“Scooby-Doo doesn’t have Scooby-Doo” is like saying that my PB & J sandy has neither PB, nor J, nor is it a sandy. Like, what are we saying, at this point? It’s obviously not even the same thing, it’s like, a bean bag chair, or whatever else. At the same time, I don’t find myself crying for how the symbol has been dissolved, because that shit is happening all the time and only iron law of reality is that everything changes eventually.
I dunno I get it but at the same time the shit strikes me as dumb and every time I hear somebody complain about this shit I get flashbacks to 4chan and also real life where I’m gonna be like “yeah sure that’s kinda stupid, scooby doo should have scooby doo or whatever” and then somebody’s gonna take that as an opportunity to start extrapolating a bunch of shit about how postmodernism is ruining the culture and yadda yadda white genocide, and I’m like. Damn, I thought we were gonna talk about scooby doo.
That is probably why the show is not called scooby doo.
It literally feels another show with the mystery gang paint slapped on that’s incredibly mean spirited with the jokes.
I don’t even think it just feels like that, is what I’m saying, I think that’s literally what it is, exactly, to a T. “Mystery gang paint” is right on the money.
And this is why Araki always has a “JoJo”, so he can keep using the same JJBA brand for his -mostly unrelated- stories lol /hj
Maybe because scooby doo was my least favorite cartoon as a kid, on Saturday mornings it came on once the good shows were done and it was time to play video games, but I didn’t mind Velma. It wasn’t great, I’m not going to go out of my way defending it, but it was a solid okay. I don’t get the hate, it seems overblown for a mid show. It had some jokes, solid sleep time show rewatch (to ruin any credibility my opinion has, brickleberry is in the same category for me).
the wording on this comment sounds like copium to me…
okay…
Ouch, yeah, brickleberry. Ouch.
My thinking with sleep time shows is they need to be predictable, with the occasional joke.
Interesting enough so that when I’m trying to sleep, but can’t I can chuckle, but not so interesting that I want to open my eyes and look.
You know, a generic mid show.
That makes sense. Mine are just shows that I’ve already watched a million times.
Ah, that makes sense. I listen to science/astronomy videos on YouTube to fall asleep
It’s a shame that the first episode is the worst of the season. I also think it was ok, but my wife (who’s not terminally online like us, and didn’t knew the discourse around the show) loved it and couldn’t get why internet hated it.
Which version of scooby doo? The original run of the show was very different from what it morphed into.
Coooiiiiinnnn. Ccooooiiiiiinnnn.
Whatever was on Saturday morning in ~'94, can’t honestly say.
It came on and was boring so I didn’t pay attention.
The 90s Scooby Doo cartoons were pretty awful cash grabs and a far cry from even the first, what 3-4 Scooby shows. Everything from Scrappy Doo until the 2000s reboot (Mystery Inc, which my kids LOVED) was junk.
Scooby Doo started truly scraping the bottom of the barrel when they decided the ghosts were real. The one thing I respected the original show for was that it was about being a skeptic and overcoming your fear of the supernatural, because the supernatural wasn’t real.
Now, now. Scooby Doo on Zombie Island was absolute gold.
Ok we get it.
Im with you on Velma. It wasn’t all that bad, and the art direction at times was impressive for what they were going for.
Don’t worry, Scooby Doo is alright… doing just fine… (cw)
I love this video. That disgusted sound Scooby make after the we are meta line was perfect.
I can’t read the purple person’s face in the last panel.
Both of their eyes turn white. That little small white circle is her eye focusing on his phone.
That’s a face!?
Same face from the frame before it, but eyes in a state of shock, blank.
Don’t forget the cross popping vein (universal symbol of anger)
I really tried to watch Velma, and the only way I felt I could watch it was to totally disassociate it from Scooby Doo.
The problem in doing so, which is obvious in hindsight, is that on its own merits, there isn’t really a show there that can stand on its own two feet and be compelling. That realisation alone should have been enough for the networks to pass, but with star power assigned to the writing and a known IP, I guess this was enough to get the green light.
I’m all for creative retelling of stories, but the fundamentals don’t change. The absolute WORST thing you can do, once the reviews come in, is to criticise the critical response. Sure, many probably didn’t get the artistic vision, but ultimately you are in the entertainment industry, and the creator and producers arguably gave themselves a heavy job in creating a show that caters across several cultural subjects, while also limiting themselves to the Scooby Doo/Mystery Inc gang. It’s why I don’t consider it “lazy” - if anything, they shot for the stars and hit the ceiling.
IMO, it’s a bad show, but could have been good if they had written original characters. It would have highlighted that some characters were either unlikeable/lazy, or that the premise needed more work.
