So I did not go into Iron Fist, the newest Marvel Netflix series, with high hopes. Early reviews were vicious. They criticized the writing, the directing, the acting. I was worried I was going to be wasting thirteen hours of my life with a total snorefest, borefest of a series.
So far I am four episodes into it.
What the hëll is everyone bìŧçhìņg about?
It’s a perfectly fine series. It isn’t remotely slow, it doesn’t drag, the writing is fine, the acting is fine, the directing is fine. Is it up there with my favorite, “Jessica Jones?” No, but on its own as a series, it’s entertaining and engaging. Now for all I know, it falls apart by the end, but this far, it’s good. So again, why are so many people slamming it.
I hate to say this, but I’m forced to conclude that their own prejudgements are warping their insights. I think their mindset is that this dámņëd well better be the best program that was ever created in the history of television. I don’t think that any TV series, no matter how good it is, could stand up to the standards that fans have for it, consciously or otherwise.
As everyone knows, Iron Fist has been the subject of endless internet assaults because Danny Rand, who is a blonde Caucasian male in the comics, is being portrayed by a blonde Caucasian male in the TV series. Fans are angry because Marvel didn’t toss out the history of the character and cast an Asian actor to portray him. Why should he be Asian? Because he knows Kung Fu, and apparently if his thing is Kung Fu, then he should be Asian. Because…well, I guess because Kung Fu is only something that Asians are allowed to practice.
Which would be news to my Kung Fu instructor, who is Greek.
And only Asians can be martial arts heroes, I guess.
Which should come as news to Chuck Norris. And Jason Statham. And Jean Claude Van Damme. And Dolph Lundgren (he has a black belt). And Steven Seagal. And Jeff Speakman. And Cynthia Rothrock. And Ray Park (well, he’s a villain, but still.) And, hëll, Keanu Reeves.
I’m not going to comment on the grand literary tradition that gave us Tarzan and Danny Rand and every powerful Caucasian who comes into a situation where he’s an outsider and masters his environment because he’s the best around, other than to say this: It is, to my mind, absurd to hold the creations of decades ago to the standards of modern day. Because if we are, then we should all boycott Casablanca because at one point Ilsa refers to Sam as “that boy playing the piano.”
PAD
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I think the problems are these:
The whines about not casting an Asian actor are silly. ‘White-washing’ in tv and film is a genuine problem, but Iron Fist DOES gets the free pass because it IS inherently about a white guy who learns the secrets of the east and uses them in the West. However with accepting that premise, you get a new set of problems. Netflix boasts to (and markets this to) fans of martial-art) and what they see is a white guy, once again, telling Asian characters about what they’re doing wrong. With new benchmarks like Into the Badlands showing what CAN be done in the medium and with similar ingredients, Iron Fist doesn’t feel like a BAD show, but a retrograde one, echoing the template of over a decade ago. Action fans want strong characters, but the premise of a westerner teaching eastern philosophy itself is so familiar it DOES feel somewhat patronising.
All of this could be overlooked with strong dramatic presence and strong action sequences, but – again – for a show that’s being marketed that way, Netflix cast a guy who can’t do martial-arts ( or as well as he needs to) and choreographs what action there is in a way that may be true to the ‘art’ but has left many people being less than convinced by what should ahve been its cornerstone.
Thirdly, the first 1/3 of the series seems almost apologetic about the martial-arts and, instead, gives us The Good Wife meets Class Action meets Trading Places – far more fascinated with its corporate shennanigans than anything else.It gets better as it progresses, but it’s not a good start.
I’d totally agree that Iron Fist is not abysmal. It’s passable tv. But when it’s stablemates are Daredevil, Jessica Jones et al and you come out of the stalls looking sheepishly from one side to the other, it gets noticed.
I don’t hate Iron Fist. ten eyars ago, I’d have loved it but now it feels very ‘blah’ and it does seem to be a massive missed opportunity.
Just my 2cs.
Well, I obviously am coming away from it with a different attitude. I don’t see him telling Asians what they’re doing wrong so much as how they can do it better. And Finn Jones doesn’t know Kung Fu? Horrors. Neither did David Carradine, and that certainly caused the TV series “Kung Fu” to fail immediately, except not so much.
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PAD
Yeah but audiences today have seen the matrix, crouching tiger hidden dragon, Jackie chan, the bourne films, heck even daredevil. They’ve seen top end martial arts and a lot of the fights here don’t compare. No I enjoyed the show and think it’s better than the critics say, but I was aching for them to get out of the hospital , because it just stops the action dead. It gets better in the later half, and there’s a fight in the later episodes that’s pretty good, mostly because the focus is on Danny’s opponent who actually knows how to fight
Ray Park was Snake Eyes in the GI Joe movies, so he absolutely gets to fit in as a martial arts hero.
I’ve watched a couple more episodes than Peter at this point, and I’m enjoying it too.
I would say that the opening episodes were kinda slowish. Especially considering that there was no evidence of Danny truly having powers until he breaks out of the loony bin. There was a thread of credibility to the possibility of him being delusional or a fraud. If we were introduced to the show not knowing any of the context, it should have added a bit of tension to the show.
However, since we are here because it’s a Marvel property, we know that Danny is Danny and he is the Iron Fist, defusing the dramatic tension they were trying to build, and likely contributed to people hoping that it would move along.
Some of the complaints of it being slow may also be rooted in the show being a bit about corporate intrigue; something that most people weren’t expecting based on how it was promoted. I have a few problems with some of the Rand corporation intrigue, but that’s more rooted in the “that’s not how business/the law works” aspects of it. In general, though, I like its inclusion.
