SSDD WHITE CASTING OF IRON FIST

I hear the next superhero to come to movie theaters is Iron Fist.

Maybe you've heard some people object.

Let me explain why




About 1000 years ago on television there was this television series called "Kung Fu."  It was about this Asian guy who wanders the land. I can't remember if the time period was 1700s or 1800s or what, but he was wandering around helping and protecting befuddled white people ala the time period covered by a bunch of television westerns.

Kane or Caine, the Asian guy, was played by a white actor, David Carridine who would eventually die during a sex accident called auto-erotic asphyxiation  (Yeah...This has nuthin' to do with nuthin' but....OMG)

When white people figured out that putting Asian make up on white people (the equivalent of black face) was taboo, they moved onto having white people become super-students of an Asian master in China. While in China this white male student would become greater than his teacher (or leave his teacher back in China) to become most stunning, most powerful white hero in the United States.

In the 1980s Chuck Norris did another version of Kung Fu but sans the Asian-face, in modern times as a cop. 

I know there was some goofy-looking white teenager in a movie that was a super martial arts person in the last 5 years too. I just can't remember the title of the movie 

In any case, Iron Fist is the superhero cartoon version of the same character.

This is what you should see as putting on a culture like a costume. This is the cultural appropriation that matters. Marvel has created dozens and dozens of white superheroes. And they've made a bunch of movies with a dozen white superheroes in a single movie, where a couple of black sidekicks, that you've never heard of, damn near got cameo appearances. And there haven't been any significant Asian or Latino superheroes at all.

Instead of casting white guy 1001 as an Asian-based superhero, this would have been a great opportunity for Marvel to undo the original white-biased decision making and white cultural appropriation of the past and have an Asian actor play what is essentially an Asian character

In the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s (except for Cosby) white people simply wouldn't watch anything that starred something other than white people. If that's not so anymore, why continue on this same path?

Could it be these post-racial-claiming white folk still can't stand to see much of anything on screen except white people?

I'll guess we'll find out when the Black Panther hits the big screen next year