Captain China is quite a funny idea, simply because superheroes have always been predominantly an expression of American domination. They're practically walking flags. Far more offensive is the streamlining of Captain Cultural Imperialism for duty in the east. But then it's all just "what people want", isn't it?

Edit: not been paying attention to thread so just shoving that off the top of my head thought in there

That's sweet.

edit: @Chump

Tempy wrote:

Tin, do you reckon kid's exposure to. ore diverse and female created cartoons and shows means WW is less of a deal for them? I ask because lots of ladies I know around the 21-28 age group liked it a lot, but only a few of them are looking at cartoons or comics in their day to day entertainment. Kids media tends to handle inclusivity and diversity much better on the whole. As with Black Panther, its status is almost more important than its quality. I've not seen Moonlight or BP, but i'd argue the fifth largest opening weekend ever makes BP as important as Moonlight, regardless of quality. Plus Coogler has already done two excellent films that are focused on black people, so I'm down for Panther whenever I can manage it.

Certainly with my highly scientific sample group of 2, that could well be it.  They both went through a period in which they were slightly obsessed with Avatar and Legend of Korra for instance, both of which offer up pretty diverse characters whether they be super-powered or not.  (Korra, in particular, leans quite hard into some of those themes, whilst still managing to have people with superpowers blowing stuff up.)

I think film is lagging behind even live-action TV with respect to diversity - presumably because studios have been reluctant to gamble all that money on an audience.  As you rightly say, BP should fairly resoundingly end that concern.  (I heard an interview on the Today Programme of all things where they suggested to the Marvel rep that they'd only made this film for financial reasons to which there was a very candid "yes, of course we did.  There was a hole in the market, so we're filling it.  But we figured it wouldn't make money unless we did it properly" - or words to that effect.)  Hopefully studios are slowly getting to understand that the more diverse the movie, the more people will want to see it - so long as they stick to the "doing it right" part...

monkey wrote:

Cue DCs Cyborg movie flopping and a million ‘Is diversity in films dead?’ think pieces.

That's long since been cancelled surely?

Captain String it out.

Just as a story that means fuck all my wife who is waaaayyy into comic books (the good marvel stuff like Captain marvel, squirrel girl et Al) was far more into WW than me

I think you've nailed it JRPC. we are a bunch of white people who are somewhat entitled who can't quite fathom what something like black panther means to them,and to joke or denigrate it is to deny them this amazing moment

Tempy wrote:

Grief is universal, blackness is not.

Also nailed

I don't mean to say that you can't understand or emapthise with it. You can, but the very notion of blackness is fractious to black people. It is a constant that is being explored, understood, re-understood, re-clarified, lived, passed on, meditated on.

You only have to look at the civil rights movement in the 60s to see. Compare and contrast Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, etc

If your view of how the world works prevents you from condemning the way the Taliban treats it's women then there's something seriously fucking wrong there.

If you listen to the whole thing his position is clear and clearly deluded.

He bangs on endlessly about the need for more love and compassion towards our fellow human beings but couldn't muster much of the same for the most subjugated and abused people on the planet.

Cultural relativistic nonsense. And deeply harmful nonsense at that.

JRPC wrote:

tin_robot wrote:

I don't have a handle on whether it's a film that's really any old white guy superhero movie just with a black cast, or a film that explores and is sensitive to themes that would only ever work with a black cast. If you see the distinction? Is this a film that will inspire black kids, and girls, because it resonates with them - or is it another film that plays to white male fantasies, whilst allowing us to think we're doing better because of "representation"? I fear I can't meaningfully comment on the first and am likely at least partially blind to the second.

But I think you totally can get a handle on that if you’re paying enough attention. Now I have been paying attention to BP (because I’m a nerd), and feel pretty confident that it’s the latter. This is from someone as white and middle class as they come (my main regret in emigrating to Australia has been the loss of Waitrose).

I think we probably are a bit blind in the ways you mention, but no more than any other scenario in which we don't have a first-hand lived experience.

Could you not meaningfully relate to a film about grief because your own family is alive and well? Maybe not fully, but well enough to get an idea about how sensitive it is to those themes. Plus, I doubt you'd ever feel the need to voice those limitations in quite the same way.

Why is this different with race or gender?

I don't think it probably is.

Just thinking out loud.

I'm possibly a bit ranty here and on my high-horse about this because I'm still riled up from a podcast I listened to the other day where Russel Brand declined to condemn generations of Afghani women being forced to live in bags for similar reasons. Who are we as middle-class white men to have an opinion really?


Can’t stand Russel Brand.

I think we're maybe at cross-purposes slightly. I don't think I couldn't relate to it - indeed my hope is that any film depicting any culture or walk of life that differs from my own (real or imagined) manages to do so in a way which allows me to relate to, understand and appreciate it. In fact I'm strongly of the belief that works that do so are hugely important.

All I was saying is that I'm in no position to stake any claim as to the validity of whether that has happened - all I can do is applaud the attempt, and listen to the opinions of those who are better placed to comment. (Which have, as you say, been largely positive with respect to BP - but certainly not universally so.
To use your metaphor for grief. I have seen many films about grief, and my appreciation for which ones felt like true descriptions of grieving, and which ones were simply manipulative bullshit altered after I had experienced grief of my own. (And will probably change again in the future.) The difference is that I'm not likely to ever experience being a woman, or being a different race, so it seems wise to seek the opinions of those that have, to temper my own, when discussing films that are being put forwards as representations of those people. (Though as Reg and Tempy have pointed out, there's still going to a pretty wide variation in those opinions too.)

Middle class white men should absolutely have an opinion, but I guess it's helpful to recognise them as being the opinions of middle class white men, rather than presuming to speak on behalf of others, as has historically tended to be the case.

Anyway, I'm aware that I'm at risk of sounding like a sanctimonious prick so I should probably quit whilst I'm behind.

And no, I can't stand Russel Brand either.

JRPC wrote:

If your view of how the world works prevents you from condemning the way the Taliban treats it's women then there's something seriously fucking wrong there.

If you listen to the whole thing his position is clear and clearly deluded.

He bangs on endlessly about the need for more love and compassion towards our fellow human beings but couldn't muster much of the same for the most subjugated and abused people on the planet.

Cultural relativistic nonsense. And deeply harmful nonsense at that.

Bill Maher had a good quote on this:

“They used to boo me, because I’m the one standing up for equal rights for women and free speech and respect for minorities, free and fair elections. It’s not my fault that these are qualities more lacking in the Muslim world than any other culture, but liberals saw this for years as an attack on a minority. But the irony is they were so tolerant they were tolerating intolerance“.

I don’t agree with everything Bill Maher says, but the idea that people don’t feel comfortable in condemning the shitty ways people are treated in some cultures is, as you say, deeply harmful nonsense.

Best just to think of people as people and little more than that.

True. I'll edit it and make you look weird. Then edit this to make it look like a reaction to your weirdness.

Just further to what I wrote up there, I wouldn't change anything about Black Panther out of my disdain for rich whites profiting from it. I've seen those clips of excited black kids and they're great, and the idea of an African society in a sky city (presuming that's where they live) is a cool one. I also imagine that lots of African-American academics would be against the potentially stereotypical adoption of their accents over the current ones. Anti-colonialism's the right move for me.

But I do agree with that petition, because I feel that Disney should pay forward some of their ludicrous gains to black causes.