Given how I loved the political/social intrigue in Kun’Lun (sp?) in the “Seven Capitol Cities of Heaven” storyline in the comics, I enjoyed the New York corporate version of it here, and felt it appropriate to the character.
As far as the professional reviews are concerned: I think the practice of handing out the first few episodes to reviewers was a mistake, and that a sampling of later episodes should have been given to reviewers.
Given the nature of Netflix series in general that tend to more be a whole story, with episodes being mere chapters, the limited access to reviewers comes across more as akin to giving book reviewers only the first few chapters, when the whole book is available.
Then again, both Peter and I are commenting, having only watched the first few episodes.
The added harshness of some reviews may be due to the “cultural appropriation” complaints that seem to something of a fad lately, giving reviewers a green light to let loose a bit more that they would otherwise.
Part of it may also be inspired by a backlash against the glut of super-hero content in film and television lately. Even fairly looked at, the boom of such shows means that a show just can’t be just another super-hero show. They each have to bring something fresh and different to the table to stand out in the crowd. For some, the martial arts aspect isn’t enough of a differentiator.
So as much as I disagree with the critiques (especially the whitewashing claims) I do find some of them to be valid points.
I’m up to Ep 7, and it’s mostly been an adaptation of the Marvel Premiere original storyline, but blending in some Immortal Iron Fist elements, plus tossing in a villain group that didn’t even EXIST in 1976 but would probably have been used if they did. I would have preferred it if they used some of the more fantastic stories from Iron Fist’s first year (like visiting his mom in the afterlife) instead of dwelling on the initial Meachums plot, but they do seem to be interested in keeping the general street-level tone the same across shows.
My main kvetch is how “off-model” Danny’s personality seems to be, but given how much more cool-and-collected Luke is on TV, I suppose something had to be done to maintain the contrast. (Also, there may be valid in-story reasons for this difference, but I haven’t gotten far enough to know if they’re actually in the story.)
And now people on the internet are calling Roy Thomas a racist over this. Ouch. What a stupid controversy. For 40 years no one had any problem with Iron Fist and suddenly the internet acts like the character is the most racist thing since the Nazis. And I really don’t get the whole “cultural appropriation” thing. The world as we know it would not exist if it wasn’t for what we are now calling “cultural appropriation” Art, music, literature, science, math, fashion, religion, food, human being have been approbating stuff from other cultures for as long as cultures have existed. And it works both ways, you can go to any Asian country, and see lots of aspects of American culture that they have appropriated and adapted. Hëll, Japan used to have a Spider-Man TV show that bore almost no resemblance to our Spider-Man save for the costume. Have there been times in history when that appropriation has been done in such a way that the original culture was screwed out of the credit or other wise harmed? Yeah sure, history is often nasty and we could all site examples. But I don’t see Iron Fist as an example of that and certainly not Roy Thomas.
Thomas is being called racist (whether rightly or wrongly) over comments he’s made now, not for creating the character 40 years ago.
And having read some of those comments as well as Busiek’s, Busiek is certainly handling things with a lot more tact and recognizance of the fact that times have changes.
Well, unless he’s said something a hëll of a lot worse in the last ten days than the stuff I’ve seen, it’s dámņëd idiotic to paint him as racist for what he’s said.
Considering how the whole situation is putting him on the defensive I can certainly understand him coming off a little terse. The statements I read seem to focus on his dismissing the cultural appropriation charge, (and as stated above I’m on his side about this), and using an outdated term for Asian people. He acknowledged it was outdated right after he said it but apparently to the overly sensitive out there that’s not enough. Really people give him a break, he’s in his 70’s, and he’s being put on the defensive about stuff he did 40 something years ago. Stuff no one has a problem with till a year ago when a former Marvel writer got some press for himself by starting a boycott and everyone on the internet suddenly joined in. If I was in his shoes I would have told everyone to go “f off”, he’s actually showing incredible restraint. And of course people with no knowledge of his career or if comics history are oh so willing to throw the “R” word at him, are some of the same people praising Luke Cage, (which Roy also co-created) for breaking racial barriers, Completely unaware of that contradiction. It is madness, and as Bill Marher pointed out on his show a couple of weeks ago, while the political correct get all up in arms about unimportant stuff like this, the other side was putting a Nazi in the White House.
The problem with “SJWs” and their tactics isn’t only that they keep complaining about unimportant stuff, is that they mostly target other liberals.
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Honestly, most people in the entertainment industry are left-of-center. There are a few glaring exceptions, like Orson Scott Card and Frank Miller, but most of what the SJWs do is attack their own brothers and sisters.
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When McCarthysm and Religious Zealots went after the entertainment industry, they at least were attacking their ideological opposites and flexing their political muscle. But SJWs only make progressives weaker.
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People who are afraid of being labelled racists are most likely not racist in the first place. So the SJW’s main weapon is a gun that only shoots friends.
Hëll, Rene, SJWs attack SJWs.
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Some of the funniest group meltdowns I’ve ever seen is when one person (especially if it’s a guy) in an SJW group doesn’t go along with the group-think outrage and says that ‘X’ doesn’t seem as bad as all that to them. It’s hilarious watching them eat their own.
People are overreacting to what he said, but I’m not going to excuse him just because he’s old. Doing that is part of the reason why we’ve got a moron in the White House right now.
As I said, he could’ve shown a bit more tact in his response. Finn Jones has also made himself look like a bit of an ášš with his comments.
Craig –
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Old age is not an excuse, but somebody using the word “Oriental” to describe people is more quaint and dated than offensive, c’mon. The same as using words like “Colored”.
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But yes, his tone is a tad dismissive and impatient. But that only makes him unfriendly and insensitive, not necessarily racist.
