Racebending

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zaratustra
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Re: Racebending

Postby zaratustra » Wed Mar 05, 2014 12:51 pm

i think the real problem is that you people will get emotionally attached to literally any fucking thing

(starts looking for comments on the 2005's F4, Chris Evans as Human Torch)

http://forums.superherohype.com/showpost.php?p=4615167&postcount=102

do we have a :shoot self: emoticon yet

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Mongrel
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Re: Racebending

Postby Mongrel » Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:31 pm

The real litmus test would be if Superman was made black.

I know we talked about whiteness being intrinsic to his character, but unlike Batman (for whom white privilege is just too crucial) I think you could do black Superman.
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Re: Racebending

Postby Disposable Ninja » Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:40 pm

As long as Ma and Pa Kent are black, too.
For the White Witch!

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Re: Racebending

Postby Mongrel » Wed Mar 05, 2014 1:53 pm

Disposable Ninja wrote:As long as Ma and Pa Kent are black, too.


Yes! Agree 100%

I think that backstory would also work really well with the classic "dirty commie" industrialist-busting poor-helping Superman of the 40's.
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Re: Racebending

Postby Niku » Wed Mar 05, 2014 2:09 pm

Disposable Ninja wrote:As long as Ma and Pa Kent are black, too.


what, are you going to have me believe that superman was adopted?
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Re: Racebending

Postby Bongo Bill » Wed Mar 05, 2014 2:15 pm

Clark Kent never made a secret of being adopted, but he lies about his biofolks.
...but is it art?

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Re: Racebending

Postby Mongrel » Wed Mar 05, 2014 2:26 pm

White parents with black kid raises the spectre of "Black folks can't raise their kids. Only black kids adopted by white parents are successful."

I mean, it'd be the living embodiment of racism's most patronizing aspects, the White Man's Burden, etc.

Plus "poor-but-honest black sharecroppers" is a trope with nearly as long and established a history as "poor-but-honest white farmers".
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Büge
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Re: Racebending

Postby Büge » Wed Mar 05, 2014 3:52 pm

But then you have the spectre of miscegenation when Clark romances Lana and/or Lois.
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zaratustra
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Re: Racebending

Postby zaratustra » Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:13 pm

HE'S AN ALIEN HOW MUCH MORE MISCEGENATION CAN YOU HAVE

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Re: Racebending

Postby Mongrel » Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:22 pm

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Re: Racebending

Postby Blossom » Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:37 pm

Büge wrote:But then you have the spectre of miscegenation when Clark romances Lana and/or Lois.


Nah, it'll be totally fine, you just have to explain that on Krypton, the blacks were the whites.
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Re: Racebending

Postby Thad » Fri Oct 10, 2014 5:52 pm

So apparently Mathew Klickstein, author of Slimed: An Oral History of Nickelodeon's Golden Age, hates shows that aren't all about white people and made by white people?

“‘Pete & Pete’ Was All White People!”: ‘SLIMED!’ Author Mathew Klickstein on Why ‘Ren and Stimpy’ Was Better Than ‘Clarissa’ and Nickelodeon’s Diversity Problem wrote:There are so many good Nickelodeon shows, but it seems Pete & Pete and Clarissa get the most attention.

I don’t necessarily know if that’s true. Definitely Pete & Pete. There’s no question there.

Clarissa is really popular, especially among teen girls and on Tumblr.

I think the Clarissa connection is because Melissa Joan Hart really blew up because of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which became really huge. There was a lot of merchandise and marketing for that. I think that has a lot to do with Melissa Joan Hart as an actress, as a brand.


And then, after several more paragraphs of him explaining that Clarissa Explains It All isn't REALLY one of Nickelodeon's most popular or fondly-remembered shows, and if it is it's only because Melissa Joan Hart is so famous from that OTHER show that she did afterward, we get to this lovely bit:

Do you think classic Nickelodeon shows would work today? They’re timeless, like Pete & Pete, but there’s the argument about how inclusive the series are and how they’re focused on white, well-off families. Shows like My Brother And Me, Taina, and My Cousin Skeeter are never going to get the same nostalgic treatment.

I think it’s about quality.

The reason Pete & Pete does so well is it’s the best show from that era. It’s the best show from that network! Hands down: the way it looked, the music, the fact that they got all these really interesting cameos… so the fact that it happens to take place in the suburbs of New Jersey, you know, it’s a whitewashed area! There’s nothing to be said about that. So too with Clarissa.

I think it’s worse when they shove it in there. Sanjay and Craig is a really good example, which funnily enough is written in part by Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi from Pete & Pete. That show is awkward because there’s actually no reason for that character to be Indian — except for the fact that [Nickelodeon President] Cyma Zarghami and the women who run Nickelodeon now are very obsessed with diversity. Which is fine — do what you’re gotta do, and Dora [the Explorer] was certainly something of a success, but there’s no reason for [Sanjay] to be Indian at all. No one working on that show is Indian. They’re all white. It’s all the white people from Bob’s Burgers and Will and Chris.

To just shove it in there because, “Uh-oh, we need diversity,” is silly and a little disgusting. It needs to be the best people working on the best shows. They happen to be white, that’s a shame. They happen to be all guys, that’s a shame. No one says this about sports — they do sometimes, the owners — but sorry, that most basketball, football players happen to be black. That’s just the way that it is. Publishing, too! You might not like this or care, but it’s very hard to be a man in the publishing world. No one talks about that. My agent: woman. My editor: woman. My publicist: woman. The most successful genre is young adult novels — 85% of which are written by women. That discussion doesn’t really come up when it’s the other way around. It is 2014 now. It’s not 1995. Political correctness needs to change.

