Changing the race of a known character

[NickRowler]

I think if you grew up on little mermaid, it feels like they are erasing your character

I grew up with the Little Mermaid, but I was never a die hard fan. I don't feel like a film will erase the original Disney version. You can still buy/watch the film, you can still get her merch, and ride the ride. They are not getting rid of the original film. They are just adding a variation, just like all their live-action variations. Making her black doesn't ruin her character, heck in Tokyo Disney she is played by a Japanese woman in the meet and greets and no one bats an eye at that, because who the hell cares.

My main issue with the new film is that these new Disney remakes tend to be bland and rely too much on rehashing. Maybe changing the races would cause some variation, IDK. Honestly, I wanted a gender-swap because the original story is a queer allegory and that would actually be pretty bold and currently relevant.

[TAMAnnoying]

My main issue with the new film is that these new Disney remakes tend to be bland and rely too much on rehashing.

This i prettt much my problem with the idea behind changing a character to the Extreme of race and gender. If your not gonna bring more to the table then I don’t see the point of your exisisance and prob not gonna spend my money on you.

I just remembered a great example.

King Aurthor. Everyone knows him but most people prob are not aware of the many many many many “remakes” of his story before it became very well liked as a story about a dude pulling a sword from a stone (which was not even in the original depiction) most fo the biggest changes to Aurthor involved a lot Drastic thematic changes, instead of being welsh he was now British; but that was ok cause the British story was intresting and combined pegan and Christianity in this oddly well working world. Then came the romance of gewn and lance whom was exploring the ideas of “love for the sake of love” where Gwen and lance had sex and Aurthor chilled in the background.

Then they got a bit more religious and lance and Gwen became less good and more of a betrayal story. Eventually Morgana became less of a random NPC and more of a main villian. All these changes obviously changed the story and some people liked it- some people didn’t, but I think the difference here is that people wanted to say “What if” and then wrote actually Intresting versions of what could happen to these character's

Now here’s an extreme of the king author story that I took me some getting used to. Fate Zero where king Aurthor is a WOMEN. It was weird and I didn’t like it cause it raised a lot of questions about her relationships with gewn and lance........ for obvious reasons (But it’s fine cause the wizard turned her into a dude for a night and had a baby who became Mordred).

Ignoring the confusion that would occur with this gender swap it took a very long time for me to get over it. The oribional writer didn’t want the gender swap, they wanted the main character to be a lady and author to be a man but people told them “no one is going to buy a game where the main character is a women” and also “add sex scenes or no one is gonna buy it.”

BUT thing is, they actually put a lot of work into trying to adapt arthor into a women - and truly- that’s not what the story was about, especially in Fate Zero (which is supierior to day stay night @ me I don’t care) where the story has way more to do about the actual games being played for the holy grail and the espionage and the betrayals and the deaths and the sadness that is this type of story.

Was the gender change forced and weird? Yes, was it nessessary? Well never know cause the games become sussessful enough to have its own show, well never know if normal king Aurthor and lady main character would have been as popular. But what we can say is that it’s not as important for the story being told. Author being a man or a women has nothing to actually do with the story at hand which is about a bunch of mages being mages and lots of murder murder death party. So it’s really hard to get mad over that, especially since the writer did their best to make sense of the change and even did thing like use the battle dresses that existed back in those times.

Overall my issue with it is - don’t just change the gender and race just to do it, actually put effort into how this changes the characters personality, cause no matter what you wanna say, people’s veiw points are gonna changed based on how they look to other people. An Afrian amarican Spider-Man is gonna have a diffrent life then peter Parker and you should actually take advantage of that! Bring something new to the table,

don’t just color swap sonic and change nothing about him then say original character do not steal!!1!1!

[AVXP]

I change the race of one of my characters when I rebooted the comic from

Man, I wanted to reply to so much other stuff that was said, but this info-dump was really, really interesting.
You changed YOUR comic to match YOUR newer/current/UPDATED comfort level.
The way YOU see the world.

and then probably move on with their lives because they're NOT BABIES.

An insult to anyone that doesn't agree with you. A checkbox from today's trends.

I'm sorry, this entire conversation is bloody ridiculous. My feelings are: "Who gives a toss"

Can't write deep paragraph about this and then say that. Can't CHANGE your story to match your new outlook and say that. You give such a toss that you changed your IP as you changed to reflect YOU (more)

. And you are so defiant and sure, you are basically saying kick-rocks to anyone that doesn't share your feelings about this.

So what if some little kid thinks of Ariel as a black fish girl rather than a white girl with...

You just proved it's not so what - as you are making changes- so that no one thinks about your characters and story the way YOU used to.

In summary: They're made up anyway, so creators should be allowed to change them as they see fit.

