Originally
posted by
TheLegion:
Thanos COULD be neon pink. The Black Panther could be Japanese. Why do we have to denigrate characters with colors/genders/etc they were no designed for? Characters are written in a particular way for a specific purpose. These characters could obviously have different qualities-but that's not our decision. That decision is made by their creator.. I was powering up for a rant but I think this dead horse is bloody enough.
The difference is that the Ian Fleming books weren't illustrated; Marvel Comics are always illustrated. But it's true that Thanos could be pink and the Black Panther could become Japanese if it's written into the story. The original illustrations of what those characters look like will always exist but, like how Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse gave us a black Spiderman, there's definitely space and opportunity to alter the characters of Thanos and Black Panther.
My understanding is that James Bond was never really described as being "white" or "caucasian" but it was accepted that he was because he was British and because Fleming was quite clear about where a character's origin was "different" (e.g. Oddjob being Korean). The illustrations of James Bond came after the books when Fleming agreed to the Daily Mail making Bond into a comic strip. The images are black and white but, of course, there's a very distinct caucasian look about him.
Although the books don't ever state "James Bond was a man, born a man with a penis", we know he's man. You couldn't take the male out of the experiences of James Bond in the books and replace it with a female image and not have to do some rearranging of the character's surroundings and actions. But taking James Bond and replacing Daniel Craig with someone like Idris Alba is not hard. There's nothing to say that James Bond couldn't be black; he has changed hair colour, body shape, accent and age over the course of the movies.
The agent "007" absolutely could be a woman, however. But I'd agree she just couldn't be James Bond. She could be Jamie Bond or Jane Bond maybe but that would feel weird because it's taking an existing character with existing traits and saying "Now think of it upside down". I wouldn't actually be put off the idea of a James Bond film introducing a female 00 agent that becomes a spin off that expands the Fleming universe. It would be refreshing to see a female spy lead in a serious film to the level of the Bond ones. Like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or Spy Game but with female characters using their strengths to get the job done.
Because of all this, I still don't understand why the OP's "white guilt" comes into this. The Ghostbusters reboot was silly but there's nothing at all to suggest that women couldn't also be Ghostbusters. Does it make for an entertaining movie? Well, that depends on who's viewing it. Same with the female reboot of Ocean's 11 with Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchette, Ocean's 8. I didn't find it as entertaining as the George Clooney led films but other people liked it. I don't see why its existence should force any white man to feel guilty about the movies that came before it - they were great. It also doesn't mean that you should feel guilty for not liking it.
I'm open to a non-white Bond actor because I don't think the colour of the skin really changes anything about the Bond character. I'm also open to seeing a female lead in a serious spy movie doing cool sh*t that I don't see Bond doing in his films because it's not the easy option for his gender (like a femlae spy becoming best friends with the wife of a scientist to illicit information from her, rather than the Bond style of tossing her sexy one liners over too many drinks and then banging her behind her husband's back).