Day: February 27, 2016

The fact that Iron Fist is Danny Rand, a white guy, is integral to the character. As I recall, he even gets push back from Asians because it’s felt that a white man has no business acquiring the fist in the first place. To cast an Asian as Danny Rand 100% changes the character. He’s no longer Iron Fist, at least how he was created.

Basically, let’s look at it this way: We have had in more recent years another story about someone who seems incredibly unlikely to become a kung fu master who winds up mastering the traits and becomes a mighty warrior. It’s called “Kung Fu Panda.” To declare that an Asian should portray Danny Rand is like saying, “We should have a tiger portray Po.” Any reasonable individual would say, “But wait…if you cast a tiger, it’s no longer Kung Fu Panda. It’s Kung Fu Tiger.”

Exactly.

Now you can chalk up his origins to white imperialism or privilege or whatever you want. But ultimately he’s been around for nearly forty years; he is what he is. To take modern day sensibilities and layer it onto a character created in the 1970s in order to completely change the character is ridiculous. Especially when those sensibilities are so narrowly curtailed along racial cliches that the thought is, “He knows kung fu; therefore he must be Asian!” Why did no one protest when Ant-Man or Peter Quill or Doctor Strange was not cast with an Asian actor? And for the record, my sifu is Greek.

Personally, I’m hoping Iron Fist runs into Shang Chi. How cool would THAT be?

PAD

So while we were driving to the comic book store today, we were discussing how Paramount/CBS was coming down like a ton of bricks on “Axanar,” the new fan-made Star Trek film, and the circumstances that had resulted in it.

And Kath said, “Its become a major conflugration.”

And I said, “What? A what? A ‘conflugration?’ What the hëll is that? That’s not a word.”

(It’s not. I ran it through Merriam Webster and the Urban Dictionary. It doesn’t exist. So don’t tell me about some instances you found on Google because I don’t care.)

But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. It’s a combination of “confluence” and “conflagration.” It’s when a series of things comes together to create a metaphorical inferno of screw-ups.

So everyone start using it because I want this to become a real word.

PAD