Bro. Do yourself a favour and check out Scooby&Shag as a comic on Webtoon. It’s the best thing to come out these years.
Hear me out. They should’ve put someone’s brain in a dog to make Scooby.
Why the everliving fuck they didn’t do that when the big bad guy was cutting brains out of people is just beyond comprehension.
Best Scooby Doo adaptation is the Venture Bros episode with the gang, and I will die on that hill
Haven’t seen it, but it must be fucking amazing because Mysteries Inc. sets a pretty high bar.
There was also the Scooby Doo episode of Supernatural. Maybe not as much of an adaptation as it was a crossover… but it was still great.
Scoobynatural is one of my favorite episodes of Supernatural, right up there with Changing Channels. I wish they had gotten the rights, the time, and the cameo money to do an X-Files crossover.
I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the 2002 film, but that’s mostly because Sarah Michelle Geller is a smokeshow and I’ll watch just about anything she’s in.
Geez what’s next, a Breaking Bad show without Walter White or Jesse?
Family Guy without the family… or the guy
Tucker Carlson without racism?
Walt and Jesse are there but there’s no drugs.
Breaking Bad reimagined this time it’s about the bad breakup between Walter and Jesse stretched into 8 seasons.
All while living in constant fear, for no particular reason, of a random guy who owns a small fried chicken restaurant chain.
Or an All in the Family show with no Archie Bunker? Or a Happy Days show with no Fonzie or Richie Cunningham?
Hey, that last one could work as a movie if not a TV series. Chuck Cunningham comes back.
They could reshoot a few scenes from the TV show with lookalike actors, have Chuck play out his final bit, and then a few more scenes from the show that make it clear that no-one remembers him. At all.
Now, think about it: Extra-terrestrial aliens are canon in Happy Days (Mork and Mindy was a spin-off), so it’s possibly some other alien race abducted Chuck and caused everyone to forget he ever existed.
Depending on what time period he comes back to, this could be played for laughs or for existential horror.
At this rate they’re going to be making Star Wars stuff without Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.
The irony here is that it could very well be much better than whatever Disney did, especially if you consider some of the stuff from the 90s and 2000s games, like Dark Forces or Knights of the Old Republic.
Imagine being an adult and a new show for kids doesn’t appeal to you though.
imagine being an adult and rooting for a shitty sports team that never wins because its the one you grew up near.
Problem is that the new show isn’t for kids. It is aimed at adults. I mean… it’s on HBO.
You would let a child watch Velma?
Why would you bother to resurrect the corpse of a cartoon long dead that children don’t care about and then fail to put the titular character in?
People only cared about the dog, and maybe Shaggy.
Don’t tell me you liked Velma. The only thing she ever did was lose her glasses.
Wait, was Scooby-Doo not in the new show?
Assuming this is about Velma, it doesn’t have Scooby Doo. They just reused the character names and basic-ish traits and changed pretty much everything else.
They should have had the Venture Brothers team write a show based on their version of the Scooby Doo gang
I’m still mad that show was canned. 😡
Eh, the finale movie was satisfying enough and I watched it for the 15 and a half years it was on air. Great show, but I’m OK with things coming to an end.
Scooby-Doo was cut, there’s a lot of race swapping, and basically it follows Velma who is an amazing girl-boss who solves all the mysteries, and everybody else is just kind of “around”. There seems to be a lot of resentment of anyone who is wealthier, more successful, or popular. Fred is a punching bag for a lot of jokes, he’s just a rich white boy who doesn’t really know how to do anything.
Papa Meat (Hunter Hancock of MeatCanyon) has a review. It’s pretty balanced, but even that’s still negative, mainly rated high as it was because he liked the art. 😅
Apparently, despite a seemingly horrendous reception by the public, it has been renewed for a second season. ¯\(°_o)/¯
its like community, you need the character diversity to drive the character interactions. If you do shit like that it no longer follows the original story line at all, which is the only reason for it to be in that same IP.
That’s a great analogy, and points towards parts of the downfall of Community, as those diverse roles shifted with Chevy Chase leaving, Britta’s character changes, bringing together Troy, Abed, and Annie, etc. It’s a show I dearly love, but it’s also a great demonstration of how a show can struggle to keep the magic going from a working formula.
Sounds like they dragged a handful of lemmyists out of their basements to write it.
follows Velma who is an amazing girl-boss who solves all the mysteries
Velma as a character was a lot of things, but she was mostly an insufferable, pathologically egotistical narcissist with hallucinatory delusions and severe mommy issues. Like, the show was horribly written, don’t get me wrong, but let’s not act like she was a Mary Sue.
