still an industry to reform.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1174: Original Origins

Hollywood loves superhero movies, they make a lot of money.

Hollywood loves reboots, rehashes, and remakes, because they make executives feel safe.

Combine the two, and the Hollywood studios think that they've got a license to print money.

One problem, it's driving fans nuts, because not only are we seeing origin stories, we're seeing the same origin stories over and over again.

Here's a good example...

When Sam Raimi's Spider-Man franchise sputtered out in the overwrought and overcrowded Spider-Man 3, Sony, desperate to keep the franchise in the hands and not back with Marvel/Disney had two options. They could have "James Bonded" it, and just changed the actors and filmmakers and had Spider-Man go off on a new more or less stand-alone adventure, or they could reboot it, with a retelling of the origin story.

They decided to go for the reboot.

Why?

The real reason is that the people running the studio think that simply continuing a successful franchise isn't enough, you have to go and redo a specific story that they know for a fact has succeeded in the past.

However, that's not what they told the public and the filmmakers.

Those people were told that the reboot was necessary to bring about a new creative vision that will take the characters and the franchise in new directions.

But did it?

In the retelling they just seemed to take the elements from the first Sam Raimi film and just shuffled them around like a deck of cards with a few tweaks to create the illusion of depth. They added a storyline about a conspiracy about Peter Parker's dead parents, had Norman and Harry Osborne switch places in the whole Green Goblin storyline, and piled money on the whole thing with two hands.

It seemed to work. The two Amazing Spider-Man films made a lot of money at the global box-office. But there's a catch.

So much was spent on those movies that Sony's margins on them were either paper-thin, or nonexistent. This means they've delayed the third film, and are, no doubt, thinking about rebooting the whole damn origin story all over again.

There's also reports that Fox's reboot of The Fantastic 4 will feature a retelling of their origin story, which was done in the first Fantastic 4 movie.

Oy.

So let's take a moment to consider when and why you should tell a superhero's origin story.

1. IF THE AUDIENCE DOESN'T KNOW IT ALREADY.

Iron Man needed to have his origin story told, because the general audience really didn't know where he came from and why he does what he does. Simple.

However, if his story was fully part of modern folklore and can be recited by a child in a country that doesn't even have comics, then you probably don't need to do it.

But what about Batman Begins?

Batman Begins was technically a reboot of Batman's… beginnings, but unlike Amazing Spider-Man it actually served two purposes.

First, it corrected the error of Tim Burton's Batman that made a pre-Joker Joker the killer of the elder Waynes instead of common street punk Joe Chill. By denying Bruce Wayne vengeance against the person directly responsible for the deaths of his parents, it forces him to act out against crime in general.

Second, it filled in the mechanics of how a young boy survived a terrible trauma to become the ruthless butt-kicking cape-wearing maniac we all know and love today.

2. IF THE ORIGIN CAN'T BE TOLD IN A TWEET.

Let's face it, you can sum up the origins of a lot of superheroes fairly quickly. Superman: Alien gets powers from our sun, Spider-Man: Gets bit by a radioactive spider, loses his beloved uncle. Etc…

So if you can get away with just saying "This happened and that's why they're like this" and just get going with the adventuring. 

3. IF IT HAS SPECIFIC RELATIONSHIP TO THE CHARACTER BEYOND JUST GIVING THEM POWERS.

Right now Marvel is casting their Doctor Strange, and it would probably be a good idea to include his origin story in the film. He's not that well known, and his becoming the Sorcerer Supreme plays a major role in his character's story arc. He starts off as an arrogant neurosurgeon, confident he has mastery over life and death, has an accident, can't do surgery anymore, and his desperate search for a cure leads him into a hidden world of mystery and magic.

That's a pretty involved story, and pretty important to the character. So it can be forgiven for telling his origin story, as long as they only do it ONCE.

Anyway, that's what I think, let me know what you think in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1161: The Thor Thex Thange

Marvel has announced that big manly Thor, star of comics, movies, and animated TV shows is now out, and will be replaced by a female Thor, sparking some to ask if movie Thor Chris Hemsworth should fear for his job.

Marvel also announced that this is a permanent change driven by serious creative considerations.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

That's so full of grade A horse-shit I could fertilize an entire farm with it.

Let's look at the facts:

FACT #1: Chris Hemsworth doesn't have to fear for his job. 

The change is occurring in the comics.

What happens in the comics doesn't count anymore because kids don't read comics.

What matters happen in the movies and the TV shows, because that's what the kids are looking at and basing their merchandise purchasing decisions on. 

FACT #2: This will not be permanent.

Like the deaths of Superman, Wolverine, Bucky, and countless other character this will not last.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that old male Thor will be back in business in time for Age of Ultron's release because Marvel will not sacrifice those crossover marketing dollars so long after the hype over the switch dies down.

They will either kill off the female Thor, or give her another magic hammer, a new name, and pawn her off on some B-list team, or just let her fade away.