I still think he showed some restraint. Seriously, when you accuse a character of being a racist character you are, by implication, accusing the creator of that character of being a racist. If you read the interview you can see that Thomas was on the defensive and I don’t blame him. As I said, until a blog post from last year, literally no one had any issue with Iron Fist. And now it’s being attacked by people who have no knowledge of comics history, Iron Fist, (which was actually a pretty racially diverse strip back in the day when most comics still had mostly white cast with maybe one token), or the history of Roy Thomas’ career . Thomas was putting social issues into comics when those things weren’t done. He hired a number of minorities in his career, (a number of whom have come out in his defense). His work should not be judged by a character that was riff on several different things (Tarzan, the golden age character Amazing Man, the TV show Kong Fu, the movie Lost Horizon) and was probably, (knowing the way Marvel worked at the time) thrown together in an afternoon. As for the word “oriental”, yeah it’s outdated. But I see no evidence it was ever a negative word. People acting like it’s the equivalent of dropping the “N” word are just looking for something that isn’t there. And Thomas instantly called it back, “saying he knew that wasn’t the word used now”. He slipped and instantly acknowledged it. The man has had a brilliant career, he does not deserve this. I would have told the reporter to F off. So again, seeing it from his side, yeah lots of restraint.
Darren –
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That is one of the things I like the least about SJWs.
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You get an artist that was incredibly anti-racist and progressive in his time, like Roy Thomas or Alan Moore, or to go into mainstream literature, somebody like Harper Lee, and you apply modern standards, and sure, they will appear a bit patronizing or condescending from a modern viewpoint, and so they will be labelled “racist” at worst, opportunists and usurpers of a minority’s voice, at best.
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The irony is that lots of other artists that were less courageous and progressive than those, and stayed away from controversial topics like race, will not be attacked.
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It’s like calling a thief someone who risked himself to stop a mugging and recovered the victm’s wallet.
There’s also another character who’s a white billionaire who is a master of martial arts. So, I guess casting Ben Affleck as Batman must be racist too.
The difference being that Batman’s martial arts use is embedded in his overall motif, secondary to his costume and his “toys” and his attitude. Few people see him as martial artist ahead of all other (superhero) factors, but that is the core for Iron Fist.
I don’t know that this is totally true.
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The presentation of Batman’s overall persona may be different than that of a straight-up martial artist, but Batman has long been considered one of the world’s best martial artists. Just like Danny Rand, Bruce Wayne traveled to another country, learned fighting arts in other cultures, and became a master of them before returning to Gotham City.
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The core concept here is the same. Rich white kid loses parents, travels abroad, learns martial arts to becomes a master, returns home to run his business empire and engage in crime fighting.
I don’t buy the idea that Iron Fist is racist in the first place, but Batman is a very different character, IMO.
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Batman is good at everything, so he isn’t some white dude that upstages minorities in what they should do best, he is a guy that upstages the whole of the human race in all sciences, skills, and crafts.
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Batman is an equal opportunity appropriator, perhaps. 🙂
I’ve already binged the whole set of episodes. They probably could’ve cast somebody better than Finn Jones (and not just for actual martial arts skills). The story could’ve been less predictable and they could’ve made more of an effort to tackle the inevitable arguments about cultural appropriation (instead, they may have made it worse at times).
In the end, the show has some major flaws. That said, I make no apologies over the fact that I enjoyed the show and that I was never bored by it.
I think there may be a valid point to the whitewashing statements on occasion, but not here. All I know is, my wife is enjoying the hëll out of this, and that’s all I need to know.
I liked it, too.
I thought I didn’t care for it because I thought it was perfectly mediocre, especially compared to the other Marvel series writing, production values, main actor, and pacing, but now I know it’s because I secretly wanted to watch a mediocre series starring an Asian guy?
My opinions must be wrong, but I’d still rather watch Daredevil Season 1 for the third time than watch Iron Fist again.
I’m somewhat ambivalent on the casting; I give the respect to the original material, but recognize the stale tropes it embodies and would have welcomed a somewhat fresher approach to it.
However, I’m just not enthused about some of the choices that are leaking out about the show; they seem less than inspired and rather basic (pairing up Colleen and Danny? the focus on corporate board rooms as an environment?)…and I’m afraid it may trace back to a perspective that’s not very adept at dealing with multiple cultures. It’s stuff that may pass other people’s eyes, but stick out like a sore thumb to me.
I’m holding off on watching the series for a little while. I want all of the commentary to die down before I jump in. That and real life usually causes me to wait at least a month before watching any of these series. I hope it will be worth the wait.
I do want to chime in on the whitewashing controversy. I disagree that works created in less enlightened times are above criticism because they were products their times. In literary analysis and criticism, it’s important to acknowledge them for their historical contexts. You can criticize and enjoy.
That said, the Iron Fist comics were a product of their time. We look back on that, shake our heads, and say, “I can enjoy it for what it is, but these days we can do better.” The Iron Fist series on Netflix is a series that happens to be a product of “these days” when we know “we can do better.” It’s an adaptation of the comics in a Marvel universe that is not a mirror image of the 616 – and in fact has its own universal designation. It doesn’t have to be the exact same thing. It already isn’t considering the fact that Idris Elba portrayed Heimdall, Carrie-Ann Moss portrayed Jeryn Hogarth, and Tilda Swinton portrayed the Ancient One. Changing the race of Danny Rand (or even the gender) honestly wouldn’t be a huge deal, especially since it wouldn’t affect his story in the slightest.
But is it worth it for so many people to attempt to poison the experience of viewing the show? No. That’s just stupid. Regardless of that criticism, which I think is completely valid, the rest of the work needs to be criticized fairly. The production’s actual merits should be reviewed.
