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Thoughts on the "Mighty Whitey" Trope in Fiction
- Thread starter Wanda/Wander
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I think the problem is more that so far the all the title heroes of the MCU have been white guys. So in this story you see a white guy go to this multicultural school and in a short amount of time he outpaces everyone else in skill. The way the MCU is being set up, none of those other students would have a chance of being a title character right now because Marvel is focusing on the first incarnations of their heroes. Which of course tend to be white guys.
Head of Vengarl
Banned
Wtf man why you gotta be ruining shit for me
I imagined Paul as having tan skin, almost looking middle eastern.
If Jodorowsky could've directed his version the main actor would've been Chilean.
It's one of my least favorite tropes ever.
Not even just for the white guy part. The savior trope in general is crap.
A stranger from another land/culture/etc changes the lives of people within another society and saves the day. Smh.
It's at least more believable when that stranger changes ONE person (or two) and THEY are the ones who begin to plant seeds of change in the minds of those like them and works together with that stranger to save everyone.
That's pretty OK in my book.
Not even just for the white guy part. The savior trope in general is crap.
A stranger from another land/culture/etc changes the lives of people within another society and saves the day. Smh.
It's at least more believable when that stranger changes ONE person (or two) and THEY are the ones who begin to plant seeds of change in the minds of those like them and works together with that stranger to save everyone.
That's pretty OK in my book.
What did he mean by this?
Member
This is the same argument as with Iron fist yeah?
So even the crappy incompetent white guy can rise above those minorities eventually. Got it
Skellig Gra
Member
Your entire premise is flawed because you are talking like Dr. Strange is some 2016 creation when in reality its what 50+ years old? Plus Marvel just came out with Luke Cage and is pushing Black Panther so its hard to be overly critical of their attempts at diversity.
Ok your gonna have to explain this one.
Glass Rebel
Member
"They are throwing you a bone be satisfied with it" is a pretty lame angle to take my dude.
Skellig Gra
Member
I'm not saying Marvel is some bastion of diversity but when discussing whitewashing issues in fiction they are well down the list of offenders IMO.
JonnyDBrit
Member
Back in the 80s Hal gained a love interest by the name of Arisia, an alien. Except, well, she was... thirteen. The writers tried to get around this with the idea that she physically aged herself up with her power ring, but that just gets into the Captain Marvel (Shazam) debate on whether someone who's physically an adult but mentally a child is still a child.
Strange gets his ass kicked by everyone in the movie and even after saving the day, Wong tells him "You still ain't shit"
Okay, that quote you pulled in the OP:
....Methinks that's a load of bullshit. In context of the rest of the article it's never actually supported.
Eh, I see it from both angles. There's a lot of fiction that runs from the view of the "exotic" people with someone new coming in a messing with the established order. I think it speaks to people's general pessimism that you can get anything done within your own system, and the idea that the unfamiliar is going to be the magic bullet that solves your problem, because man they're just so mysterious and serene and calm and all that crap.
I mean, why is eastern meditation, yoga, and alternative medicine so popular in western countries if not for a sort of fetishization of those eastern ideals disconnected from reality?
At this point Marvel has the clout and goodwill I don't see why they couldn't launch one of their newer colored heroes with their own movie, but I feel like the studio has essentially trapped themselves; for an unknown hero you'd probably make a smaller budget movie to launch them and build them up, but I think they might feel pressured to make sure every movie from now on is a major targeted B.O. blockbuster.
So really I think if you're hoping to see the muslim Ms. Marvel or Miles Morales any time soon, it's gonna be on TV.
....Methinks that's a load of bullshit. In context of the rest of the article it's never actually supported.
Eh, I see it from both angles. There's a lot of fiction that runs from the view of the "exotic" people with someone new coming in a messing with the established order. I think it speaks to people's general pessimism that you can get anything done within your own system, and the idea that the unfamiliar is going to be the magic bullet that solves your problem, because man they're just so mysterious and serene and calm and all that crap.
I mean, why is eastern meditation, yoga, and alternative medicine so popular in western countries if not for a sort of fetishization of those eastern ideals disconnected from reality?
At this point Marvel has the clout and goodwill I don't see why they couldn't launch one of their newer colored heroes with their own movie, but I feel like the studio has essentially trapped themselves; for an unknown hero you'd probably make a smaller budget movie to launch them and build them up, but I think they might feel pressured to make sure every movie from now on is a major targeted B.O. blockbuster.
So really I think if you're hoping to see the muslim Ms. Marvel or Miles Morales any time soon, it's gonna be on TV.
Zen_Arcade
Banned
I wouldn't call Dr. Strange one because what he goes to isn't a tribe of people or a race, but a group of misfits and broken people who collected together to find healing/enlightenment in mystic arts.
