A few days ago, the trailer for the new Netflix series Iron Fist came out. Some people are excited... some people don't care... and some people are pissed. But why are they pissed?
Other than some thinking the main character isn't muscular enough for the role... the main reason some people are mad is because... the actor they cast is NOT Asian.
I certainly understand the desire to have actors who aren't Caucasian play various roles. I understand in our diverse society it better represents reality. I'm all for that, especially with Hollywood still not casting non-Caucasians as frequently for high profile roles as they probably should.
But in Iron Fist's case, casting an Asian would have been wrong.
The story of Iron Fist is that of an outsider to Asian culture... in this case a Caucasian boy... who was raised and trained by the mystics of K'un L'un after the death of his parents. In the original comics, a treacherous business partner of his father's was to blame... in the new Netflix series it appears to be a plane crash, though whether it was caused by a business partner is yet to be revealed.
Danny Rand is gifted and eventually has the opportunity to take the mystic power of the Iron Fist... which he does after a great battle. He eventually returns to New York to find his parents' killer... you get the idea.
Part of the conflict in this story is because Danny Rand is not Asian. Now you can go back and say when the character was created, they decided to go with a Caucasian character because Asian superheroes weren't marketable. There might even be some truth in that. (You could also say that by having the main character be white, it introduced Asian culture in a way that revealed it to the reader in the same way it was revealed to the character.) But the story possibilities with Danny Rand being an outsider are much more interesting than if they made the character Asian.
On a side note, why is it that a martial artist needs to be Asian? Isn't that promoting a stereotype that "all Asians know karate or kung fu?" I'm sure there are plenty who don't. Just as plenty of non-Asians have studied the martial arts that have originated in Asian countries.
So Danny Rand should not be Asian for this story, in my opinion. Could they have accomplished the same effect if he had been African American or Latino? Quite likely. Though if they made him African American it might change the dynamic with his old partner (though not yet on Netflix) Luke Cage. But yes, they could have chosen to go with someone who wasn't Caucasian. But they decided to go with the source material. Some people complain when they ignore the source material and some when they don't. You can't win.
I've heard that a potential casting of Nightwing might be Asian. That would be awesome. In cases where the ethnicity of the character won't change the dynamic of the character, I believe it's perfectly fine to cast a bit differently from the source material.
When FOX rebooted the Fantastic Four, Michael B. Jordan being cast as Johnny Storm wasn't that big of a deal for me. Though personally I thought it would have been better to avoid the whole adoption of Susan Storm... they could have made Susan also black and that would have been fine. I actually thought if they were going to cast a member of the team as African American, it should have been Reed. Making the leader and smartest member of the team African American would have made a better statement if that's what they were trying to do. And if they weren't trying to make a statement, it totally avoids having the explain anything about adoption. Not that adoption isn't a viable explanation for the casting choice they made (or anything to be ashamed of)... I just thought it a needless element. Fantastic Four didn't fail because of the casting or having Johnny Storm be black. It failed because it was a badly written piece of drivel. I enjoyed the previous two Fantastic Four films a great deal more.
The point is... casting existing characters as a different ethnicity can be a good thing... if it makes sense for the story and doesn't change the character on a fundamental level. (Because then... why not just make a new character?) The amount of source material from the original comics that can often inspire or be translated into a TV series or movie is incredible... and in most cases, should be respected. Can some stories be modernized? Certainly. But they should be true to the spirit of the original character.
So give me a black Batman. A Latino Flash. A female Thor (oh, they did that in the comics). Lots of changes can be made and still remain true to the spirit of the source material and in line with what the original creator intended.
But I'm glad they didn't make Danny Rand an Asian. Nuff said.
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