So I’ll know for myself in about a month. I’m making sure my experience isn’t poisoned. And hopefully I can ignore the fact that a number of my friends abandoned the series three or four episodes in, without knowing much about the controversy.
They should not be above criticism, but acknowledging that those earlier times were less enlightened cuts both ways and should mitigate the poison and rage directed at some of these works. Also, I find a lot of this sort of criticism to be very shallow.
One example is everybody calling Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness a racist and imperialist novel, just because of Chinua Achebe’s interpretation of the novel. Conrad uses unpleasant imagery when he describes Africa and says stuff like Africa being a “dark” place, etc. Racist, right?
Not really. When you read Conrad’s other novels, like The Secret Agent, you can read him using similar words and imagery to describe LONDON, London being a place of great darkness, etc.
And all of it ignores that Conrad, despite his descriptions of Africa as an alien hëll (and noting that he also described London in another novel as an hëll inospitable to human beings), was pretty groundbreaking in castigating white arrogance and hubris in the colonizers.
I would disagree with the notion that changing Danny’s race wouldn’t impact his story. It would, in fact, undermine it in the present day.
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Because, upon his return, Danny is expected to demonstrate the (stereotypical) entitled behavior of a young, rich, white guy; he’s expected to act like the show’s take on Ward. And yet, he doesn’t. He behaves as someone who spent the bulk of his life in an isolated society with – based on both the flashbacks and the casting of Davos – a fairly diverse makeup and no interest in the kinds of things that his previous world finds so important.
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Casting an Asian in the role would not only undercut that, but would play to a whole different set of racial stereotypes. “Well, duh, he’s a martial arts master,” for example. Danny’s story has always been less one of “cultural appropriation,” but of the dichotomy of the two worlds he comes from, and what those in both worlds expect of him based upon stereotypes.
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–Daryl
I said many of the same things myself initially on Facebook and then in my Thursday Needless Things article. I’ve watched the entire thing, and I have no idea what most the critics are gnashing teeth about because the show came across as perfectly fine to me.
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Was it the best Marvel Netflix show? No, because for me that’s still Daredevil. Was it the worst? It likely depends on how Jessica Jones worked for you or if the villain issue in Luke Cage’s final act dropped your overall enjoyment of it. But, dámņ, it is *NO*WHERE*NEAR* as bad as the critics seemed dámņëd and determined to claim it was the week before it dropped for streaming.
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I think a lot of critics were still hung up on the SJW end of slagging on it over the casting, and they added their voices to the now regular chorus of critics who seem to believe they must declare every new Marvel TV or movie release as Marvel’s first bomb, and the combined groups just made a lot of noise together.
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If you’re on the fence about it- watch it.
The site still automatically grabs references to it from posts on other sites?
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And it disemvowels them at the same time?
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That’s funny.
From my perspective as an old time liberal, today’s Internet landscape seems crazy.
The right-wingers are becoming more scary each day. Once, most of them defended the Free Market and/or the Holy Bible. Nowadays you run into guys defending Hitler and the KKK and talking gleefully of massacring the “weak”.
The left-wingers are not quite as bad as that, but they’re still deeply unpleasant people that are overly judgmental, prone to micro-patrolling, vindictive, arrogant, and eager to adapt their opinions to groupthink.
I suppose there is some dark irony in all this Iron Fist controversy. In many aspects, the Iron Fist comic was a bastion of progressivism. It was the FIRST superhero comic book to portray a interracial relationship as a big part of the story, with Danny and Misty Knight. It was also prety unique in it’s portrayal of Danny and part-Asian Colleen Wing sharing a deep connection (a young man and woman in a story, not related by blood, sharing a deep connection not dependant on sex was rare in the 1970s and remains rare now).
And now people say this comic was ultra-racist.
Yeah, I am so sick to death of hearing about the race controversy, and whether or not it is valid. You know what? I get their complaints that he should be Asian, and I get the counter-argument that he was white to begin with and should still be. I get the inherent, subtle “Mighty Whitey” racism of the original creation, and I get the “change equals pandering” backlash. I get the “MCU needs more diversity” side, and I get the “people need to trust Marvel’s winning creative history” side. Cast a white guy, it’s a white savior and it’s racist. Cast an Asian and it’s a stereotype that all Asians are “ninjas” and it’s racist. It’s a no-win scenario, and I think the best course of action would have been to simply not engage ANYONE on the controversy at all. Just don’t discuss it, and let people complain or defend as they are wont to do.
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I think one of the biggest problems has been Finn Jones
Actor getting HYPER defensive during the PR phase leading up to release. Blaming everyone from critics to SJWs to Wall Street to Donald Trump for the bad publicity, he’s cast a shadow of “white boy don’t get it” over the entire production, and that has actually generated more negative press than the original issue.
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Remember Tilda Swinton in “Doctor Strange?” How it was SO controversial they cast a white woman in the role of an old Asian man? And then the director came out and said, “Look, we understand the anger, and we really did think about all the implications in the casting process, and this is my choice and my responsibility, and we hear you and understand,” and by the time the movie released? No one cared about the controversy anymore because they didn’t throw a tone-deaf fit about “You people just don’t GET IT!” Movie was hugely successful and popular and well-reviewed.
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Marketing MATTERS. WAY more than the controversy itself.
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And the biggest OTHER BS complaint I’ve heard about the show? It’s too much like “Arrow.” People seem to be INSANELY hard on this show because they saw “Arrow” first. Putting aside how everyone was originally screaming that “Arrow” was just “Batman with a bow” (right down to stealing his rogues gallery), now the show is somehow viewed as some kind of pinnacle of “dark, brooding, wealthy, corporate, vigilante superhero” writing, and “Iron Fist” is a ripoff of their formula. “We’ve seen this before, so it sucks.” Meanwhile, having myself never seen a single episode of “Arrow,” I find I have NO issue with “Iron Fist” being a superhero show wrapped in a boardroom drama. Seems if you go in fresh without preconceived notions, the show is actually GOOD! Huh, go figure.