I agree with your assessment, I maybe should have included an ‘/s’ after amazing girl boss. That’s the image she has of herself, that’s how she carries herself. Like an insufferable, pathologically egotistical narcissist with hallucinatory delusions and severe mommy issues would do. 🙂
I’ll go ahead & add the /s, why not?
I didn’t pick up on the sarcasm in your description. And I’m usually pretty good at that. Not sure if that’s a flaw in my reading comprehension or if your intent just didn’t carry in that sentence. Maybe a bit of both.
My intent didn’t carry & I’m not known to be the best communicator. 🤙🏻
It’s okay. Being a person is hard and communicating is a big part of being a person.
Adding the /s saves the pain not just for you, but for the readers of your comment that might struggle with reading tone in text.
I believe it’s because it’s so universally seen as terrible that it got renewed. People couldn’t believe it could be that bad, but was, in fact, that bad. So many people watched it either to rip on it or to see if it was as bad as it was made out to be and that got the show a lot of ratings on paper I bet.
Execs see numbers and conflate that with a “good show”. It’s our own fault really. I still haven’t seen it yet though so I can’t weigh in on it’s quality at all
I mostly started watching to see what they were up in arms about. By the penultimate episode I realized it was the runrate level of “woke” and how pathetic the snowflakes are. Enjoyed the series and excited for more.
You liked the new Ghostbusters too, didn’t you?
I did! I’m a cheap date. I like the one with the women, and the one with the kids. Life’s too short to be critical. I know what’s junk and what’s not. I just don’t care enough to be discerning when deciding the method to turn my brain off sometimes
Sometimes I wish I could drop my standards like that. As soon as the cash-grab shines through most things come off as too disingenuous and condescending for me to enjoy.
Easy.
If you don’t give them cash, then their cash grab doesn’t work.
There is always at least someone behind the scenes that put their heart and soul into it.
The fuck are you talking about lol
I wasn’t interested in the show until I heard the buzz as a result of people whining about how “woke” the show was. I enjoy representation in media and wondered what the problem was. I watched. I kept waiting with baited breath for the big woke reveal But it never came. Bc it’s not that controversial.
I think the “woke” was just the race swapping mainly.
Tbh, I also hate race/gender swap movies/shows, but the reason is because I also hate reboots like Total Recall where the only similarity between the OG and the remake was “mars.” I just hate remakes at all and “oh look we made the ghostbusters women now” just feels so lazy like “tell me you’re out of ideas without telling me you’re out of ideas.”
Furthermore it’s pandering at best but honestly it may be kinda sexist/racist that they can’t think of strong female/black characters they can create to have their own legacy like, Ellen Ripley in Alien or even goddamn Thelma and Louise.
Frankly idgaf what color/gender the lead is, I just want an actual original concept. No, not another “new” marvel movie either lol.
Counterpoint. An opportunity to repair the error of our past ways by creating new more inclusive opportunities🤷
I’m also not as anti reboot, sequels, etc as many of my nerd brethren. So I’m fine with lazy remix.
Yeah it’s not as big of a deal, and I sometimes think they use over negative hype as a form of marketing when they have nothing else and don’t know how else to market it.
Which is lazy. Just like the show. I dunno, the writing just felt so bland and trying to be edgy because “look at how many people will be pissed at what I wrote” instead of actually thinking of something clever. Sorry the meh shows piss me off more than the garbage cause it feels like they know better.
So that’s your perspective and it’s valid and matters. If you consider the perspective of others, you may find it’s not lazy, but actually one of the only forms of representation in mainstream media of these ideas. People are particularly butthurt when you include their nostalgia and find it an afront (sp?) to them.
So whereas one familiar but not invested may see an on the nose literal call out of how “we already know these groups feel,” the aforementioned, underrepresented groups’ members may see themselves finally represented on screen.
I think race swapping is a non-issue, unless doing so messes with the character’s backstory or story arc in a meaningful way. So I could care less about that.
My only takeaway was the writing is bad.
We are more concerned with airing grievances than writing.
It kills any nostalgia I have for the character, because race swapping very rarely means just a change in skin color
I’m fine with black characters. I prefer female characters. Ultimately, I don’t care that much. Give me good writing
Make me care about them for who they are. Oh, you want to make my beloved character Pakistani? Go fuck yourself. I don’t care about the actor, don’t change my character.
You want to make a Haitian main character? I’m listening.
Write well, pay respect to the characters and the work. That’s the only rule…I don’t know why it’s seemingly impossible to follow
Write well, pay respect to the characters and the work. That’s the only rule…I don’t know why it’s seemingly impossible to follow
To do that, you need these special people called writers and you need to give them time and money, and that seems like a hassle, doesn’t it? Can’t we just make unpaid interns brainstorm stuff and figure out what will drive engagement on social media instead?