There will not be a female Thor movie with Katee Sackhoff.

Sorry, it'll never happen.

FACT #3: The foundations of this change is not based on serious creative considerations, but on a hunger for publicity, and a fundamental hypocrisy.

The comics industry knows that killing off a character or changing their gender is a great way to score free publicity from news outlets who normally don't give a Wolverine's whisker for comics and superheroes.

They also know that changing a male character to female is a good tactical move. Anyone who complains about it can be shouted down as "sexist" "misogynist" and otherwise horrible.

But who is really the sexist one in the conversation here?

Let's look at just a sampling of Marvel's past treatment of women:

This is the most modest outfit in the bunch.

What's the point of a space-suit that let's the astronaut's boobs hang out?

Is her superpower a super stretchy torso & light show?

It's CLEAVAGE, featuring superheroes.

And there's tons more. There are literally whole websites dedicated to the sexist hyper-sexualized  and physic/anatomy defying portrayals of women in comic books.

But, make Thor a woman for a little while, and all seems to be forgiven, and the folks who green lit those images are treated like they're the vanguard of the women's rights movement.

That's not insane, it inane, because it seems to fool people EVERY DAMN TIME.

If you honestly believe that Marvel's going to make the Thor change permanent, and that they're great feminists at heart, you shouldn't be allowed outside without wearing a helmet.

Please, if you don't stop falling for these stunts, they're going to keep doing them, to cover up the fact that the comics industry is hell-bent on burning itself into the ground.

Trailer Trashing...

Bit busy today, so here's some trailers and I hope to get back to my usual erudite mix of analysis and sarcasm soon…

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

The upcoming Cinemax series about Victorian surgery called THE KNICK

It's been directed by Stephen Soderbergh, who said he was going to be long retired by now. Anyway it promises lots of drama, lots of gore, and since it's on Cinemax there has to be lots of nudity that has nothing to do with the story.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1148: Fall TV Preview: ABC!

2014-15 ABC Schedule

(New programs in UPPER CASE & BOLD)

MONDAY

8 PM – Dancing With The Stars

10 PM – Castle

TUESDAY

8 PM – SELFIE - Karen Gillan plays a vacuous web-famous single gal who decides to pursue real life.

While I'm a big fan of Karen Gillan in particular, and long legged redheads in general, I just can't get myself into this premise. I think she needs a better vehicle.

8:30 PM – MANHATTAN LOVE STORY - Oh boy, New Yorkers, romance, I'll be seeing what else is on.

9 PM – Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - I just realized that this is the only ABC series I currently watch with any consistency. Had a weak beginning, but definitely improved, and hopefully they keep to the lessons learned for season 2.

10 PM – FOREVER - Ioan Gruffud (pronounced "Throatwobbler Mangrove") plays a crime solving medical examiner with a secret, he's at least a couple of centuries old and cannot die.

Liked it when it was called New Amsterdam, but I'm uncertain on how it's going to be done this time around.

WEDNESDAY

8 PM – The Middle

8:30 PM – The Goldbergs

9 PM – Modern Family

9:30 PM – BLACK-ISH - A sitcom about a successful upper class black man seeking some sort of black identity. I'm expecting lots of stereotype humour. Not a fan of stereotype humour.

10 PM – Nashville

THURSDAY

8 PM – Grey’s Anatomy

9 PM – Scandal

10 PM – HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER - A sexy suspense thriller about sexy students in a sexy law class run by a sexy teacher getting involved in sexy situations with other sexy people in sexy places.

Sorry, it's just that the blurb describing the show made so much about the "sexy" my parody isn't that far off. I think they're trying too hard with their pitch and it's a bit of a turn off.

FRIDAY

8 PM – Last Man Standing

8:30 PM – CRISTELA - An old fashioned ethnic sitcom about a Mexican American girl beginning a career as a lawyer and her whacky traditional family.

Didn't I see this in the 1970s?

9 PM – Shark Tank

10 PM – 20/20

SATURDAY

8 PM – Saturday Night Football

SUNDAY

7 PM – America’s Funniest Home Videos

8 PM – Once Upon A Time

9 PM – Resurrection

10 PM – Revenge

MID SEASON SHOWS:

SECRETS AND LIES - One of those "mystery box" series based around a central crime that has to be solved. I hope they're selling it as a miniseries, because the moment they're tempted to do a Season 2 you can forget getting it solved… ever.

AMERICAN CRIME - Another central-mystery show, but with an added taste of racial tension in the plot-line. Might be too grim to catch on.

THE WHISPERS - Aliens are invading, using Earth's children as their weapon. I guess they hope to annoy Earth into submission.

MARVEL’S AGENT CARTER - Agent Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell, faces post-war ennui, the loss of her true love Captain America, while doing missions in the early days of SSR/SHIELD.

I will be interesting to see if Marvel manages to build successful TV franchises around non-superhero characters.