It’s really not like Arrow. Any comparison is extremely superficial.
“I get the inherent, subtle “Mighty Whitey” racism of the original creation”
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Except, really, there is no such thing.
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Really, there isn’t.
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You know what there actually is in the original creation? You know what’s really there that’s absolutely universal and without a racial component?
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The “Someone Like Me” wish fulfillment factor.
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That’s it.
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When you’re a young kid playing with your friends and having fantasies about the great adventures that are out there, you put yourself into the role of the adventurer or the hero. You’re going to go traveling and find a lost world full of living dinosaurs. You’re going to find a magical lost city and learn the mystical fighting arts of that they teach there. You’re going to travel to Mars or to some other dimension and become the legendary warlord.
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People don’t lose that as an adult.
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If you look at writers all over the world, as a general rule of thumb you see them writing stories with characters they created (obviously not counting walking into something with an existing work for hire character) that are more often than not somehow a reflection of what they are to greater or lesser degrees. It’s not just with white guys.
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I see a lot of the SJW writers and wannabee writers out there complaining about “White Savior” or “Mighty Whitey” stories out there. They whine on long and hard about how horrible it is that all these white (or, as they like to say it when really piling it on thick, the white, straight, cisgender, male) writers keep making these white male characters who go to other countries or even other worlds and become the best of the best or even leaders there. But then you see some of their own work when they write science fiction or fantasy adventure stories, they do the exact some thing. The only difference between the stories from the “white, straight, cis, male” writers they condemn and some of their own stories is they changed the race of the lead character and maybe their gender and/or sexual orientation. They basically write the same stories where an outsider goes to another culture and becomes the best of the best and/or the leader.
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In some cases, the SJW writers have zero issue with the story concept of the outsider learning the ways of another culture and becoming the best. They’ll write the same stories themselves using the very common concept of “Someone Like Me” wish fulfillment. Some of them just have an issue with the idea when the outsider doing it is a straight white male.
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That doesn’t make creations like Iron Fist racist, it just makes some of the people leading the whining about it hypocrites.
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Seriously, ask yourself these two questions.
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During the era of the blaxploitation films they blending them the Kung-Fu craze. You ended up with characters- both black men and women -who were the best martial arts ášš kickers in their respective stories. Do you really think that there would be a large SJW uproar over this if this were a modern updating of a blaxploitation martial arts character? Do you really think that there would be a large SJW uproar over this if this were an original creation with a similar backstory but a black lead?
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I think you know that the answer in both cases is no.
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I may not be very PC because of this, but at least what I am is consistent. I have no issue whatsoever with any writer of any nationality, any color, any religion, any gender, or any sexual preference creating a character and a story where they engage in some level of “Someone Like Me” wish fulfillment.
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Ain’t anything wrong with it no matter who does it.
“Someone like me.”
That’s the ultimate source of this so-called controversy. People wanting to see more characters like themselves. It’s not just the mighty whitey coming in and being the best of the best of the best. That’s a factor, but it’s not everything.
People want to see more characters like themselves. People want to see more characters who aren’t white. And the argument, which I think is fair, is that there are already plenty of white characters on TV and in the movies. One more non-white character isn’t going to hurt anything.
Blaxploitation characters are often total badasses, but they don’t usually roll into town and become the savior. They tend to be anti-heroes. They’re the best at what they do, even if what they do isn’t very nice. That sort of thing. And they’re very often in films with many other characters who look like them, which again means they’re not rolling into town and showing up the locals. (There may be some exceptions to this. There always are.) But what makes them great is that there are black people in them.
“People want to see more characters like themselves. People want to see more characters who aren’t white. And the argument, which I think is fair, is that there are already plenty of white characters on TV and in the movies. One more non-white character isn’t going to hurt anything.”
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Which is fine and dandy, but Marvel wanted to make four shows with four established characters that would lead to show number five, The Defenders. We knew this from day one. We knew this before Netflix dropped the first season of Daredevil. And, surprise, we’ve all known for decades now that Danny Rand was and still is a blonde haired white guy.
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If fans of any background want Shang-Chi, bug Marvel for Shang-Chi in the MCU. Don’t pester people to cast Danny Rand as if he were Shang-Chi and invent claims of racism to throw around while doing the pestering.
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Push to see Shen Kuei (The Cat) become a main character.
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Push to see The Collective Man make his way to the MCU.
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Push to see Jimmy Woo show up as a character that’s closer to his original incarnation.
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Push to see Auric in the next wave of Marvel films.
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Push to have Turbo in the next wave of Marvel films.
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Push to see Jolt (Helen “Hallie” Takahama) in the next wave of Marvel films.
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Push to have Sunfire in the next wave of Marvel films.
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But you know what you don’t do? Bìŧçh, whine, complain, and call people racist because people cast a character for a TV show true to the actual comic character. One of those types of actions will probably get people a lot more support than they might think. The other action will get people ignored and written off as whining, SJW áššhølëš.
Wow, wasn’t trying to start a flame war or anything, honest.
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Just to be clear, I really kind of agree with you Jerry, I think the “racism” controversy is a lot of hot air. I can SEE the other side, I get the reasoning. But I’m just so tired of the EVERYTHING EVER IS RACIST mentality, and I’m sick to death of everyone picking apart every fictional universe just because it doesn’t perfectly represent THEM PERSONALLY.