There are worlds where white guys get shit, too. I’m starting to do stand-up comedy now and it’s hard to go up there and talk about how hard it is to be a guy. People don’t wanna hear it!


Preeeetty much everything this guy says is terrible. Except for the parts about Ren and Stimpy and Pete and Pete being awesome. He's right about those things. But I'm pretty sure it's not because they were made by white people.

He also seems to peg Nickelodeon's "Golden Age" as the 1990's, which is fine, but '80's Nick got big running a bunch of diverse cartoons -- remember The Mysterious Cities of Gold and Spartakus? Those sure had a lot of brown people in them.

Anyway, he's right about one thing: people don't wanna hear it. New York Comic-Con cancelled his panel.

What a maroon.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Mothra » Fri Oct 10, 2014 7:16 pm

He definitely knows how to think like a twelve-year-old kid!

Also, pretty sure Sabrina is where everyone jumped ship on the S. S. Joan Hart.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Bal » Fri Oct 10, 2014 10:27 pm

Pete & Pete is definitely the best Nick show ever, but that's probably because it was the hippest show ever on television, like literally. Artie was played by a performance artist, the writers and producers were big in to and involved in the underground music scene in New York, which is where you get all those amazing cameos. There's never been a show so jacked in to what was actually cool at the time, and also maintained it's own sensibility without being slaved to that coolness.

I fucking love Pete & Pete. It would not be an understatement to say that it was formative for me. I'm probably the person I am today in many regards, particularly my sense of humor and appreciation for the strange, thanks to that show.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Mothra » Fri Oct 10, 2014 10:58 pm

I want to say Pete & Pete was like a serialized Kids in the Hall mixed with Twin Peaks, aimed at kids, but that's not really true. Pete & Pete was just Pete & Pete.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Thad » Tue Oct 14, 2014 2:09 pm

Mothra wrote:Also, pretty sure Sabrina is where everyone jumped ship on the S. S. Joan Hart.

Maybe, but only after 4 seasons on prime time network TV and 3 seasons in prime time on the WB. The show was fucking successful.

But yeah, haven't seen her in anything since.

Still and all, it's pretty silly to say that Clarissa is retroactively popular because of Sabrina, instead of the more reasonable conclusion that her popularity on Clarissa led to popularity on Sabrina.

Bal wrote:Pete & Pete is definitely the best Nick show ever, but that's probably because it was the hippest show ever on television, like literally. Artie was played by a performance artist, the writers and producers were big in to and involved in the underground music scene in New York, which is where you get all those amazing cameos. There's never been a show so jacked in to what was actually cool at the time, and also maintained it's own sensibility without being slaved to that coolness.

I fucking love Pete & Pete. It would not be an understatement to say that it was formative for me. I'm probably the person I am today in many regards, particularly my sense of humor and appreciation for the strange, thanks to that show.


Man, I remember the first time I ever saw Artie. It was before they were airing full episodes, when it was still the shorts they'd show during commercial breaks. Little Pete was fighting some child supervillain or other (Papercut? Pitstain? One of those guys or someone like them) and called in Artie, the Strongest Man in the World.

And, like, here's this weird-looking dude with a fifties haircut and glasses and a striped shirt prancing around and flexing his muscles and talking in a ridiculous overdramatic voice and seeming more interested in something off-camera than the stuff that was actually going on on the show. And he doesn't actually do anything else, but he freaks the bad guy out enough that he goes away.

It was...wow, you know? I'd never seen anything like it. I didn't know Toby Huss was a performance artist prior to the role, but he sure was a performance artist IN the role. (His work since hasn't been as mindblowing but it's been solid; Cotton was one of the real standout roles on King of the Hill.)

ANYHOW, AV Club has a pretty great piece on diversity in children's TV in general and on Nickelodeon in particular.

Diversity also makes sense for business. Dora The Explorer, for instance, started out as a little white girl named Tess before Nickelodeon executives asked the show’s creators to convert her into a bilingual Latina, citing some research on how Latinos were the most underrepresented minority on television. Neither of the show’s creators spoke Spanish or knew anything about Latino life, but they hired a Latino writer and several savvy consultants and language experts. Thus the Dora empire was born.


I mean, sure, you can look at that cynically, as a network forcing diversity into a show and forcing the creators to change course. But I don't think anyone involved in making the show would look at it that way.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Thad » Mon Nov 10, 2014 12:44 pm

Here's a nice counterpoint to Klickstein's foolishness: AV Club interviews Paul Reubens, who, aside from giving a very small amount of information about an upcoming Pee-Wee movie, talks about the diversity both in front of and behind the camera on Pee-Wee's Playhouse, and how that was something he made a priority.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Friday » Mon Nov 10, 2014 9:38 pm

There are worlds where white guys get shit, too. I’m starting to do stand-up comedy now and it’s hard to go up there and talk about how hard it is to be a guy. People don’t wanna hear it!


The really funny thing here is, yeah, actually, they do want to hear it. Tons and tons of male stand-ups have made their careers talking about how much shit guys have to endure. Usually from their kids and spouses.

Which means that instead of failing as a stand-up because people are just too politically correct, you're failing at stand-up because you suck at it and are not funny.
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Re: Racebending

Postby Lyrai » Fri May 15, 2015 6:41 pm

Is Pete & PEte Volume 3 out on DVD yet, or are we still being punished for the sins of our forefathers by my DVD collection being forever incomplete.

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Re: Racebending

Postby Mothra » Sat May 16, 2015 12:47 am

Clearly it is not AND I have to ask: As a white man talkin' about things relevant only to whitey can we well agree that Pete & Pete was and is a strong contender for Things Whitey Has Done But Good In This World

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