I can’t read the purple person’s face in the last panel.
Same face from the frame before it, but eyes in a state of shock, blank.
Don’t forget the cross popping vein (universal symbol of anger)
Both of their eyes turn white. That little small white circle is her eye focusing on his phone.
I always thought race swap gender swapping roles was a cash grab and a way to just make people fight. And it seems to work every time. I personally think it’s a slap in the face to the genders and races that were swapped in. If new movies can’t make new characters and stories with different races and sexes without seemingly purposefully causing controversy by replacing one race or sex with the other I’d take that as a low blow.
It’s hard to do well, but I disagree that it’s a slap in the face or a low blow. The gender swap of Starbuck from Battlestar Galactic was seen as sacrilege by fans, but she became one of the highlights of the show. Miles Morales was a creative way to do a race swap for Spider Man, and the narrative is richer for it. Jason Mamoa turned Aquaman from white to Polynesian, and the depiction was better than ever. Would Nick Fury be better as a white guy, as he was originally for decades, instead of Samuel L Jackson?
And then there are all the “swaps” that happen before the first day of filming, like Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver’s character in Alien, who was originally (edit) going to be cast as a man. This was “controversial” at the time, with people decrying “political correctness”. I would not take “causing controversy” as a reliable indicator for whether something sucks.
Edit: point taken about gender neutral script. See discussion below.
Miles Morales isn’t a race swap. That’s why it works and everyone likes it (well, except actual racists).
It’s an entirely new character that exists in the spiderman multiverse and has a different personality and backstory from Peter Parker. That’s what inclusivity actually should look like.
Is that why it works, or is that just how they did it?
Imo, it’s why it works. It’s different and original, and even fits in the same story as the old ones.
Obviously I have no objective proof of that, but you can’t even hypothetically think about what would’ve happened if it was just a race swap, because the whole premise of the movie is that Miles isn’t Peter Parker.
It worked so well that the thought of it as a race swap never crossed my mind, it’s just an alternate universe Spiderman story. Spiderverse is genuinely one of my top Spiderman films, because it felt like a comic book rather than a superhero movie. It’s just got such a unique feel.
You can if you squint your eyes. I don’t think about how Peter Parker has shaken hands with his successor nearly as much as I think about Spiderman’s new name being Miles Morales.
And also because I am perfectly comfortable with a black Spiderman. This resistance to thinking of them as the same person is just not felt in my brain.
This is a learned skill, by the way. Or unlearned, maybe. I.e., you should think about it.
I used to think I had a problem with Nintendo just deciding for some game that Link would be a girl now. Not a different canon, not a different timeline, not Zelda in disguise: just “Linkle.” In the years I’ve had to think about this, I’ve realized I do not give two shits about it. I might even welcome the sensational 5-gum freshness of it.
Everyone likes him because the storytelling is good, which proves my point: Race/gender swaps are fine when done right. But when Miles Morales was first introduced, it was considered a race swap, and the usual crowd definitely moaned about it.
The multiverse explanation reminds me of people saying “But the elves liked being slaves!” in Harry Potter. Yeah, they were written that way, and they could have been written another way. The multiverse is being used to narratively justify a black Puerto Rican Spider-Man.
But when Miles Morales was first introduced, it was considered a race swap, and the usual crowd definitely moaned about it.
“The usual crowd” probably has different meanings between us. You’re linking to a site that (besides misusing the term raceswap) is absolutely positive about it, cites an editor that’s positive about it, and even the article it links to when talking about “reactions” is pretty accepting of it.
Who, exactly, is this “usual crowd”? Some racist on /b/? People who listen to Fox 24/7? That’s not nearly the full extent of the current complaints about raceswaps. Plenty of “normal” people complain about whatever Disney decides to put in their remakes, it’s not just that “usual crowd” that moaned about Miles in 2011 (and honestly, complaining about diversity inclusion when it wasn’t “trendy” yet is kind of a joke).
The multiverse explanation reminds me of people saying “But the elves liked being slaves!” in Harry Potter. Yeah, they were written that way, and they could have been written another way.
…how are those things even related? Elves in HP are a concept since very early on. And they were probably introduced with the very intention of sending that… pretty disturbing message. The Multiverse in Spiderman is effectively a late addition, but one that fits the narrative and is a way to add diversity to the franchise without messing too much with the original lore.