I could care less about the distinction
I’m all for racial inclusivity but just create a new fuckin character.
If you can’t be racially inclusive by making a whole new character then all you’re doing is pandering/race baiting.
I don’t agree. If they’d just written a new character there would be grounds to complain that the new character was pointless tokenism.
So maybe actually integrate that character into a new concept entirely. Make a new story where you can choose whatever race everyone is supposed to be from the start. Don’t take an existing story and change the races just so you can go “See guys! I’m being inclusive! I made this character black! I’m so progressive!”
Scooby Doo doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to integrating a new character.
I’m honestly speaking generally not just about Scooby Doo. It just so happens that this portrayal of Scooby Doo is just pure blatant pandering.
Why did they even call it Scooby Doo? Why even attach the show to that franchise when it’s so separated in it’s basic concepts?
The answer is because they were trying to use the franchises name to push some stupid race pandering bullshit.
They put in all the effort to change each character to the point that they only resemble their original designs by physical appearance. They literally could have just come up with a completely different show that had nothing to do with Scooby Doo at all.
Why does it matter that the characters retain their original races?
Because of the principle of it. If your goal is inclusivity how is completely changing the race of an established character inclusive? It’s not. It’s just pandering.
If you’re actually trying to be inclusive then make a new character. Anything else is a pathetic attempt that just shows how disingenuous the attempt is.
This take always seems a bit myopic as it ignores the fact that it cements in the exclusivity that already existed. Not allowed to change an established character’s race? Only option is to tack on a new character to the already existing cast and that certainly doesn’t seem like pandering. Of course maybe the new inclusive characters should only be in new content that isn’t established and has no following.
Its fascinating that you can change age, gender, class, job, good vs evil, city, power origin, family, parents, backstory, goals, romantic relationship, friends, enemies, powers, on and on and thats all fun new twists on the character to revitalize the story.
But race? Woooaaah buddy, slow down! Thats too far!
Its fuckin transparent, is what it is
I mean I think the problem here is the like, “changing the race of an established character”, right. What established character? Black superman, or whatever else, isn’t superman, he’s black superman. That’s it, basically, that’s my justification. It’s not the same character text to text, even. Is it the same bilbo in every lord of the rings book? Is it the same bilbo sentence to sentence? It’s not like girlboss velma and dumb rich white guy fred are the same velma and fred, they just share the same symbols. If you actually dissect the characters and compared them, then you’d find very little in common. The show doesn’t even have scooby fucking doo, it’s not even called “scooby doo”, it’s, in my mind, and I think it should be in everyone else’s mind, it is tangentially related to scooby doo, at best, you know? I see it as a standalone work, and in that sense it’s just kind of a mediocre show that I don’t think anyone should really care about, rather than this kind of abomination on the face of scooby-doodom and this thing that we need to all be frothing about because scooby-doo has been done so dirty.
SO, all of that can be true, right, they just share symbols. But this is also true of race as a whole, the symbol of race, here, being like, whether or not somebody is black or white or asian or whatever. If you’re race-swapping superman, you know, I think it’s kind of more in line with the message of superman, if he’s the same guy, regardless of whatever race you decide to cast him as, you know? If you don’t change the backstory, if you do change the backstory, whatever, he sort of exists beyond it, as a kind of human ideal for everyone to live up to. For that to be true, superman has to be possible if you put him in basically any circumstance. So, even though superman himself is the same, have we “made a new character”, even though we’ve changed his race, maybe changed his background, and then, in line with that, we’ve maybe flavored him different in terms of like, say, what music or food he likes? I dunno if we really have or we haven’t. Made a new character, I mean. The character has changed, but the core remains the same, the label is the same, the symbols are the same. That’s kind of the question I’m asking, where do you draw the line as to what’s a “new” character, and what’s not? You could just as easily draw it to be where any change in surface level characteristics, from eye color, to hair color, to skin color, results in a “new” character, even if the character, of that character, remains the same. Red shirt shaggy vs green shirt shaggy.
So I dunno, really, like, I’ve never got this critique of like oh no we’re not being inclusive in the right way because we decided to make velma indian, instead of deciding to call the series Shmelma or whatever. What if they did that, what if her name was Shmelma? That’s an extremely surface level difference between the two, but now they have a separate set of labels, so are they separate characters now, or what? I think if I’m going to critique the show, it’s not really going to be on the basis of indian people not having their own shmelma, or even just their own separate scooby-doo, you know. I’m not going to condemn all indian people to forever only engaging with goobert and the ghost chasers, or whatever. If I’m going to critique the show, I’m gonna critique the show because the show itself is mediocre to bad, and has mediocre to bad writing, and cost too much money, and maybe I will critique it for, for some reason, the most popular multiracial iteration of scooby-doo has to also be the one that has the worst writing, where everyone can easily punch at it for that, and producers can also maybe try to use that as a smokescreen for putting out a mediocre show.
