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[Black Heimdall], or Does This Really Matter?
OptimusZed
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Folks who are familiar with the comic book character Thor probably have a mental image like this;
or this;
or potentially this;
if it's raining.
And he runs with a lot of dudes that look like him, known as the "Norse Gods."
Like Heimdall;
But now, in his silver screen form, Heimdall looks like this;
Is this a relevant cultural issue? Is it kind of silly? Does it matter at all? Is there more or less of an issue for a character like [STRIKE]Thor[/STRIKE] Heimdall, with his well defined ethnic history aspects, to be race-changed than it would be for a character like Spiderman?
Is this the next face of Tchalla?
Spiderman?
How important is a fictional character's ethnicity? Does it vary from character to character? Is there something inherent to [STRIKE]Thor[/STRIKE] that requires him to be played by a 6'6", 250 lb Nord? Or is this a silly thing to get worked up about?
or this;
or potentially this;
if it's raining.
And he runs with a lot of dudes that look like him, known as the "Norse Gods."
Like Heimdall;
But now, in his silver screen form, Heimdall looks like this;
Is this a relevant cultural issue? Is it kind of silly? Does it matter at all? Is there more or less of an issue for a character like [STRIKE]Thor[/STRIKE] Heimdall, with his well defined ethnic history aspects, to be race-changed than it would be for a character like Spiderman?
Is this the next face of Tchalla?
Spiderman?
How important is a fictional character's ethnicity? Does it vary from character to character? Is there something inherent to [STRIKE]Thor[/STRIKE] that requires him to be played by a 6'6", 250 lb Nord? Or is this a silly thing to get worked up about?
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They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
OptimusZed on
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the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
They're Space Gods. They can be whatever Marvel wants them to be.
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The dude was Stringer Bell -- he can play whoever he wants
Heimdall is the warden of Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge. He's tasked with making sure that nobody sneaks into Asgard uninvited. "Violent" and "aggressive" aren't really in his job description or personality make-up.
Unless they like, believed in Batman, too.
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That's the part the god plays in Marvel's mythos as well?
I ask because I genuinely don't know.
Having a black actor playing Thor would be weird, given the character's portrayal in the comic books. Heimdall and the other supporting characters aren't that big a deal, since their looks aren't all that important (I can't even remember what Heimdall looked like in the comic books). Similarly, having the Black Panther played by a white guy would make no sense, given the character's background.
Some roles are limited to a certain race (Othello needs to be black, or at least the opposite race from the rest of the cast, for the play to make sense). For others, it's irrelevant (does M from James Band have to be white, or male, for the movie to make sense?)
Anyway, the Asgardians have been retconned as being as being basically a race of powerful aliens who have had interactions with humans before. They're not really Scandinavians.
Rigorous Scholarship
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I don't even know about the real myth, but yes, that's his job in Marvel. He basically misses all the action because he can't leave his bridge. At least, when the bridge is around.
Yeah more or less this.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Yep.
EDIT - Scooter beat me to it.
They might be basing the movie Heimdall off of this version of the character.
The nobles on HBO's series Rome all spoke with Brit accents, for example.
Rigorous Scholarship
But, on the other hand, these mythological beings often do things like turn into horses and impregnate things that are sometimes not other horses. I know, I'm getting my pantheons mixed up here, but you get what I mean; we can't decide that this black God isn't just being black because he feels like it.
Edit: basically what I'm saying is that the Marvel Norse Gods don't actually derive their identities from looking like Scandinavians.
No they don't. You just need to be told that the actor is playing a race. Do you really think that the play going on in front of you is something that is actually happening? No, of course not. So why is it important that the color of a person's skin matches the role that they are playing. Obviously it would help if Othello is played by a black actor, because it will aid in the suspension of disbelief, but it is not a necessity.
One of those cast members mused in a behind-the-scenes interview that it's very fortunate that Americans are happy with British accents standing in for all manners of foreign accents. Because really, who the hell knows what the Romans actually sounded like?
Updating.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
When a central part of the story is a characters race is helps if the person playing the character is actually that race.
GI Jane wouldn't work so well if Jane was played by Jean Claude Van Dam.
probably like Italians :P
or closer to modern Italian than English for sure :P
As comic book continuity goes, it's pretty logical.
Rigorous Scholarship
Mostly b/c it's about comics.
COMICS!
Perhaps. Then again, Gandalf wasn't actually grey, and Saruman's title had nothing to do with his skin color (and Tolkien was HEAVILY steeped in the tropes of old Nordic mythology).
Thor is also noted as 'not a super hero' and 'not australian'
Race is a big part of a character's identity at times. Whether unexpected racial casting choices break suspension of disbelief is pretty production-specific. I don't think there's an argument against it here.
Considering that modern English don't sound anything like they did as recently as 400 to 500 years ago, it's a fair bet that the Romans might not have sounded Italian.
Perhaps if Jean-Claude Van Damme gave the performance of his life, or, rather, the performance of a much better actor's life, it would work well. Perhaps not as well, but it could work.
But that is an extreme example. In the case of this movie, it's just a silly thing to get worked up about.
Of course its silly in this movie, but you did bring up Othello and thats sort of ridiculous.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.