Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
Truly your magnamity knows no bounds.
Iron Fist will be Loras Tyrell
- Thread starter tankdrop24
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DracoDracul
Bigender Communist
- Location
- Austin
- Pronouns
- She/They
I tapped out halfway through episode nine.
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- Mons Regius
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I watched the series and I have a few questions:
- Why was Danny and co. so ecstatic about their supposed "victory" over the Hand when they destroyed Madam Gao's heroin lab? Before he died, that Eastern European super-chemist reveals that he gave up the formula for his synthetic-heroin to Madam Gao -- which means the Hand can just pack up and set up new labs as they please.
- K'un-Lun is supposedly inaccessible from Earth unless the "planes of existence" are aligned just right every few decades. So... why do we see Danny in flashbacks just standing around, guarding a rock wall when the passage to K'un-Lun is obviously closed? Do they really need the Iron Fist to stand guard over the passage all his life even when they know the gateway is closed?
- Somewhat related to the above point: based on the comic lore, would someone be able to access K'un-Lun even when it's "out of alignment" with Earth by using something like, say, Dr. Strange's teleporting sling-ring?
I'm surprised -- given what I know about your posting history I would have expected you to be more flabbergasted by comments like this:
Sure, if you want to call TvTropes full of "SJWs". You know, the site with all the awful racism and sexualisation tropes that infrequently leads to Google threatening to pull its ads because it's legit awful.
Article: A common trope in 18th and 19th century adventure fiction, when Europeans were visiting and documenting vast swathes of the world for the first time, Mighty Whitey is usually a displaced white European, of noble descent, who ends up living with native tribespeople and not only learns their ways but also becomes their greatest warrior/leader/representative.
You don't see how Danny Rand, rich white boy extraordinaire growing up in America until he gets lost, becoming the IMMORTAL IRON FIST CHOSEN ONE OF KUN'LUN (or whatever the fuck the cheap comic book China/Tibet/Shangri'La knock-off in this show is called) could be more than just a little bit racist? Because I certainly can.
See, few weeks ago I used the term "leftist racism" and people thought I was talking out of my @$$. Above we have a perfect illustration of it at work.
Danny Rand was orphaned at 10 years old and raised by the people of Kun'lun. He took the exact same training as the other would-be warriors of the Order. Danny spent more years of his life in the temples of Kun'lun than the streets of New York -- he is fully assimilated into the culture of the hidden city; he openly calls Kun'lun his home and sees New York as foreign and alien.
In essence Danny is a 1st generation immigrant who assimilated into the local culture and became a member of its society. But because he is white apparently that's supposed to be racist
You guys are no better than the people bitching about the Anheuser Superbowl Ad showcasing the typical "immigrant success story" and the fact that you don't see it is freaking hilarious.
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- Mons Regius
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- He/Him
Fernandel already pointed out the "Mighty Whitey" being a thing in media since long ago, and how it is problematic to have an outsider, especially white, enter another culture and becoming its best warrior/king/whatever as if he was better at it than the natives, when it was done in the past for shady reasons.I'm surprised -- given what I know about your posting history I would have expected you to be more flabbergasted by comments like this:
See, few weeks ago I used the term "leftist racism" and people thought I was talking out of my @$$. Above we have a perfect illustration of it at work.
Danny Rand was orphaned at 10 years old and raised by the people of Kun'lun. He took the exact same training as the other would-be warriors of the Order. Danny spent more years of his life in the temples of Kun'lun than the streets of New York -- he is fully assimilated into the culture of the hidden city; he openly calls Kun'lun his home and sees New York as foreign and alien.
In essence Danny is a 1st generation immigrant who assimilated into the local culture and became a member of its society. But because he is white apparently that's supposed to be racist
You guys are no better than the people bitching about the Anheuser Superbowl Ad showcasing the typical "immigrant success story" and the fact that you don't see it is freaking hilarious.
If you can't see it, I can't help you, but don't mock a criticism when you don't understand it. Or, at least, make an effort to see what people means.
I am not sure what my posting history has to do with anything, considering that "there can be nothing racist about making a fictional character in a fictional universe white" / "a lot of people simply hate on it to be 'cool' " are still pretty stupid things to say no matter how you slice it.