I dunno why I’m even talking about this shit, scooby-doo is bogus gen X bullshit. I’d rather watch like, the muppets. Nobody’s ever gonna really complain about kermit being race-swapped, I’ll tell you that.
Imagine if you just made Peter Parker black. Cool, I guess. But is it enough just to swap the skin color? IMO, it is not. You have to represent the culture as well. So you change the family dynamics, the character background, relationship dynamics etc… after all of that is it still essentially Peter Parker? If so you have succesfully race swapped a character but most of the time I think it fundementally changes the character. At that point I believe it is better to create new character like Miles Morales and call him Spider-Man. But that is just my opinion.
But is it enough just to swap the skin color? IMO, it is not. You have to represent the culture as well. So you change the family dynamics, the character background, relationship dynamics etc…
How is this not racist?
“Racism: noun - a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human racial groups determine cultural or individual achievement…”
Can Peter Parker not be black and have experienced everything that white Peter did? Shit, can Peter Parker not be black and adopted by a white Aunt May and Uncle Ben?
Because black people are treated pretty differently in the usa than white people are and to deny that is pretty racist.
Because sadly the world doesnt work that way. Imagibe if you had a black peter parker in segregation era. Could Peter be black and still go through the exact same things? And i am not saying that because being black inherently different. Its just that black people go through different hardships due to inherent racism in america. It is not racist to say people with different backgrounds have different cultures and values.
And there are cases where this is not important, for example in the new batman film we had a black Jim Gordon and it was great. But again that is just my opinion.
I really don’t understand why this is getting downvotes. Like, sure, you maybe open up the character to a racism storyline now, or racial character explorations, which is good, and you couldn’t do some of that subject matter with a white peter (or with a white author, probably, as, double-sided, taking on those storylines is playing with fire sometimes), but it’s not a necessary thing, that every black character has to experience some racist trauma.
Lots of media is aspirational. Part of that is being able to imagine a world where not every racial minority has to experience weird racist comments to the degree that it works its way into being a primary aspect of their personhood. I would say, if you were to advocate for every minority character to broach this subject matter, that would also be problematic, and you would also be tokenizing every minority character in a weird and fucked up way. It’s not “denying racism exists” to portray a black peter parker that doesn’t struggle with, like, extreme character defining racism, or even like, any racism at all. You can also just choose to have that aspect of the story be ignored, or assumed, like how 99% of characters in media don’t ever stop to take a shit.
How is that any different than any of the multiple other times they changed the “fundamentals” of peter parker?
Like when he is the sidekick of iron man who gets free robo spidey suit upgrades? Which completely changes everything important to his character?
Or when they make him a completely different age? Fundamentally changing the relationship he has with his romantic leads, with aunt may, with his villians, with his job, with his school (college? High school? Neither?), etc etc?
Short answer? Its fuckin not. Its the exact same as every other time theyve altered a key aspect of parker to shake up the story and tell a new angle with new spins and twists and turns.
It literally doesnt matter. Its just a big deal because its race this time.
Look, I kinda get both sides here.
I strongly agree with you that the skin color doesn’t really affect the acting or the story in general. I believe that the last Lord of the Rings show on Amazon actually did a spectacular job at it. It was probably the best fantasy show that I’ve seen in awhile. However, I can also understand it from a Lore perspective that I feel the other guy is trying to to point out. If there are other ethnicities of Hobbits (which there are actually three), then at least explain why they are there. Did something bring them together? Your not wrong that by just changing the skin color of a character doesn’t really affect the story at all, but when you want to understand what’s behind the story, you really need to look at and consider everything.
[As an interesting aside. It turns out that the Harfoots are actually a dark skin type of Hobbit, and the Fallohides are taller and fairly light skinned. I just wish the show explained that more and perhaps provided a reason as to why those two groups merged. If they did, I must have missed it. I would love an excuse to go back and watch that show…]
Like, if we were writing a script about a tribe in Malaysia, or about a K-Pop group in Korea, it would be really jarring to see a white or black guy play any of those rolls in effort to avoid a “diversity problem”. Like…will it affect the overall story if the script and acting was the same? Honestly, probably not. But I’m still going sit there the entire time and ask why is famous actor Whitey McWhiterson playing the lead role as a singer in a K-Pop boy band.