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And I do understand the desire of non-white or non-hetero or non-Christian or non-pretty or non-skinny or WHATEVER group of people saying “I want to see someone like me on screen,” especially when they live in a world where those “someone like me” characters are still limited, stereotypical, or even nonexistent. I TOTALLY get it, on a personal level. I’m obese. Hollywood DOES NOT portray genuinely positive, heroic fat men. If you’re a fat guy on screen, you are:
Evil/Sleazy
Lazy/Slacker
Dirty/Slovenly
Stupid/Oblivious
Ugly/Gross
Or any combination thereof. At best, fat men are the lovable idiot or the stoned loser. More often, they’re the scummy used car salesman type, or the corrupt cop. The last genuinely positive fat man role I can remember in a movie was John Candy. And even most of his movies were about heroic dopes. Even Volstagg in Thor was played as kinda dense, gluttonous, and WAY less heavyset than his comic version (I believe the term is “Hollywood Fat,” and no, it doesn’t count).
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But here’s the thing: there’s a difference between wanting to see “someone like me,” and tearing down a work because it DOESN’T have that. I would like there to be positive fat men on screen. But I’m not going to rip to shreds every work I see that doesn’t have fat good guys. I’m not going to demand that film adaptations of beloved characters are changed to fat men. I’m not going to boycott every movie that has a negative fat guy. I can put aside the unsavory political realities and accept the work on its own terms.
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So yeah, while I think there IS a bit of an reasonable complaint in all of this . . . I frankly think it’s all been taken WAY out of hand. And I frankly cannot imagine being in these SJWs heads sometimes. Scrutinizing EVERY SINGLE WORK for some perception of insensitivity . . . mst be ÐÃMN exhausting.
Jerry –
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I mostly agree with you as regarding Iron Fist and most characters created after the 1950s. There is no intentional racism in them. It’s different with Tarzan, that actually has the whole “White British Aristocratic genes make him inherently good and noble” explicit in the original text, but that was written in 1910 when racist eugenics was a big thing.
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Also, there is a lot of hyperbole going on in the SJW’s complaints, and sometimes the hyperbole is repeated so often, that people accept it without question. Like, the character in Dances with Wolves is supposed to be this Mighty Whitey. Except no, if you actually watches Dances with Wolves, you see that the hero becomes an average member of the tribe, at best. He never becomes their leader or even a great warrior (what is really offensive about Dances is that he conveniently gets a white bride among the Sioux).
“Wow, wasn’t trying to start a flame war or anything, honest.”
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No flame war, Chris, honest. If you took that as ire directed at you, sorry I wasn’t clear enough in the post. The annoyance was completely directed at the SJW crowds.
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I’ve had some less than great dealings with them and they’ve gone after friends of mine for total bûllšhìŧ reasons. I’d call them a cancer on society, but that might be insulting to cancers.
“He never becomes their leader or even a great warrior (what is really offensive about Dances is that he conveniently gets a white bride among the Sioux).”
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That actually made some sense in the story. The tribal elders basically put the two of them together because she could speak his language and saw them as (and I believe there was dialogue along these lines) being of the same people.
I remember reading a response by Ta-Nahisi Coates — there was criticism against Lena Durham for not having blacks on her show. He said that he’s fine with her writing about what she wants to write, and that what we need are more black creators who will give opportunities for black actors etc.
In this case, it’s legitimate for white creators to want to have a white hero in their story, so long as there are chances for Asian creators to create stories with Asians.
Of course, this does not mean creators from one race should not make an effort to have diverse stories with characters of different races, but I think it’s a more forgiving way to look at this issue.
I binged it last weekend and I thought it was okay. Same flaws as previous MarFlix. Has barely enough material for 8 episodes instead of 13 (the last 4 are Danny constantly bouncing back and forth between the Meachums, Gao and the Hand, for no good reason). Too little use of the actual background that is the richness of the Marvel Universe. Average fight scenes.And of course lack of costume. But on some of those aspects, JJ and LC were way worse. Moody Kristen Ritter was boring as hëll. Overall, only Daredevil pulled it off constantly, with superior acting and better pacing throughout both seasons.
I don’t give a dámņ about this whitewashing BS by the way, no one should.
Forwarding from a friend …
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After reading PAD’s review of Netflix’s new “Iron Fist” series, I can’t entirely disagree. Iron Fist isn’t terrible. If we weren’t spoiled with the quality of their previous Marvel shows such as “Daredevil” and “Luke Cage”, we might be kinder to it. “Perfectly fine” by an apt description. I watched it. It entertained me.
However, I would be untruthful to say it did not disappoint me. And that, unquestionably, results from my love of “Daredevil” and “Luke Cage.” When I viewed seasons one and two of Netflix’s “Daredevil”, I was stunned. It was, hands down, the best super-hero television show I’d ever seen. It was far better that I believed a television series about super-heroes could be, with compelling dialogue and acting, exciting cinematography, and outstanding fight choreography. “Luke Cage” lacked the dynamic fight scenes that “Daredevil” had, but compensated with the sheer atmosphere it gave the setting of Harlem, the richness of Mahershala Ali’s performance as Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes, and a fantastic musical soundtrack.
Mostly of all, both “Daredevil” and “Luke Cage” had fantastic casting of their leads. Charlie Cox now defines who Daredevil is for me, just as much as Mike Colter defines Luke Cage. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same of Finn Jones as Danny Rand / Iron Fist. And, more than anything else, it is the miscasting of the lead character that prevents “Iron Fist” from realizing the potential of the series. Looking at him, I just can’t accept this is an athlete who has undergone intensive exercise and training in martial arts for the last fifteen years. Frankly, the role calls for an actor who has invested serious gym time, as Chris Evans put in for Captain America, and Chris Hemsworth put in for “Thor.” Finn Jones lacks the athletic physique and physical presence that Iron Fist should bring to the screen.