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Okay? So once you've stopped laughing at us, will you debate with us honestly and perhaps consider the fact that they deliberately chose to make a story that used Asian themes for its settings and yet decided to make it about a white guy learning to (badly) do martial arts, instead of making it about an Asian-American immigrant returning to the home of his ancestors and learning to reconnect with his heritage and balance it with the culture and his experiences in the new home he grew up in? Even though they could have easily casted a skilled Asian actor for the part that knew how to act and do martial arts? You know, because they hired that actor to play a two-bit villain that was the best part of the show?Danny Rand was orphaned at 10 years old and raised by the people of Kun'lun. He took the exact same training as the other would-be warriors of the Order. Danny spent more years of his life in the temples of Kun'lun than the streets of New York -- he is fully assimilated into the culture of the hidden city; he openly calls Kun'lun his home and sees New York as foreign and alien.
In essence Danny is a 1st generation immigrant who assimilated into the local culture and became a member of its society. But because he is white apparently that's supposed to be racist
You guys are no better than the people bitching about the Anheuser Superbowl Ad showcasing the typical "immigrant success story" and the fact that you don't see it is freaking hilarious.
By the way, you get to talk precisely zero smack to me when it comes to the stories of immigrants. I'm born from such a family, and have lived abroad myself. I know all about feeling alienated from my neighbours, my friends, my own family, my heritage clashing with myself, and struggling with my own identity as an outsider despite being "home".
Danny Rand's story is not the story of an immigrant. It's the story of a spoiled kid who went abroad and expects everybody to accept him back home because he said so. That's not an immigrant's story. You know why? Because immigrants are scared of being torn apart from all that they know, or returning to a "home" they do not know -- and they've already experienced it or fear it, and they often don't know where "home" is. They're separate from their new home because they're alienated there, and they cannot go back because they've changed too mach from where they came from. That's the struggle of the immigrant.
Danny isn't concerned about that. He wants to return home, he knows where and what it is, and he does so without ever struggling about it. That's why I can't take Iron Fist seriously as a story about supposed "immigrants".
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I see what they are saying and I think they're way off the mark.
Had they been complaining about Tom Cruise becoming the leader of the Satsuma Rebellion in The Last Samurai or Rick O'Connell turning out to be the Medjai's "Chosen One" courtesy of once long ago getting a tattoo on his wrist in the Brendan Fraser's Mummy films they would have had a point. But saying that a person can't pass a test of skill despite undergoing years of training for it just because they have the wrong skin pigmentation is... very racist actually.
If memory serves me right, you once posted saying that you are a 1st generation immigrant to Canada from Haiti. I would think you'd (like me) find the notion of "lol, immigrants can't assimilate or succeed in their adoptive countries" rather offensive.
A man journeys to a nation he only had heard stories of as a land of prosperity and embraces it as his home only to be denied and attacked by those in power, with the only turn around coming once the privileged few realize they can use him?
I don't know, sounds like an immigrant tale to me
That said, the "embraces the new home with more patriotism than the natives" immigrant story is actually fairly common, especially among those fleeing persecution. Families acting like their new home is way more home than the Old Country ever was is a pretty standard piece. That's not the Iron Fist story at all, but it's worth noting.
Revlid
blob of bugs
- Location
- England
Miiight want to familiarize yourself with Chinese mythology.
This was already pointed out to me way-back-when I first said it, and I felt appropriately sheepish.
So you seem to be upset about 2 unrelated things:
1) You're upset about the fight chorography, which is not managed by the lead actor and would therefore suck regardless of who was cast.
2) You're upset that they didn't change the backstory from "child is orphaned and is raised in a different culture, faces adversity stemming from it" to "guy goes on a soul-searching trip to his ancestral homeland". Although both stories have merit, your reasoning is "only Asians can learn Kung Fu".
Oh yes I do.
(see PM)
I think the show touched on all the points you mentioned though it didn't always do a good job of showcasing them. Throughout the show Dannydoes struggle with his identity and not knowing where home is – it is pointed out several times by himself and other characters. In the end he decides that Kun'lun is his true home.
I disagree with you that "[Danny's is a] story of a spoiled kid who went abroad and expects everybody to accept him back home… immigrants are scared of being torn apart from all that they know, or returning to a "home" they do not know". Statistically speaking, ~25% of immigrants do return to their homeland because they can't handle the culture shock of their new adoptive country. And indeed, out of those that return some are again shocked and upset to see that their home is changed from how they remember it, that other treat them as "foreign" and that they've been looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses. Other than personal anecdotes, I recall reading about a Japanese-Canadian artist from the middle 20th century who had that experience and choose to return to Canada.