The point I’m trying to make is that yes, I agree that race does not affect a story at all, but to be frank, including every race for diversity’s sake (take many of the new Disney Star Wars shows, for example) is colorblind, and I feel antithetical to racial justice in general. It’s denying that these people are different. I don’t care what the skin color of someone is, but I would at least expect there to be some sort of explanation as to why things are the way they are. It just feels lazy, political, and shoe-horned in.
It’s interesting that you picked Spider-Man as the example of creating a different character being better, because there are plenty of racists out there that really hate that Miles Morales is even a thing. They would say “Why do we need a black Spider-Man? The original was fine!”
It’s almost like racists are only ever going to whine about inclusivity, and characters remaining their own race vs creating new characters is mostly a moot point because the people out there upset by the former are going to be upset by the latter anyway.
Imagine if the new scooby show had a cast of all white kids and a single black, well written character was added and made a pivotal role in the gang. The exact same people complaining now about race swapping would be complaining then about the new character being shoe horned in because of “woke” inclusion. Just like they do with Miles Morales.
The answer is just that we need to keep creating media with both of those scenarios and accept that shows created with a single color cast are products of their time and that we can do better now. Racists aren’t going to be happy either way.
Idk why I feel this way, but I feel like “but I like Miles Morales” is becoming the new “I voted for Obama so I can’t be racist”, which had replaced “I’m not racist, but…” for a while.
It’s almost like racists are only ever going to whine about inclusivity, and “characters remaining their own race” vs “creating new characters” is a moot point because the people out there who are upset by the former are going to be upset by the latter anyway.
Uhm, no?
Have you seen the reception to both Spiderverse movies? It was overwhelmingly positive. I’d say they were probably the most universally liked Marvel movies of the decade. You would really compare that to the reception the new Little Mermaid or Ghostbusters got and say “yeah, the same amount of people got upset by both things”?
It’s nowhere nearly close. Obviously, it’s also because the spiderverse movies are written much better, but that’s also a symptom of better writers being hired for better projects. The fact that raceswapping a character and writing an entirely different one are received the same way is just plain false. Not to mention, even better, just making new movies with black characters altogether. But those two things require considerably more effort than taking an old, already liked movie’s script and copy-pasting it with a random character of a different race. And Hollywood doesn’t like effort, they just like money and free advertising.
I would have just as much of a problem if they made blade white or asain or Latino and the same if they made black panther white. Changing some characters race is kind of a big deal as race is kind of an important issue. If all races were treated 100% the exact same and all had the same culture then it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I am someone still somewhat bothered by ethnicity-swapping (though not really for any of the reasons you described), but here’s an annecdote:
When I first started engaging with the Hannibal franchise, I started with the Mads Mikelson TV series.
The character of Jack was played by Lawrence Fishburne.
Then, I watched the old movies, and shocker - Jack is a white guy.
Yet, I didn’t care that Jack was black in the reboot. The only conclusion I could draw was that it didn’t annoy me because I had always known Jack as black.
Now, I could be totally wrong about this, but I think a lot of people get bent out of shape because it’s distracting above all else.
I couldn’t care less about Jack being black or white, he’s a side character in a movie I’ll watch once in my life. Yet, I was thinking about race-swapping in the middle of the movie.
It doesn’t necessarily matter. Did you watch South Park: Into The Panderverse or whatever it’s called? I can only find this super short cut down clip of Eric Cartman’s nightmare he’s explaining to his psychiatrist
It misses the most important line: and finally I wanna scream, and I was like, “WHY ARE THEY REPLACING EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER WITH SOMEONE WHO IS DIVERSE??”
It’s weird, it’s hokey, these remakes look & feel very forced, agenda driven. I ask for more than original characters; I want actually new fucking ideas. New stories! We’re not seeing very many of those lately; we’re getting re-skinned versions of established characters, they just cut off their face & wear it around, and we’re supposed to act like we don’t notice. If we do notice, we’re racist, or sexist, some -ist or -phobe. No, your work is just a lazy, contrived retell of a story that was already told pretty well. Wrapped up nice & neat with a bow on top.
Personally I’m not super invested in the whole debacle, and I simply choose to not see the new stuff & remakes. I’m an adult man, I have no kids, anyway. No dog in this fight. It’s alright. If it’s truly better and/or a fantastic story, it will probably bear out at the box office & I’ll hear about how what an incredible movie it is.
For me, it’s an uncanny valley thing. If the only thing they change is skin colour or gender, and it’s also relevant to the plot, it’s too close to the original for me to enjoy it as a new thing, but too far to be enjoyed as a new thing. It fucks with my suspense of disbelief, since I’m supposed to know stuff from other movies, but not all the things, so I’m fucked if I pretend that it’s just another episode of the same thing, or it’s a completely different and new thing equally.
