Category: Movies

Actresses in Greenface

Two years ago some people were upset that Zoe Saldana had to wear green body paint for her role in Guardians of the Galaxy, citing a history of Hollywood requiring black actresses to wear body paint to exoticize them or emphasize their otherness.

Oops…sorry, meant to insert a picture of Zoe Saldana as Gamora but that’s actually Rachel Nichols in her role as Zoe Saldana’s roommate in 2009’s “Star Trek.” Just a minute…

Oops…sorry again. That’s not Zoe Saldana. That’s Karen Gillan, in her role as Zoe Saldana’s adopted sister in “Guardians of the Galaxy.” Maybe I should just move on…

Now those same people are upset that the movie “Warcraft,” which opens in theaters on Friday, features another actress of color, Paula Patton, in greenface.

No, wait, that’s Anna Galvin who’s also in the movie. Hold on…

No, that’s Clancy Brown. Maybe I should get my eyes checked.

Okay, that’s Rebecca Romijn and I’m not going to apologize because it’s Rebecca Romijn in blue body paint and very little else and…and…what was I saying? Oh yes.

Gamora, the character Zoe Saldana played in “Guardians of the Galaxy” has been green since she first appeared in 1975. Which means she’s been green longer that Zoe Saldana has been alive.

Garona, the character Paula Patton plays in “Warcraft,” has been green since the first Warcraft video game came out in 1994. She hasn’t been green longer than Paula Patton has been alive but she has been green since long before anyone even thought there might be a Warcraft movie with an actress of color playing her. Now orcs in general have been green long before Paula Patton was born so there’s that.

Contrary to what the easily offended might think, this is not a case of racist Hollywood slapping body paint on black actresses just for the hell of it. This is a case of Hollywood casting black actresses in roles that would require body paint no matter what race the actress was.

People need to recognize that Hollywood has undergone a technological evolution that makes it easier to produce superhero, science fiction, and epic fantasy movies which opens the door to actors portraying mutants, aliens, fantastic creatures, and other characters that may come in colors that are not standard for the human race. Right now we’ve got the Marvel franchises, the DC franchises, the Star Trek franchise, and the Star Wars franchise pumping out movies and/or television shows as fast as they can. Social Justice Warriors need to decide if they want more diversity in movie casts or if they want to reserve extra colorful character roles for white actors like Jennifer Lawrence, Kelsey Grammer, and Alan Cumming. You can’t have it both ways.

Comics History: Why Is Gamora Green?

While looking up information on the Guardians of the Galaxy movie I came across a claim that the movie is racist because they painted Zoe Saldana green to highlight her “otherness.” I can’t help but wonder if that means the movie is also racist for painting Karen Gillan, Michael Rooker, and Josh Brolin, among others, assorted colors? In any case I thought it might be informative to take a little look at comics history to understand why Gamora is green.

First let’s look at a comic convention: aliens are often drawn as humans with odd colored skin and one or two minor cosmetic differences like pointy ears, antennae, one eye, funky chins, etc. In this comics mirror television and the movies though they do it for different reasons. They do this on television and in the movies because, ultimately, aliens are played by human actors and until the relatively recent advent of high quality CGI, attempts to make human actors look inhuman tended to look fairly cheesy. They do this in comics because comics are produced on a regular schedule and it’s easier, and thus faster, for artists to draw human figures, which they have a lot of experience drawing, than a bunch of weird, outlandish, alien figures.