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
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No, the skill of the actor in question is very much relevant - you can't build a house with no regards to the materials you build it with. Familiarity with martial arts is very much important for shows like this, though by all accounts there were massive issues in production scheduling too. Come on now.
Huh, TIL. I actually thought it was just some magical fictional Central Asian country but turns out nope!
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
This is a strawman.
He's annoyed at the "Mighty Whitey" plot element, which is both tired old cliche, and totally carries a lot of racist implications.
Idris Elba is a fantastic actor -- yet in the latest Gunslinger movie he is completely wooden (due to the incompetence of the director from what I hear).
Exactly.
No it's not. Fernandel literally says:
Addressed here:
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mothematics
How wide is the concept of "you"?
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- the bottom of a coffee cup
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- She/Her
Okay, look. I'm not saying that production isn't a huge factor, because it is. What I'm saying is that in a show that requires actors to show off martial arts... you want people who can do martial arts well. Which means getting people who already know how to do martial arts (and there are a lot of actors who specialize specifically in making martial arts films and television). Which the show should have done.
I can't speak with complete confidence as to the casting process behind the show but I can firmly state that Hollywood - and Bollywood - and much of China - has plenty of good English-speaking martial artists-actors, so bluntly casting who they did with the hopes of gussying up the secondary craft in production and post- is just lazy television production. It's like how Disney keeps fucking casting actors that can't sing in musicals, like Emma Waston - it's just a bad idea all around that comes from a lack of confidence in marketing.
You really don't have to keep making excuses for the show you know? It's fine to like something with issues, or even this show - nobody's sneering through their monitor at you for being ~a plebe~ because you like Iron Fist.
Saying they should have cast someone who knows martial arts instead of trying to bank on a star from Game of Thrones to draw in viewers? That I can agree with.
Saying that they should have cast an Asian actor specifically? That's what I have a problem with and what I have been arguing with people about.
I'm... not making excuses or even saying it's a particularly good show.
I'm taking issue with people who are essentially saying "immigrants can't assimilate or become heroes of their adoptive nation".
Chloe Sullivan
Subdefective
- Location
- 1630 Revello Drive, Sunnydale CA
The whole point of Iron Fist in the first place was to exploit OOH, Asian Culture. Very Exotic. Much Wuxia.
Which is ethnocentric as heck. Danny Rand being white in the original iron fist was intentionally "Mighty Whitey"
Continuing to portray him as white (when race lists are common place in modern fiction) can be taken to imply approval of the "Mighty Whitey" narrative.
So if you choose not to implicitly condone a shitty racist trope from yesteryear, what are your alternative options? Basically 99% Asians? I mean you could find some Capoeria master from Brazil, but why?
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Believe me, from what I've seen of Danny Rand in Iron Fist, I'm probably more aware of Chinese culture than him, even though I'm just a pale-ass wannabe 中国通.
Seriously, if Iron Fist was trying to portray Danny Rand as having assimilated into Chinese culture? They failed horribly. There's a scene in Iron Fist where Danny Rand challenges a martial arts in her own school, in front of her students, and mocks her directly to her face. As an amateur martial artist who's travelled to China, I wanted to scream. He came across as a brutish, rude thug with no respect for elders and superiors, knowledge of the tradition and culture he claims to be a part of, he got all of the little things that are just so important wrong, and just... I sincerely hoped somebody would beat the fucking crap out of him. That sounds vicious, but it felt just right at the time.
He has nothing to do with anything I recognise about Asian/Chinese culture and being an immigrant. I absolutely agree with you that immigrants can assimilate and become heroes of their adoptive nation. I admire those of my friends who have worked so very hard to become a part of their new home and grab all the opportunities they have been given with both hands.
But what I'm saying is that Iron Fist failed at portraying such a character with Danny Rand.
That's it. It's just bad fiction, and people hailing it as "an immigrant's story" is a step backwards for us all.
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- Location
- Brittany, France
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- He/Him
Like I don't know about actual Chinese culture but in Asian kung fu movies this is literally what the uncouth arrogant antagonist does before getting his ass kicked by Our Hero.
This man gets it.
