(One of) The problems with race-swapping characters

Race swapping combined with nerfing the role to make it not offensive to the race swapped.

Where is the justice for the gingers?

When you change a thing it is no longer that thing period

It’s a different movie altogether or do you think internal affairs 1, 2 and 3 were based on Whitey Bulger?

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Isn't that kinda the point? Look what the Departed was able to do as a remake of the Hong Kong movie internal affairs. They take 2 characters and make them 1 character. They add the Colin Sullivan character that Mark Wahlberg plays and it makes the remake different but still a great movie.

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Not all remakes are the same, nor should all of these decisions be treated the same.

The Departed is a pretty good counter argument, however:

1. They took a thing and tried to then embed that thing into a different subculture- Boston crime mafia - thereby totally changed everything. They didn't even keep character names (they couldn't, literally), so while the two share the same story DNA - all of the changes are much less offensive. They weren't trying to "remake" Infernal Affairs, they were trying to take that situation and put it in a modern Boston-mafia crime context. There's a different goal there. It was a literary goal, an artistic goal. Same for Throne of Blood. Those are FINE.


2. This is different, this is a long standing, part of literary history. You can't just recast Long John Silver as a Black dude, tell the same story, and call it a day. What's their goal? If he goal is to tell the exact same story, basically, but just change the race of a character - what's the point of doing that thing?

If they REALLY wanted to tell a story about a black pirate - like said above - there are PLENTY of black pirate stories to tell. And some really good ones. Just go tell those. By avoiding those, you are actually avoiding tapping into the rich multi-cultural history of that time period. You are actually doing a disservice to race and casting, not a service.

3. I'm going to go ahead and expand this out - it's also pretty bad to do this when it comes to much broader, more important themes - particularly philosophy, politics and religion. Unless you are specifically setting out to mock something for humor - Gerwig's the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe is a HUGE afront. She is taking something is so clearly religious and twisting it to fit her own "modern," vision. That's the stuff that really sucks. That's when "remakes," are just bad practice. Leave CS Lewis and his intention alone. There are only two reasons to "update" the philosophy - political, religious, etc. - of a piece of art - for benign humorous purposes (which are mostly fine), or to destroy it, ruin it's legacy and it's place in culture. There are no other reasons.

The Departed isn’t called Internal Affairs. It’s a different movie with a different name, different characters and a lot of differences in the story. If you called the new Harry Potter series “magic school” or something nobody would care. If you called the new treasure island “Pirate Adventure” nobody would care.

I just watched the pilot on Facebook

Yes it is horrible

But the black boss delivered the exact same dialogue in an American accent

Facebook Video

The "team" scene is at the 14:08 mark


Snape is a better example. Snape being black changes the base nature of the Potters from generic regrettable childhood bullying, to actual racial hatred

What a surprise lol

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But the black boss delivered the exact same dialogue in an American accent

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Yes, except after they leave.

And no “voice activated computer” gag.