God, I hated that scene.This is the first thing that popped into mind when I read that title:
Hell the only reason he
saves the world in the end is because he don't give a fuck about the rules and did some tricky bullshit
This is the first thing that popped into mind when I read that title:
Khaleesi why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch?
TickleMeElbow
Member
Yeah, and on top of that there are a shitload of manga and anime that don't even take place in Japan, and feature a lot of non-Japanese protagonists.
This is the first thing that popped into mind when I read that title:
What is this?
Glass Rebel
Member
bukkake scene from some softcore porn
A boss from the DS Castlevanias
Season 3 finale of Game of Thrones.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
So what do you think of the upcoming Black Panther movie, with an all-black main cast, set in an advanced African inspired nation, starring a black superhero?
continuation of marvels spy/espionage division.
Black Panther teams up with crazy American ,winter soldier, against wakanda rebels who use American technology to overthrow the king.
lightskintwin
Banned
Glass Rebel
Member
It's insulting to call it that in the light of Wakandan tech.
Good points. The stranger showing up and bringing a lot of idea with him that are strange to the local society? Yeah, that makes sense.
The eye-rolling parts of the trope is when the new guy ALSO does some or all of these things:
- learns to fight as well as their top warriors (who have trained their entire life) in about two weeks
- surpasses the legends told by their people in about three weeks
- gets the girl that everyone in that society had held up as their ideal
- quickly becomes the leader, champion or ideal of the local society, completely displacing and outclassing the local champion in the process.
"Insulting"? Do you feel your Wakandan heritage is being disrespected...?
Angelus Errare
Banned
This is the first thing that popped into mind when I read that title:
Daenerys is basically mighty whitey taken to it's limit then pushed beyond. The number of times that show has portrayed her as saving brown people and said people bowing to her en masse is just ridiculous. To make it worse, it always comes after the brown people are ruthless and savage to her and she reciprocates with kindness and salvation.
Like hooooooo my fucking god.
I'd put Iron Man, Thor, Captain Marvel, and Dr.Strange into the "unknown" category for most of the audience. Ms. Marvel could easily get a big budget movie. Her story is very much in the vein of the teenage Spider-Man years. Although I guess now that they have Spider-Man: Homecoming, they don't want another teenage superhero set in the NYC area.
I guess another problem is that a lot of the characters are typically tied to teams and not solo tiles, so they're more likely to end up on screen in that form.
You got the script? Shiiiid, don't hog it all for yourself.
Septimus Prime
Member
To be honest, as an Asian-American who spent his entire life in the US, when I read about a fictional character or see an ambiguously-shaded character, I just imagine that person is white. White is basically just the default setting, and for a character to be anything else, the writers have to go out of the way to call it out. So, for me personally, I have no problem relating to a white character as an audience surrogate, as white is "normal."
But how fucked up is that when you really think about it?
Ideally, it should be about how diversity and mixing of cultures is better than any one culture by itself, but in execution, one is usually portrayed as better and more civilized than the other.
I know this has been a topic of debate since at least the casting of TIlda Swinton, but the film itself didn't really come off as following the outlined trope. Strange wasn't wiping the floor with anyone at any point in the film. There were schools/chapters of Sorcerers in the US, England, Nepal, and Hong Kong, so it wasn't a strictly eastern thing. The sorcerers themselves were also a pretty diverse group, and there was never any claim that magic was an ethnic art. I guess they could have gotten rid of that one line about turning east when western medicine failed.
Messofanego
Banned
This is the first thing that popped into mind when I read that title:
EDIT: lol ninja'd
fallengorn
Bitches love smiley faces
Eh... pretty much every city Dany conquered ended up turning to shit.
lightskintwin
Banned
I think wakanda would have better safety protocols for their weapons seeing how crazy America is . the weapons could be stark tech from a "unknown" enemy who wants to get into there for their sweet sweet vibranium.
que the villain for the next movie.
LegendofDragoonLives
Member
That's an interesting revisionist history. Her story has been a battle between turning into a hero or villain of the story, esp in the latter half of the series. Then again, she did watch her brother burn in front of her and said he's not my brother because fire doesn't kill their kind lol. In the last season, she wanted to burn everyone to ashes until she got convinced otherwise by one of the two logical high councilmen. I have no idea why you're trying to make her some perfect angel who always thinks with kindness when she has the family blood of being a nutcase.
Nothing in the show shows them as just ruthless or just savages. There's groups being used by powerful people, the same as the whities on Westeros where flaing people is the shit or just taking towns by ships and raping the women while you kill the men as a sport. But maybe it doesn't count all that savage for those people, maybe they're not white enough? She's been written as the savior of the show from season 1 and that's why she's gotten progressively more boring in a series that is always doing the unpredictable.
John Kowalski
Banned
EDIT: lol ninja'd
I haven't even seen this movie yet but i admit that's a cool shot.
Glass Rebel
Member
when you mention wakanda you better put some respek on it
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