Like, I realise comparing Ip Man with Iron Fist is like asking a toddler to go up against an Abrams in terms of comparison, and they are two very different characters in very different situations and circumstances, but we have a similar scene: a martial artist acknowledged to be a master coming to talk smack at another master's home, intending to prove themselves.
Look at this. This man is not the hero. He's the bad guy -- rude, disrespectful, arrogant, and boorish -- and he deserves to lose. And so he does.
But even then he pauses to let Ip Man's son drive by on his toy tricycle, remembering that there's limits to wanting to make a name for yourself. He also tells Ip Man he'll pay the costs for wrecking his house. And near the end of the fight, he realises that he's facing someone greater in skill, and yet charges forward anyway without begging for mercy.
Those things are sparks of genuine humanity I never saw in Danny Rand, and that's what made me believe that despite everything, the arrogant master is still a master. You know, someone that deserves respect.
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The issue is, like @Chloe Sullivan said, Danny Rand from his inception as a comic character is a tired racist cliche. He's also not the first such character to grace the MCU. So his Netflix adaption could have made up for this by giving him a race lift.
The above isn't the only route to make up for this. They could have kept Iron Fist the Monk of Flowers, but address the issue of the Mighty Whitey cliche and cultural appropriation. There wasn't even a joke about it through the entire season. It was like let's pretend none of this is an issue at all. It was almost like let's pretend race doesn't even exist; all that went away back in the 60s after Martin Luther King Jr. gave an awesome speech. And this is especially disappointing after Luke Cage.
I often considered they could have tackled this from an immigrant angle along with addressing cultural appropriation, and white and class privileges. It was obvious that Danny Rand was an outsider in Kun'lun despite reaching the highly prestigious place he earned in their society. It's why he left after all. Then they kind of played with how he was still an outsider back in his home country and culture, but it didn't come off very well. This also became lost in the poorly thought out corporate drama and the way the Hand was acting, which was just bad plotting regardless of the pseudo-Asian martial arts backdrop.
What they should have done, especially to make it relevant to modern NYC concerns, is explore the plot of the Hand using Rand Enterprises (or whatever the company was called) in buying up property in Brooklyn (or were they in the Bronx?). They could have used this to explore gentrification and particularly how it effects People of Color. This could have been the vehicle in which to discuss how marginalized people in the States are being exploited and basically becoming marginalized - seeing businesses, institutions, and the community itself being discarded despite working hard in this society and spending up to several generations building them. Danny could relate to this and try and become their voice on the corporate board, exploring how a rich white man - who is at least visibly an insider - can use his social and economic advantages to help in a responsible way. Danny could be able to relate since he was the outsider in a magical Kung Fu temple land.
Instead we got a disjointed and badly planned narrative. Iron Fist couldn't decide if it was a corporate drama, a martial arts flick, or a super hero show. Instead of addressing the foundational issues of the character to begin with, they just ignored it and hoped it would go away in whatever the hell they were trying to present. At least in my opinion, the unwillingness of Netflix and the MCU to deal with the core problem of Iron Fist lead to this convulted mess.
The above isn't the only route to make up for this. They could have kept Iron Fist the Monk of Flowers, but address the issue of the Mighty Whitey cliche and cultural appropriation. There wasn't even a joke about it through the entire season. It was like let's pretend none of this is an issue at all. It was almost like let's pretend race doesn't even exist; all that went away back in the 60s after Martin Luther King Jr. gave an awesome speech. And this is especially disappointing after Luke Cage.
I often considered they could have tackled this from an immigrant angle along with addressing cultural appropriation, and white and class privileges. It was obvious that Danny Rand was an outsider in Kun'lun despite reaching the highly prestigious place he earned in their society. It's why he left after all. Then they kind of played with how he was still an outsider back in his home country and culture, but it didn't come off very well. This also became lost in the poorly thought out corporate drama and the way the Hand was acting, which was just bad plotting regardless of the pseudo-Asian martial arts backdrop.
What they should have done, especially to make it relevant to modern NYC concerns, is explore the plot of the Hand using Rand Enterprises (or whatever the company was called) in buying up property in Brooklyn (or were they in the Bronx?). They could have used this to explore gentrification and particularly how it effects People of Color. This could have been the vehicle in which to discuss how marginalized people in the States are being exploited and basically becoming marginalized - seeing businesses, institutions, and the community itself being discarded despite working hard in this society and spending up to several generations building them. Danny could relate to this and try and become their voice on the corporate board, exploring how a rich white man - who is at least visibly an insider - can use his social and economic advantages to help in a responsible way. Danny could be able to relate since he was the outsider in a magical Kung Fu temple land.