That said, Velma is different enough that it’s “past the valley” for me, it’s so far from the original that it could be enjoyed as its own thing, if it didn’t fall flat for other reasons.
My thing is if it’s so far removed, why use the IP to begin with? Why not just make a new show, or adapt something that hasn’t been made or made well or as ubiquitous as Scooby Doo? Like, ok, if you don’t have an original idea, fine, just adapt something inclusive like Raisin in the Sun and do a damn good job of it. Or just make a show like Arthur, not a live action Arthur ffs, but a show inspired by that with drawn human characters that is inclusive.
Things can be done, the lazy writing just sucks and I talk shit about ALL remakes (started with the Total Recall abortion) and most reboots. It isn’t “anti-woke” that gets me, it’s that Tim Burton is seemingly the only one tapping into the wellspring of original thought since around aught-nine.
Because I haven’t deconstructed the racism taught to me by my culture and upbringing and it makes me feel icky for unknown reasons!
Fred is a punching bag for a lot of jokes, he’s just a rich white boy who doesn’t really know how to do anything.
Everyone is taught that racism against white people isn’t real and can’t happen, so they’re perfect targets.
It was that Velma crap where it has nothing to do with Scooby Doo, just random characters with the same names and no dog.
My favorite part was they clearly wanted to break stereotypes and be inclusive and shit but…they turned the stoner into a black guy.
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
yes?
I always thought race swap gender swapping roles was a cash grab and a way to just make people fight. And it seems to work every time. I personally think it’s a slap in the face to the genders and races that were swapped in. If new movies can’t make new characters and stories with different races and sexes without seemingly purposefully causing controversy by replacing one race or sex with the other I’d take that as a low blow.
I always thought race swap gender swapping roles was a cash grab
There are a lot of instances in which is can put a new spin on an old trope. Spiderman is a great example. The various swapped Spider-folks all have a unique setting and character arcs. The idea of “Spiderman” as a set of powers they all happen to share give a loose cover for a bunch of really compelling super-hero stories that could only come from a particular perspective.
If new movies can’t make new characters and stories with different races and sexes without seemingly purposefully causing controversy by replacing one race or sex with the other I’d take that as a low blow.
Its not uncommon for a writer/director to have an idea for a piece of media that’s original and compelling, but get told “We have a zillion dollars for Generic IP and pocket change for Original Cinema”. So the original gets adapted to IP. The lead in your spy thrill gets hot-swapped for James Bond. A gothic horror gets turned into a Dracula or Frankenstein film. The sci-fi epic becomes another entry in Star Wars cannon. The coming-of-age film gets Barbie as the lead character.
The IP is what guarantees a minimum viable audience, because its immediately recognizable. Then the screenplay itself is wrapped around the central cast. IP is just an efficient form of marketing.
Part of this is that idiots will predictably react and cause a distraction. Rey and Rose Tito are not what made new Star Wars bad, but the discourse was ruled by WOM BAD for months. Or Ghostbusters or whatever. Going out of your way to attract bad faith criticism so that you can conflate the legitimate with the ridiculous.
Just curious: how’d you feel if they literally and publicly role the dice for any character where race or gender isn’t required for the plot?
I’m fairly sure cyanide and happiness do that for their comics.
If there’s no actual reason for them being a particular race, skin tone, gender, orientation, etc then go for it. I can’t really see a reason to be upset at this hypothetical.
Ridley Scott in the original Alien movie literally did that. The names of the characters sound gender neutral, and the production hired actors who would just seem good fit for the role. Now that I think about it, the race and gender of the crew did not matter in the plot, because the main character and attraction is the Alien!
Fiona and Cake worked, but only because the show is not really about Fiona and Cake. Also, it meta-acknowledges the whole thing right away, that they’ve been shoehorned into a universe where they don’t belong.
Fiona and Cake already existed in the original adventure time show anyways.
Not really. They were intentionally framed as a gender swap fanfic written by Ice King, and only existed as throwaway episodes. They were a meta-joke on the whole thing.
When I heard of the new show I rolled my eyes and thought “of all the Adventure Time stories to tell they picked a dumb gender swap gag?”
But as mentioned it wasn’t that at all and was actually well written.
It’s hard to do well, but I disagree that it’s a slap in the face or a low blow. The gender swap of Starbuck from Battlestar Galactic was seen as sacrilege by fans, but she became one of the highlights of the show. Miles Morales was a creative way to do a race swap for Spider Man, and the narrative is richer for it. Jason Mamoa turned Aquaman from white to Polynesian, and the depiction was better than ever. Would Nick Fury be better as a white guy, as he was originally for decades, instead of Samuel L Jackson?