Except 99.9% of these changes are not made by the creators, they are made by new writers/creators who are given license to, NOT by the CREATOR, but who holds the license. Any many changes are directly against the wishes of the creator. So this great for you as you are your IP, not so great when the creator - as you have said - wants a thing.

I was once told by someone with kids, that the point of many characters and stories was to PASS THEM ON - and so as a child I watched the old B&W serials with my dad. Those were old movies and *most depicted a world that no longer existed. My dad was sharing it because HE WATCHED IT AS A KID. He was sharing a huge part of his childhood.

That's actually the main reason characters endure. They get passed on across generations. When parents STOP taking their kids to see the "new Version" it dies for that kid and they do not share that legacy.

Overall. I think a lot of us are okay with strong-arm-tactics and ideas being shoved down throats as long as the ideas and changes are the things we like or are at least comfortable with.

[amortelito]

You made such a great point, the legacy dies. So what's even the point of using the characters name on the top of a character that is nothing like it is supposed to be? (yes, the changes run deeper than the looks, I also mean changes in their values and personality). It is more ethical to make a brand new character but the greed makes corporations to cling to a name that holds a preexisting reputation.

BTW and a comment for the general discussion. Some keep mentioning that having a black Ariel will make "some little girl happy", but of course it is important to make children happy, but let's not pretend that white Ariel didn't made the girls of all races and ethnicities happy already, and that changing her color will by default make her a better character. I think this is the fallacy of the race bend as a selling point, what will make the movie endearing is the writing not the actress' color.
It goes back to the good writing.

[TAMAnnoying]

Oh no... the made up character is different... how will I suspend disbelief that they're supposed to be near the coast of europe in this movie...about....singing fish people pfffffffft.

I’m really tired of this excuse of “who cares if she doesn’t look like the original, they can do whatever they want- it’s a fish person”

Hey guess what? You wanna use this fish person excuse?

https://bloody-disgusting.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/shape13.jpg

Go big or go home is my response. They way they are changing her race isn’t Interesting- it’s lazy.

[FenneFox]

I'd rather they make an entirely new character personally since just switching the race seems rather lazy and a bit pandering. I'd say it's slightly different if it were a movie since they may be going for the best actor rather than the look, although I'd still prefer if they tried for both look and acting. As for in a story, unless you have a damn good reason, don't.

[darthmongoose]

Hey guess what? You wanna use this fish person excuse?

image.jpeg1800x1200 268 KB

Go big or go home is my response. They way they are changing her race isn’t Interesting- it’s lazy.

What point are you trying to make here? That somehow making Ariel a brown-skinned fish lady is some kind of slippery slope to making her look like that?

'Cause judging from the fan art and praise I saw for that movie, I think a lot of people would be totally fine with that.

Yeah. Like... go for it. It's fine. It's somebody's creative vision and if the audience are into it, they're into it. That's how media works. You make a piece of work, you market it and people either give you money to experience it or they don't.

I can see a lot of people are very upset about this but... Yes, if a work is old, it's old. If the old one still exists, I think a remake should be different. For the record, I don't like ANY of the disney "live action" remakes. I think they're lazy cashgrabs with none of the charm of the originals. If I want to watch The Lion King, I will watch the original one. I don't NEED another version of that movie because the old one is a timeless classic. But if they must exist? Well, I'd rather they at least be different in some ways to justify their existence. In fact, I'd prefer they were MORE different than the ones they're making!

If I'd been dead for years, and somebody reinterpreted my characters as... I dunno, alien hybrids because it's the future and we peacefully coexist with aliens and the growing demographic of alien hybrids wanted some representation these works... I'd say... "YES. GO, FUTURE PEOPLE! DO IT!" ....except I wouldn't because I'd be dead so I wouldn't care because depending on what a person believes I'll just no longer exist or I'll exist in some kind of other realm where I'd be experiencing such bliss or torture that what people were doing with my old art would be the last thing on my ghostly mind.

Batman ought to be public domain by now. He should have been public domain for decades. The Little Mermaid was a story in the public domain even before Disney adapted it. You are allowed to do literally whatever the hell you want with it. You could make your own version of that story right now, and you could make the character an eight foot tall bald Filipino trans woman mermaid with a pirate hook hand and laser eyes if it took your fancy.
These big brands are protecting their IP by stretching out copyrights on characters forever because it makes money and people are acting like these media products are sacred somehow. Immutable gospel truths that must never be altered. They're just commercial products, very enjoyable ones, but this very obsession with the sanctity of the originals is why we're getting all these terrible remakes that just change a few surface details and add no interesting flourishes.

