I cant believe in the Year of our Lord 2016 someone is actually panning Suicide Squad for hiring a Japanese woman to play a Japanese character.
What?
fyi
It sounds like that tweet is criticizing the stereotyping of the Japanese and Latino characters, not the fact that the actors are actually Japanese and Latino.
Yeah, the problem with that is the tweet or Tweeter-in-question is being either completely disingenuous or contributing to the very same stigma he claims to be criticizing.
1) Suicide Squad is a comic book, and in the realm of comic books, virtually everyone is a stereotype. That’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it is a reality. The only comic book characters the public isn’t seeing as a stereotype are the people they’ve allowed themselves to learn enough about to see them as an embodiment of the human condition or a specific human failing/trait. (That’s why comic book movies shouldn’t be treated as just mindless entertainment.)
2) I knew of no one (DC fan or casual filmgoer) going into Suicide Squad thinking “This is the guy who’s the gang member.” No, they went into Suicide Squad thinking “This is the guy who can breathe fire from this body and control fire with his hands.” The Tweeter-in-question has reduced the character into being nothing more than a gang member because of his ethnicity. If he bothered to watch the film (or read the comic), he would learn that the character’s Aztec/indigenous ancestry enables him to have this ability, and not all heroes or anti-heroes start out on the straight and narrow. Two important elements that give El Diablo far greater depth and respect than someone simply labeled as a “gang member.” It’s the Tweeter who contributes to perpetuating this stereotype far more than the film or comic book did.
3) I think we can all recognize the need for more diverse roles in Hollywood for people of Asian and Hispanic descent, but that doesn’t mean that tales revolving around modern cultural mainstays don’t deserve to ever be made. How often in the last 10 years has Hollywood even made a film involving a samurai warrior? And now how many of those samurai warriors were women? The character of Katana is a DC favorite. She shouldn’t cease to exist or not be included in this movie because someone who claims to care about diversity in film has reduced her to a stereotype, instead of seeing her as a beloved complex character of the DC universe that is reflection of a cultural invention steeped in mystery and reverence.
If I thought for 4 seconds the Tweeter-in-question was actually genuine in their criticism, maybe I’d applaud their statement. But I know this is something that no one who actually knows/cares/loves comic books would utter. That or it’s someone who stans for Marvel’s cinematic universe and they’re deliberately throwing shade on a film they would like to see fail.
The part about that Tweet that really made me laugh was the fact that Adam Beach who plays Slipknot is in fact Canadian. I don’t recall him doing anything with maple syrup though.
Seriously, people give Tumblr a lot of shit for having users that are about being politically correct, but they miss a lot of sweet stuff that needs to be said. Bravo to all of you.
#I see this happen quite a lot #it always feels like people are projecting their own stuff out in their snappy criticisms #or worse taking their own racist/sexist attitudes and blaming it on some writer #when someone jumps in with a ‘look at this black character she’s so arrogant and troubled’ #when the character ISN’T #or even ‘look at this female character she’s just a sexy male fantasy’ #and it’s like…