While I agree with PAD it’s somewhat silly that the majority of complaints around the series revolve about the fact that a blonde Caucasian male in comics is being played by a blonde Caucasian male on television, I fear that’s a situation that was near certain to happen because of the unfortunate “whitewashing” of casting Tilda Swinton to play the character of “The Ancient One” in the recent “Doctor Strange” movie. I admire Scott Derrickson as a director and a writer, but his casting decision lead to the sensitive emotional climate regarding Asians on screen that resulted in the immediate Internet backlash against “Iron Fist.” For my own part, I am indifferent to the ethnicity of the lead. I would be equally happy with an Asian or Caucasian or anyone else as Danny Rand, provided he has the athleticism, physicality, and presence the role should have.
That said, I disliked Finn Jones in the role of Danny Rand. And for more reasons than simply his not be as muscular as I feel an actor portraying a world-class athlete and martial artist should be. In his series of “Iron Fist” reviews for IGN, Jim Vejvoda once referred to the character as “Danny Bland”. To me, that description perfectly captures my reaction to Finn Jones in the role. He’s likeable enough, but flavorless. He comes off as just this guy, a pleasant but forgettable fellow who might be on his way to yoga class, or playing guitar for quarters on a street corner.
What truly makes Finn Jones wrong for the role however, as I see things, is that he hasn’t a background in the martial arts. And that’s unforgivable, when so many more suitable actors have studied the martial arts for many years. In an interview with actor and martial artist Lewis Tan in the March 22, 2017 issue of The Independent, he explains he was in the short list of people being considered for the role. The son of a martial artist and stunt choreographer, Tan had studied martial arts from childhood. Half-Chinese and half-Caucasian, the six-foot-two-inch actor has charisma, good-looks, a muscular build, and extensive knowledge of the martial arts. Despite all that, he was passed over for Finn Jones. The cynic in me suspects in was merely to give the star role to someone from a hit show, as Finn was in the wildly successful “Game of Thrones” series. That is a tragedy. Lewis Tan instead was cast as the villain “Zhou Cheng” in “Iron Fist”, and his spectacular fight scene in episode eight remains my single favorite sequence in the entire series.
What makes things worse is the rushed production made Finn Jones lack of martial arts experience effect the role in a negative way. According to the March 23, 2017 interview with co-star Jessica Henwick in The Telegraph, the cast were pulling fourteen hour days with little time for martial training. The fight choreographer would sometimes have a mere fifteen minutes before a fight scene was actually shot to go over it with Jones. If the lead actor was an experienced martial artist, someone like Lewis Tam or Taylor Lautner, that wouldn’t have been so bad. With Finn Jones, it was a recipe for disaster.
There were times character motivations in the show baffled me. I couldn’t imagine why from his relationship in childhood with Ward Meachum why Danny Rand would enthusiastically seek him out in episode one, as if he were a friend who might welcome him back. It’s made clear this was someone who bullied the younger Danny mercilessly, including blaming him for things he didn’t do, locking him in cafeteria freezers, putting dead frogs in his sandwiches, and kicking him in the groin. And this is the first guy you want to look up after returning to the United States ?!?
Despite that, I did like the show. I don’t hate Finn Jones as an actor, I just felt he was wrong for the part. On the positive, his real life friendship with costar Jessica Henwick, gained over four years working together in “Game of Thrones”, did give them reasonably good chemistry together as Danny Rand and Colleen Wing. Out of the cast, Miss Henwick has probably received the most critical praise. It’s largely deserved. She comes off as a capable, confident, and likeable young women in most scenes. The show is better for her presence.
One of the things I liked about the show, that it unfortunately dropped after episode two, was its touching on class disparity and issues of mental health. In the first two episodes, Danny Rand is constantly mistaken as a homeless person with mental health issues. What’s interesting is, despite his being secretly a billionaire, there’s some truth to that. In the first episode, he’s essentially squatting in Central Park, where he’s befriended by Big Al (Craig Walker), a homeless man who unfortunately soon dies of an overdose. In episode two, Danny’s placed for evaluation in a psychiatric hospital, where he’s befriended by a bipolar man named Simon (James Hindman.) To me, it was intriguing that Danny Rand was a character who was both part of the lowest rung of the social class ladder and the highest. Here was someone who gratefully accepted discarded food found in a dumpster, who bonded with addicts and the mentally ill, yet at the same time, was a billionaire. Sadly, once Danny regains his family wealth, people like Simon are abandoned and forgotten.
Despite his claiming he’s not mentally ill, Finn Jones performance makes me think “Yeah, you sort of are” at times. There’s a childlike placid flatness to much of Danny’s character in the series, punctuated with abrupt bursts of frustrated anger and violence. For a master of the martial arts, Danny has very little emotional stability or impulse control. When frustrated by Ward Meachum (Tom Pelphrey), Danny speeds towards a wall in Ward’s car to terrify his passenger, then becomes apologetic and distraught about his actions a moment afterwards. In episode eight, an enraged Danny Rand clearly loses control, nearly punching a helpless Zhou Cheng (Lewis Tang) to death, before Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) stops him. He’s immediately horrified at himself, asking whether his victim is all right.