[TAMAnnoying]

That is the exact point I’m trying to make yes. If you wanna do something creative, then do something creative, we have the technology- go crazy and do something fun, do something more then just casting people for clout and telling the exact same story.

Shape of water will prob be a better adaptation of little mermaid then Disney’s new little mermaid.

[indagold]

I've met people who do this and time and again they are very racist/fetishistic. It would usually go something like this: "hey you changed the race of a lighter skin minority group, as a jew I find this highly offensive" their response: "you have white privilege and thus aren't a minority, shut up"

I miss the days when people racebended characters as an interesting AU exploration and had no political connotations.
Stuff like this is pretty cool but wouldn't fly nowadays:

[33rdCenturyCaveman]

an eight foot tall bald Filipino trans woman mermaid with a pirate hook hand and laser eyes

Me gonna ask how you know my Tita Edna.

[Shanny8]

problem with that is the there is a small pool of diverse race actors to choose from, for every Asian, Hispanic or black actor there are 100 white ones. so if you have ever thought, hmm why is Hollywood so unrepresentative to real life? it's cause they can't find the actors, or those actors aren't interested.

Okay...SO NOT TRUE. The biggest issue with Hollywood is the biggest issue with comics: gatekeepers. I'm trying to figure how in the world did "they cant find the actors/those actors arent interested" ever become a sentence? Do you think these actors/actresses of color just walk around in Hollywood shooting down every opportunity that comes before them? Really?!?

[Shanny8]

Which is EXACTLY what Marvel should fear. They should endeavor to make people think Chris Evans was/is an actor that played Steve Rodgers...and That Captain America can be other characters assuming that legacy. Because they're not giving a generational reset... They're chugging the whole MCU full speed ahead.

But also Marvel did the Sam Wilson Captain America(Steve passed the mantle to Sam) series some yrs back- we're also seeing this play out in the new Falcon & Winter Soldier series coming(if coronavirus hasnt halted production)...

[TAMAnnoying]

See I wanna agree and disagree with both of you cause I feel like you guys are both on the right track but missing a big element in all of this.

The reason there’s so few actors of any minority is a but about gatekeeping but less “we don’t want black people in our movies” and more “we don’t want the wrong type of black people in our movies.”

The problem with Hollywood that has always and forever been a problem is the fact that they are >horribly abusive to their actors< the most resent movie I can think of that’s accurate to this is Judy, and a very fantastical version of this would be One upon a time in Hollywood. Both show how terrifying it actually is to be a movie star and how at any minute you can become meaningless and blacklisted if you do not do everything that is expected of you >including< think and expressing the talking points that they think is the >correct< talking points.

A lot of people in general tend to back off from becoming actors because of the insane amount of nonsense they have to go through to get a roll and stay in that roll, there is so much demanded of actors, Henry cavil had to dehydrate himself For three day’s just so his abs could look better Cause that’s just the kind of Shit you have to go through to become someone.

And if you ever say something Hollywood didn’t agree with you get blacklisted for an unknown amount of time- which is prob the reason why only very well known and well off actors try to speak out of line like they did at the golden globes and the Oscars, cause if a smaller actor said something that was even remotely problematic they can say goodbye to their careers.

Unless you want your life to suddently be very political most people don’t tend to continue pursuing the career of an actor- or at least not a Hollywood actor. Because you either have to be a part of the hive mind and have no personal opinions. Or apologize for every single thing you’ve said like scarlet joe Hanson.

It’s just kind of not fun to be an actor x3

[Inspector_Spinda]

Well I have two answers. In short it depends on context. If you are retelling a story for another culture for example, such as in American versions of Japanese horror, where all the characters are changed into American where they were originally Japanese, I think it's okay. Fairy tales have been retold in sometimes so many cultures it's hard to know which culture the original story came from. There's a Chinese Cinderella, an European Cinderella etc etc. I think that's all okay. Especially since international media is getting more popular now, it totally makes sense to have some white or black people in Ghost in the Shell or whatever thing they remake next. Most of these shows don't really depend on the story taking place in an certain country anyways.

However if it's just for "representation" sake, I think it's totally pointless and lazy. I understand it seems like a good idea at first because these are recognizable characters, and people have a chance at connecting with them more than a brand new character, but if you do this, you're handicapping yourself forever because the only good non-white characters would have originally been white anyways and you're shooting yourself in the foot. I don't know much about Miles Morales, but if he's total different from Peter Parker I think it's okay. The original Dick Grayson and Jason Todd where almost the same characters, and if that sort of thing is happening, except with races, it's also quite lazy.

[skicoak]

But also Marvel did the Sam Wilson Captain America(Steve passed the mantle to Sam) series some yrs back- we're also seeing this play out in the new Falcon & Winter Soldier series coming(if coronavirus hasnt halted production)...