Instead we got a disjointed and badly planned narrative. Iron Fist couldn't decide if it was a corporate drama, a martial arts flick, or a super hero show. Instead of addressing the foundational issues of the character to begin with, they just ignored it and hoped it would go away in whatever the hell they were trying to present. At least in my opinion, the unwillingness of Netflix and the MCU to deal with the core problem of Iron Fist lead to this convulted mess.
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- Mons Regius
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- He/Him
I was not one of the people who wanted an Asian or Asian-American playing Danny Rand, as I felt it changed an offensive cliché for another, in this case "all Asians know martial arts", but I still felt the complaint had a fairly comprehensible basis to it. As stated above, Iron Fist was literally created back in the 70s because its writer had seen martial arts movies with Bruce Lee in it and thought it would be cool to make a similar superhero in comic book form. That was fine and dandy as a premise 30 years ago, but nowadays, in the year of our Lord 2017, it hasn't aged well and thus reeks of 'white savior' (I mean, Danny was literally the most gifted student Lei Kung had ever trained in the original). Hence why I was disappointed that they played it straight instead of thinking it through and downplay the mighty whitey elements while keeping the story. Ultimately, it's not the fact that he learns martial arts or that he was raised in an Asian culture that is the problem, but that he is the best/chosen one at that.
It's not that it would be that hard to still have a white Iron Fist, they would just have to think through the implications. They could do it like the comics, and have the Iron Fist merely be one of the Immortal Weapons. Danny would not be the best, but one of the best, which isn't bad at all. And it would also mean the other Immortal Weapons wouldn't be reduced to lame side characters like the Bride of Nine Spiders was in the show.
Or, as someone suggested in this thread I believe, have Danny get his role by playing on his status as an outsider: since he is a child born from a rich family owning a huge multinational corporation, Danny is chosen as the perfect representative of Kun-Lun to act as a bridge between the rest of the world and this hidden place, kinda like Wonder Woman. He still gets his power, he still goes to New York and now has a clear reason to get Rand corporation back, he is still torn between his duty and his home, etc. It would still serve as a better showing of the role of the Iron Fist instead of what the show gave us, which was...standing around on a snowy mountain and/or unconvincigly fighting in the woods against Chinese
Also, the "years of training" happened pretty much offscreen. The only flashbacks we saw was child Danny getting beaten up with sticks and then the cave where the dragon was...and that was it. We can only assume since we are told and Danny has the Fist, but we sure as shit didn't witness any training.
2nd generation, actually.
But that's the thing, I didn't see that message at all. Certainly, in between the moments I was trying not to fall asleep, there was an element of Stranger in a Strange Land, but do you know what the story most reminded me of? The 'lost prince/heir's rightful return' trope, present in the stories of Oedipus, Karna, and Moses among others. The boy was lost for a while, thought dead by his enemies, only to triumphally return years later and take back his birthright.
Danny's different cultural upbringing and alienation is only barely relevant in the first episodes, like in how he prays to Buddha, and then this is promptly forgotten once he gets his inheritance back. I honestly thought there would be more representation of the Asian community of New York, just like Daredevil and Luke Cage showed us various ethnic communities before, but nope. We only get that brief New Year's celebration in the pilot, the appearance of the triad, and sometimes the writers remember to use Colleen correctly instead of making her look deranged with her wild characterization, but other than that, nada.
It was the same tale we have seen again and again of rich boy attempting to do right and fight the ebul corporate America. And even that they did poorly.
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Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
Having skipped Iron Fist on my way to Defenders, it completely escaped me that Danny was Buddhist or spiritual in any way. He comes off more like someone who vacationed in K'un-Lun for a summer and picked up the art of Glow Fist before coming back to New York, not someone who was raised in isolation in a foreign land. Defenders does a decent job of picking at the scab of Danny's privilege by at least having it pointed out to his face, as well as emphasizing his hero complex and how bullshit it is.
Fuck, I was more invested in Colleen's sub-arc than any of Danny's shit and Danny was the literal MacGuffin of the show!