In fairness to Tilda Swinton, they decided to entirely rewrite the character to be a Celtic woman instead of a Tibetan man. This was probably to avoid being censored in China, but getting away from the racist 1930s, “oriental mysticism,” trope was probably a good idea. It’s certainly a lot better than letting Jonny Depp pretend to be a Native American because he’s one-eighth Cherokee.
I have mixed feelings about Liam Neeson in that role. His performance is great, and given that they got rid of the whole, “immortal genius from the Islamic Golden Age,” backstory, I guess the character’s race is less important. It feels very strange that an Irish guy is somehow the leader of a group of Asian ninjas, though.
The Sam Jackson/Nick Fury story is pretty hilarious. When Marvel created the Ultimate Universe in the comics, they changed a lot of characters’ backstories. One of those changes was making Nick Fury black, and one of their artists started drawing him looking a lot like Sam Jackson. Jackson talked to his agents, and Marvel was basically like, “Well, instead of suing us, would Mr. Jackson like to play the character in any future projects?”
Well, I think it’s a bit different. The Little Mermaid takes place in an unidentified kingdom on the surface (it seems vaguely Italian or Mediterranean, I guess?) and an underwater Atlantian kingdom, so race doesn’t matter. The original Dr. Strange comics have all sorts of uncomfortable racial and religious tropes; it’s about a white guy who finds magical order Tibetan monks, not only learns their magic, but becomes even better than them at it, and moves to New York with an Asian man-servant named Wong who serves him tea. Changing up the races and backstory on that one isn’t just acceptable, it’s advisable.
I remember reading he was one third German and sometimes I cannot sleep at night because I am trying to figure out the math. This has been like 15 years ago and it still bugs me.
If it makes you feel better, “one third” is realistically a reduced precision approximation of something like 23/64 (from a genealogical perspective) or near 33% of certain markers on a genetic panel.
I mean I guess that’s what they referred to, some approximation, but it still breaks my brain every time I think about it
Just like I once watched a video titled something like “this boy did the unthinkable” and then he did something very thinkable (he just ate someone’s face) and I am still mad about that
You can get some odd fractions by two parents having similar lineages. Like, if your mother is Irish, and your great-grandmother on your father’s side is Irish, you would be five-eighths Irish. I’m having trouble finding a combination that gives you thirds, though.
In fairness to Tilda Swinton, they decided to entirely rewrite the character to be a Celtic woman instead of a Tibetan man. This was probably to avoid being censored in China, but getting away from the racist 1930s, “oriental mysticism,” trope was probably a good idea. It’s certainly a lot better than letting Jonny Depp pretend to be a Native American because he’s one-eighth Cherokee.
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Yeah, but they did that specifically because Disney convinced the Comanche to adopt him before the movie came out. He certainly wouldn’t be a member of that tribe if he hadn’t been cast as a member of that tribe.
Liam Neeson is also like Samual L Jackson.
I don’t give a shit was race the character was originally, the character is about to be transformed into a next level badass.
I have mixed feelings about Liam Neeson in that role. His performance is great, and given that they got rid of the whole, “immortal genius from the Islamic Golden Age,” backstory, I guess the character’s race is less important. It feels very strange that an Irish guy is somehow the leader of a group of Asian ninjas, though.
The Sam Jackson/Nick Fury story is pretty hilarious. When Marvel created the Ultimate Universe in the comics, they changed a lot of characters’ backstories. One of those changes was making Nick Fury black, and one of their artists started drawing him looking a lot like Sam Jackson. Jackson talked to his agents, and Marvel was basically like, “Well, instead of suing us, would Mr. Jackson like to play the character in any future projects?”
Well, the Ariel thing is basically the same kind of ‘rewrite’.
Also Ariel isn’t even “white”… she’s a mermaid
Well, I think it’s a bit different. The Little Mermaid takes place in an unidentified kingdom on the surface (it seems vaguely Italian or Mediterranean, I guess?) and an underwater Atlantian kingdom, so race doesn’t matter. The original Dr. Strange comics have all sorts of uncomfortable racial and religious tropes; it’s about a white guy who finds magical order Tibetan monks, not only learns their magic, but becomes even better than them at it, and moves to New York with an Asian man-servant named Wong who serves him tea. Changing up the races and backstory on that one isn’t just acceptable, it’s advisable.
Exactly Ariel is basically fish,
I remember reading he was one third German and sometimes I cannot sleep at night because I am trying to figure out the math. This has been like 15 years ago and it still bugs me.
If it makes you feel better, “one third” is realistically a reduced precision approximation of something like 23/64 (from a genealogical perspective) or near 33% of certain markers on a genetic panel.
I mean I guess that’s what they referred to, some approximation, but it still breaks my brain every time I think about it
Just like I once watched a video titled something like “this boy did the unthinkable” and then he did something very thinkable (he just ate someone’s face) and I am still mad about that
Sprinkle in a little incest and we are good to go.
I also have no idea, I thought it was all halves of halves.
You can get some odd fractions by two parents having similar lineages. Like, if your mother is Irish, and your great-grandmother on your father’s side is Irish, you would be five-eighths Irish. I’m having trouble finding a combination that gives you thirds, though.
Doesn’t exist, 3 is prime. No combination of 2^-n will get you a 3 in the denominator.
…unless somewhere along the tree there’s a person who shows up twice.
Gotcha. Three-eighths is roughly one-third, so I guess that? One-quarter German on one side, one-eighth on the other?