And then there are all the “swaps” that happen before the first day of filming, like Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien, who was originally written for a man. This was “controversial” in the 90s, with people decrying “political correctness”. I would not take “causing controversy” as a reliable indicator for whether something sucks.
Alien didn’t swap anyone. The characters were initially written as gender neutral without first names.
Kind of. Excerpt from this article by Ridley Scott:
“I think the idea actually came from Alan Ladd, Jr. I think it was Alan Ladd who said, ‘Why can’t Ripley be a woman?’ And there was a long pause that, at that moment, I never thought about it. I thought, why not? It’s a fresh direction, the ways I thought about that. And away we went.”
This was the late 70s. “Man” was still so powerfully default that Ridley Scott had not even thought of the possibility of casting a leading woman action hero before a meeting with an exec. That, to me, is clearly a gender swap moment, because until that moment, it was a given that Ripley would be a man. The gender-neutral script just allowed for the possibility.
Miles Morales isn’t a race swap. That’s why it works and everyone likes it (well, except actual racists).
It’s an entirely new character that exists in the spiderman multiverse and has a different personality and backstory from Peter Parker. That’s what inclusivity actually should look like.
Everyone likes him because the storytelling is good, which proves my point: Race/gender swaps are fine when done right. But when Miles Morales was first introduced, it was considered a race swap, and the usual crowd definitely moaned about it.
The multiverse explanation reminds me of people saying “But the elves liked being slaves!” in Harry Potter. Yeah, they were written that way, and they could have been written another way. The multiverse is being used to narratively justify a black Puerto Rican Spider-Man.
But when Miles Morales was first introduced, it was considered a race swap, and the usual crowd definitely moaned about it.
“The usual crowd” probably has different meanings between us. You’re linking to a site that (besides misusing the term raceswap) is absolutely positive about it, cites an editor that’s positive about it, and even the article it links to when talking about “reactions” is pretty accepting of it.
Who, exactly, is this “usual crowd”? Some racist on /b/? People who listen to Fox 24/7? That’s not nearly the full extent of the current complaints about raceswaps. Plenty of “normal” people complain about whatever Disney decides to put in their remakes, it’s not just that “usual crowd” that moaned about Miles in 2011 (and honestly, complaining about diversity inclusion when it wasn’t “trendy” yet is kind of a joke).
The multiverse explanation reminds me of people saying “But the elves liked being slaves!” in Harry Potter. Yeah, they were written that way, and they could have been written another way.
…how are those things even related? Elves in HP are a concept since very early on. And they were probably introduced with the very intention of sending that… pretty disturbing message. The Multiverse in Spiderman is effectively a late addition, but one that fits the narrative and is a way to add diversity to the franchise without messing too much with the original lore.
Where’s the issue with the multiverse? How is it nearly as malicious as HP’s portrayal of elves?
You’ve misunderstood so many of my points, this is exhausting.
You insist on gatekeeping the term “raceswap”. Fine. Call it “reimagining an existing character as another race”, if you want. You would have to be delusional to deny that Miles Morales is a Black-Latino version of Spider-Man.
The article I linked to mentions the backlash and controversy about political correctness and Morales. I’m a little surprised you missed the point there.
I’m not sure what specifically you’re on about with the “usual crowd” paragraph. I know that lots of non-racists are also against “reimagining an existing character as another race”. I agree that race swaps can go wrong a lot.
Please read this carefully: The specific claim I am contesting is OP’s strong thesis that raceswapping is always bad. I gave examples of it sometimes being good. Miles Morales is certainly an example, down to the criticisms of too much political correctness, racists complaining, fan “controversy”, claims that it’s a cash grab, etc.
My point was not that the multiverse is bad like elf slavery is bad. I am saying that your explanation gets things backwards: the multiverse doesn’t show how it’s not a race swap. On the contrary, the race swap is the reason why they needed to use the multiverse as a narrative tool. Forget the analogy to elf slavery if you don’t get it. The point is that some writer wrote a multiverse storyline in order to justify the existence of a Spider-Man of a different race.
Is that why it works, or is that just how they did it?
Imo, it’s why it works. It’s different and original, and even fits in the same story as the old ones.
Obviously I have no objective proof of that, but you can’t even hypothetically think about what would’ve happened if it was just a race swap, because the whole premise of the movie is that Miles isn’t Peter Parker.
It worked so well that the thought of it as a race swap never crossed my mind, it’s just an alternate universe Spiderman story. Spiderverse is genuinely one of my top Spiderman films, because it felt like a comic book rather than a superhero movie. It’s just got such a unique feel.
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