Gamora first appeared in the June 1975 issue of Strange Tales which makes her 3 years older than Zoe Saldana. In that very first appearance she was green. She was also sexy, wearing a fishnet body stocking with a neckline that plunged to below her navel. Comics fans may be nerds but they still like their women to look human.gamora

Gamora is the last of an alien race known as the Zen Whoberi. The rest of her species had been exterminated by the Universal Church of Truth, a religious empire composed of diverse alien species and led by the Magus who, it is worth noting, is purple.

smMagus

As a child Gamora was found by Thanos, who adopted her as his daughter and trained her as an assassin so that she could one day kill the Magus. Thanos, it is worth noting, is also purple with a funky chin.

smThanos

In their quest to defeat the Magus, Gamora and Thanos allied with Adam Warlock, an artificial human and a Christ-figure destined to become the Magus unless he could find a way to alter his own timeline to prevent the Magus from ever coming into existence. Adam Warlock, it’s worth noting, was a golden color.

smWarlock

Rounding out our merry band of heroes was Adam’s friend, Pip. Pip was easily the most Caucasian member of the group. This was not a compliment to Caucasians.smPip

So, in conclusion, Gamora is green because she’s always been green, not because they want to make Zoe Saldana look alien.

Comic Book Adaptations

Someone said today that they thought I hated all movie adaptations of the comics when I said I liked Man of Steel. In response I thought it might be interesting for me to post lists of movies I thought were good, mediocre, and bad adaptations of comics. I will note that I am only listing properties where I have both read the comics and seen the movies. For example, I loved Kick-Ass but I’ve never read the comic so I can’t comment on the movie as an adaptation of the book. I will also note that these movies are being listed in roughly alphabetic order rather than how good or bad I think they are.

The Good

  • The Avengers
  • Captain America: The First Avenger
  • The Crow
  • The Dark Knight
  • The Dark Knight Rises
  • Hellboy
  • Hellboy II: The Golden Army
  • Iron Man
  • Man of Steel
  • The Mask
  • Mystery Men
  • The Rocketeer
  • Sin City
  • Spider-Man
  • Spider-Man 2
  • Superman
  • Superman II
  • Watchmen
  • X-Men
  • X2: X-Men United
  • X-Men: First Class

The Mediocre

  • Batman
  • Batman Begins
  • Constantine
  • Daredevil
  • Ghost Rider
  • The Incredible Hulk
  • Iron Man 2
  • Judge Dredd
  • Swamp Thing
  • Thor

The Bad

  • Batman Returns
  • Batman Forever
  • Batman & Robin
  • Catwoman
  • Elektra
  • Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
  • The Green Hornet
  • Hulk
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
  • Spider-Man 3
  • The Spirit
  • Supergirl
  • Superman III
  • Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
  • Superman Returns
  • X-Men: Last Stand

The Blame Game

In the wake of the Sandy Hook school shooting people have rushed to place blame for what happened. I’ve noticed that where people lay the blame depends on what convenient scapegoat they can find that they’ve never liked and won’t be inconvenienced by if it’s banned. Right now the primary targets are guns, video games, and violent movies but in the past the scapegoats have included things like comic books, rock & roll music, and Dungeons & Dragons.

This blame is assigned without regard to the facts. Guns must be to blame because Britain and Japan have strong gun control laws and they don’t have this kind of violence. We’ll ignore Switzerland where people have easy access to military assault rifles, and I mean actual military assault rifles and not “military-style assault weapons,” and yet the Swiss violent crime rate is also low suggesting that easy access to firearms is not the problem. Violent video games and movies must be to blame because they desensitize us to violence while conditioning us to commit violent acts. We’ll ignore all the other countries in the world where they play the same video games and watch the same movies and yet don’t go on violent rampages.

Let me tell you where I place the blame. Back when I joined Facebook I did what a lot of people do. I “friended” a lot of my old college friends. About a week after reconnecting with one woman she made a snide comment about having just learned that her tennis partner was a fan of Ann Coulter. At the time I thought it was kind of tacky to be talking about the woman behind her back but I know Coulter is a polarizing figure so I just sort of shrugged it off. What happened next shocked me. Other people started posting some fairly vile, hate-filled comments about this woman that they clearly did not know. One man even said he’d like to whack her in the knees with a baseball bat. Most shocking to me was that my “friend” was clearly okay with this outpouring of hatred directed at a woman who probably thought she was her friend.