I am familiar, as well as the other numerous times others took up the Captain America mantle like U.S.Agent, Winter Soldier ect.

The problem has always been that the comic books resets back to the default Steve Rodgers(and the sliding time scale) versus allowing it to revert to a legacy to be passed.

I'm a big fan of converting these titles/IPs to legacies in their functional realities versus having to generational rebooting your entire mythologies so Bruce Wayne can always be Batman or Rogers as Captain America. We've seen that it can work with Batman Beyond or in a variation Miles Morales.

The MCU is at an interesting crossroads...does it recast it's core actors or does it embrace the legacy idea?

[ValouraDoe]

Personally I agree with this. If you change a character within the same product. Like... Jk Rowling who likes to pretend she had a totally diverse book from the beginning and consistently contradicts herself. Then yeah.. Totally stupid. HOWEVER! Everybody loves seeing different versions of things. SO, why not black Ariel? People make pin up, cyber punk, old victorian, cowboy, futuristic, and dark versions of anything and everything. And people LOVE THAT. I do however, hate that coloured characters and females tend to only be knock offs of well established cliche male/white characters. Instead of being unique and well written individuals that actually represent their criteria. Like.. I really hate Super Girl and whatnot. Wonder Women is okay. Super girl no. I personally LOVE Miles Morales too, but I do wish there were more black and female characters that weren't basically spin offs.
Also agree with the statement about Jesus Christo. lol

[ValouraDoe]

Static Stock is in Young Justice. Just so you know. ^^ It's a very good series too. SO, I wouldn't say he's been forgotten.

[indagold]

Why i'm utterly sick and tired of people looking towards mainstream media for representation and then complaining they have to for some pointless reason like they're mindless zombies who can only consume.

Everyone just focus on indie content lol

[Shanny8]

The reason there’s so few actors of any minority is a but about gatekeeping but less “we don’t want black people in our movies” and more “we don’t want the wrong type of black people in our movies.”

WHO is "the wrong type" of Black people? In a world where Quentin Tarantino cranks out movies spitting the the n-word about 120-ish times, where Bryan Singer (allegedly)m-----s the h--k out of l----e b--s, but yet time & time again these dudes are given opportunities to "make movies"...dont tell me it aint about gatekeeping.

The MCU is at an interesting crossroads...does it recast it's core actors or does it embrace the legacy idea?

I dont think you can do the movies like the comic books; with the comics it's a convoluted but cheaply produced form of media, but with movies it's a LOT more expensive. I dont think they're going to revisit the core characters that started off their movies- unless this next phase takes a hard crash.

As for the subject of race switching characters- I dont really feel one way or another about it. At one point I did have an issue when they changed Thor to female Thor, but then I thought A) I have no financial investment in these characters to have my underwear twisted about what Marvel does with these characters and B) if a lot of the so-called fans supported these companies they way they claim to, then these companies wouldnt have to resort to options such as race switching characters to find an audience that they want to invest in them. You have folks bitching about Thor being changed into a female, but where were they when the book's sales were dragging which led to Marvel making that choice?

I still buy mainstream comics, and I enjoy them- but I'm not as emotionally invested as I used to be. I just wanna concentrate on making my own books and creating my own characters...

[TAMAnnoying]

I never said gatekeeping dosnt exisit? I was saying that there’s a lot of different types of gatekeeping that would prob keep most people who are not already deeply invested into the world of Hollywood out cause they don’t wanna deal with the stress and drama. Think about the fact that Hollywood used to be surrounded by mostly white people, then POC started to try their hand at becoming part of the cult of Hollywood, now that the cult has become a bit more culty the people who where already a part of the cult are gonna have kids who join into the industry at a much higher and easier rate then the newer people. And since the people who where already in the Hollywood cult where white, it’s just mathematical that there’s gonna be more white people then POC who already have a foot in the door because They’re Dad was a set designer or their mom was an actress.

Again Quentin Tarantino is a >VERY< popular man so he’d be more likely to get away with it- and to be fair most of his stories with the n word being used is historically accurate which is good In my opinion (why erase the history? Wouldn’t it hurt people more by pretending it wasn’t real?)

As for people like sinnger- honestly you got me, I’m always confused by the type of people who will be called out and no one will do anything but then someone else who’s called out with no evidence gets fired from all his rolls he was already promised. This is where I think the underhanded gatekeeping of the “right” people come in. Hollywood has people they like and people they don’t actually like and they’ve been willing to kick out some people over others.

Edit: actually I will say that directors seem to be higher on the totem poll then actors, so when directors do and say things they’re less likely to get a lot of shit, unlike actors who are more in the public eye and get a lot more shit to deal with. This is prob why a lot of actors try to become directors later in their careers.