The fact Danny is driven more by personal desires and emotions than duty or tradition sets up an interesting dynamic between him and Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho), returning to her role from “Daredevil” as a mysterious boss in the criminal organization known as The Hand. Amused and understated, Madame Gao radiates a control and maturity the childish and impulsive Danny Rand lacks. There’s an implication that because of his rebellion against following the inflexible rules set out in K’un-L’un, Madame Gao might see this Iron Fist as one who might be corrupted to serve The Hand. I hope this is developed more in time, and regret Wai Ching Ho hadn’t more screen time in the series. Good villains are part of what made “Daredevil” and “Luke Cage” great and fascinating to watch. Performances such as Vincent D’Onofrio as Wilson Fisk, Mahershala Ali as Cottonmouth, Alfe Woodward as Mariah Dillard, Nikolai Nikolaeff as Vladimir Rankahov, and Jon Bernthal as the Punisher help make previous Marvel shows as great as they are. Unfortunately, in “Iron Fist”, neither Tom Pelphrey as Ward Meachum nor David Wenham as Harold Meachum have that sort of villainous impact. Ward comes off as almost a “Police Academy” bad guy, an arrogant smug rich guy who keeps having bad things he deserves happen to him. And Wenham’s performance as Harold is so hammy and over-the-top, it rivals Erik LaRay Harvey’s performance as “Diamondback” in “Luke Cage” for inspiring unintentional laughter.
Oh, a final note on the subject of race and “Iron Fist.” I am a little sad to see the show hammered so hard for ethnic insensitivity, because I read the original comic run in the 1970s. I recall at the time how cool I thought it was someone finally had the guts to have an interracial romantic relationship in comics. Back in 1977, when they had Danny Rand and Misty Knight kiss ? That was groundbreaking for comic books. That said, while I don’t think Finn Jones is wrong for the role just because he’s a white guy… Yeah, I think it’d be a much better show with Lewis Tan as Danny Rand.
Ken Roberts
evilken001@gmail.com
There’s a second correction that should be made to my review.
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It’s Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), not Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick), who’s the one who stops Danny when he’s beating on Zhou Cheng (Lewis Tan.)
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Ken
Yeah I mentioned it vaguely up above, but that fight is easily the best one in the show, that’s mostly because it focuses on Lewis.
But iron fist has had problems for ages. Like there was a time people thought punisher was replacing IF because we hadn’t heard anything for ages. Iron fist of all The Netflix shows feels like they had to check the box as opposed to expressing a specific vision. It’s not terrible, it’s just mediocre.
Peter,
I, too, went in with low expectations, but the thing that’s really stacking the deck in the favor of Iron Fist for me is that I never, in my wildest dreams, thought that I would see a live action IRON FIST ANYTHING IN MY LIFETIME!!! It’s like, I have no use for a unicorn in my life, but I sure would like to see one. I’m happy to tell you that they stacked the best stuff in the back half of the series, so I think you’re in for a treat.
There are two things I’m grateful for in this show: 1) I finally learn to pronounce some of the names that I only read in the comics and 2) Ray Park is not starring as Iron Fist.
Mahalo!
Dave
See, I enjoyed it.
Was it great?
Not really. It did feel rushed.
The fight with the Drunken Master (Zhou Cheng) was excellent.
I’m one of those people who thinks race is incidental to the part. Does the actor do a good job (i.e. PAD’s statement on Michael Keaton as Batman) – if so, I don’t care about race.
The only time race should be specific is when it is needed to be a specific person : Someone playing MLK, Saladin, Quanah Parker, or Temüjin.
Or when specifically it has to be : Chiwetel Ejofor in 12 Years a Slave.
But Danny Rand or the Ancient One (Dr. Strange) – Don’t care. Let the actor play the part.
Notes : I like Ray Park. If they ever do make a Highlander remake, he should be Connor McCloud. (He’s Scottish. He knows how to handle a sword)
I thought Davos should have been introduced earlier – he almost stole the show.
And here’s my list of the four series :
1) Daredevil – Season 1
2) Jessica Jones – just for Tennant’s creepy performance. I felt like I needed a shower after each time he was on the screen.
3) The first half of Luke Cage.
4) Daredevil – Season 2
5) Iron Fist
6) The second half of Luke Cage.
TAC
Part of me, on seeing these types of arguments, wants to raise the point that, if you were to go to an non-Western nation and demand righteously that their entertainment media give equal time to characters not of whatever the ethnic majority is in said nation, they’d likely laugh you out of the room. This is of course not entirely applicable in the US, and Western nations in general, tend to be much more pluralistic than Eastern ones. It’s therefore not entirely helpful to point out the Japanese shows/comics/whathaveyou that portray Japanese individuals or individuals of Japanese or partially Japanese descent outstripping Westerners at Western sports, artforms, and disciplines (tennis, baseball, boxing, even wine-tasting) or ascending to the Presidency of the United States. It’s their media, aimed primarily at themselves, and they’re not an ethnically diverse culture. So I suppose it’s fine. Understand, though, that it can rankle a bit to have a globalistic, multicultural attitude demanded of you when much of the world neglects to demand it of themselves.
I support the notion that it’s better to push for more character diversity, to push for new projects involving more diverse characters, than it is to just call anything new not featuring your particularity group racist or sexist or whatever, or to co-opt older properties.
Japan is 90-98% ethnically homogeneous, I think. So their pop culture shouldn’t be expected to depict a cultural diversity that doesn’t exist in real life.
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The US is only 63% non-hispanic white, I think. So it’s a whole different ball game. A homogeneous pop culture in this case would be suspicious.
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The US should instead be compared to other multicultural countries, like my own country, Brazil. And America should feel more pride than shame in the comparision.
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Brazilian society is even more diverse than America’s, but our pop culture – movies, soap operas, game shows – is even more “white” than America’s.
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In any case, as a Liberal guy I love diversity and I admire multicultural societies. I also agree with SJWs in their goals. I only disagree with their methods and entitled attitude. The public shouldn’t make “demands” of any individual artist. We can, at best, politely ask for something.