Since then I’ve seen many such occurrences from people ranging all across the political spectrum. When faced with someone whose beliefs differ from our own, all too often we don’t try to understand their point of view or engage them in a meaningful discussion of the issue. Instead we seek to demonize and dehumanize with hateful accusations that have no basis in reality. That way we don’t have to defend our own points of view much less consider the possibility that we’re wrong and they’re right. The thing is, our children learn by observing us. When we behave in a hateful manner we teach our children to behave in a hateful manner.

So if you’re looking for someone or something to blame for violence in our society, I suggest you start by taking a moment to look in the mirror and seriously reflect on what you’ve been teaching your children.

Captain America vs Racism

If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend going to see Captain America: The First Avenger. It’s not a perfect movie but it is a fun one and it does a nice job of capturing the spirit of the character.

The purpose of this blog entry isn’t to review the movie. Rather my intent is to address a complaint I’ve been hearing from certain quarters that the movie doesn’t address racial realities of the time period. It’s certainly a valid topic of discussion and it has been the subject of films like The Tuskegee Airmen, Come See the Paradise, Only the Brave, and the upcoming Red Tails. So why doesn’t Captain America: The First Avenger also tackle the issue? Well let’s be honest. This is a popcorn movie. It’s not supposed to be deep or thought provoking. It’s supposed to be an amusing entertainment by which to pass a couple of hours. Trying to delve into the racism that would realistically be experienced by two minor supporting characters beyond the scene where Jim Morita is introduced would seriously sidetrack the movie. It’s sort of like complaining that Babe doesn’t spend enough time discussing animal cruelty.

Moviegoers should understand that the movie is just trying to reflect the comics on which the movie is based. Gabe Jones was a member of the Howling Commandos from the very beginning. Jim Morita didn’t come along until issue #38. Was it realistic to depict an integrated unit in a WWII comic book? No but do you really expect a high degree of realism from a comic book? Today people look at the character of Gabe and they think the creators of the comic book were trying to gloss over ugly aspects of the time period. They fail to see the context in which the character was created.

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos was first published in May, 1963. The struggle for African-American civil rights was very much an issue of the time. The inclusion of an African-American soldier in Nick Fury’s unit was far from an attempt to gloss over racial issues of the day. On the contrary it served pretty much the opposite purpose. Had the men of the First Attack Squad all been white, accurately reflecting the realities of WWII, the book would have drawn no criticism in 1963 and could have completely avoided the issue of race. Making one of the Howling Commandos black, even though it was unrealistic to do so, brought the issue of racism into the book and it was a topic the book dealt with on occasion as Gabe would encounter racists from other units and when he did the other soldiers from his unit would have his back. There was a message there and it was an important message for the 1960s. It was that blacks were every bit as good as whites and the right thing to do was to stand up for them and help them in their struggle for equal rights. Comic books’ handling of race has been less than exemplary at times but the inclusion of Gabe Jones and Jim Morita in the Howling Commandos isn’t one of those times.

Unfortunately that message gets lost in the movie. Mainly because the title of the movie is Captain America: The First Avenger, not Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos. Which is why once they’re introduced the First Attack Squad spends all of their time standing around in the background while Cap leads the way. Perhaps someday they’ll make Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos and I’m sure they’ll touch on it then, especially since for the movies they’ve gone with the Ultimate version of Nick Fury which was based on Samuel L. Jackson.

What I find most disturbing about the charges of racism leveled at the movie is the degree of ignorance some people have displayed. These people find the inclusion of Jim Morita to be far more offensive than that of Gabe Jones. They believe that all Japanese-Americans were imprisoned in internment camps and none were allowed to serve in the military. This is very wrong. To those who were unaware that Japanese-Americans served as combat troops in the US military during WWII I suggest you familiarize yourself with the 100th Infantry Battalion, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, and the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion. Note that the 442nd is the most decorated unit for its size and length of service in the history of the US military. These were good men and they deserve to be remembered for what they did.