Where’s the issue with the multiverse? How is it nearly as malicious as HP’s portrayal of elves?
You’ve misunderstood so many of my points, this is exhausting.
You insist on gatekeeping the term “raceswap”. Fine. Call it “reimagining an existing character as another race”, if you want. You would have to be delusional to deny that Miles Morales is a Black-Latino version of Spider-Man.
The article I linked to mentions the backlash and controversy about political correctness and Morales. I’m a little surprised you missed the point there.
I’m not sure what specifically you’re on about with the “usual crowd” paragraph. I know that lots of non-racists are also against “reimagining an existing character as another race”. I agree that race swaps can go wrong a lot.
Please read this carefully: The specific claim I am contesting is OP’s strong thesis that raceswapping is always bad. I gave examples of it sometimes being good. Miles Morales is certainly an example, down to the criticisms of too much political correctness, racists complaining, fan “controversy”, claims that it’s a cash grab, etc.
My point was not that the multiverse is bad like elf slavery is bad. I am saying that your explanation gets things backwards: the multiverse doesn’t show how it’s not a race swap. On the contrary, the race swap is the reason why they needed to use the multiverse as a narrative tool. Forget the analogy to elf slavery if you don’t get it. The point is that some writer wrote a multiverse storyline in order to justify the existence of a Spider-Man of a different race.
You insist on gatekeeping the term “raceswap”. Fine. Call it “reimagining an existing character as another race”, if you want. You would have to be delusional to deny that Miles Morales is a Black-Latino version of Spider-Man.
Except it’s not even “reimagining an existing character as another race”. It’s a completely different character, with a different personality and a different backstory. The “existing character” is even in the same movie. The only thing they have in common is that they have spider powers, and they aren’t even the same powers. Goku and Superman have more similarities than those two. And that’s why
The specific claim I am contesting is OP’s strong thesis that raceswapping is always bad. I gave examples of it sometimes being good. Miles Morales is certainly an example
This isn’t a good way to contest it. What OP said is “If new movies can’t make new characters and stories with different races and sexes without seemingly purposefully causing controversy by replacing one race or sex with the other I’d take that as a low blow”, and Miles Morales is exactly that: a new character with a new story.
The article I linked to mentions the backlash and controversy about political correctness and Morales. I’m a little surprised you missed the point there.
My point is: where is that backlash and controversy? The article talks about it but only shows people painting it as a good thing. This feels like the one time where “People want to cancel Snow White because of the non-consensual kiss!” made the headlines, and then the headlines were more than the actual people complaining.
I am saying that your explanation gets things backwards: the multiverse doesn’t show how it’s not a race swap. On the contrary, the race swap is the reason why they needed to use the multiverse as a narrative tool. Forget the analogy to elf slavery if you don’t get it. The point is that some writer wrote a multiverse storyline in order to justify the existence of a Spider-Man of a different race.
First, not really. The multiverse exists to have Miles interact with Peter. It’s not needed for him to exist, since a Peter Parker already existed in his own universe. That’s also why I’m saying they’re different characters. If anything, the narrative tool is the original spiderman of that universe dying.
And even then, if it was a narrative tool for that purpose, so what? Every author uses narrative tools to tell the story they want to tell. This isn’t anything new, and no one is bothered by their existence. They’re annoying when they’re blatantly shoehorned (i.e. Star Wars 9), but everything people want is a reasonable explanation for stuff and it’s usually good. Obviously, unless the message they’re trying to convey is disturbing to them (like “slavery can be good” to normal people, or “black people can be superheroes” to racists).
Really, I don’t get the point of that last argument. What did I say that you’re trying to confute? I agree I probably misunderstood that.
Alien didn’t swap anyone. The characters were initially written as gender neutral without first names.
Kind of. Excerpt from this article by Ridley Scott:
“I think the idea actually came from Alan Ladd, Jr. I think it was Alan Ladd who said, ‘Why can’t Ripley be a woman?’ And there was a long pause that, at that moment, I never thought about it. I thought, why not? It’s a fresh direction, the ways I thought about that. And away we went.”
This was the late 70s. “Man” was still so powerfully default that Ridley Scott had not even thought of the possibility of casting a leading woman action hero before a meeting with an exec. That, to me, is clearly a gender swap moment, because until that moment, it was a given that Ripley would be a man. The gender-neutral script just allowed for the possibility.
Nick Fury used to be white guy
I always thought race swap gender swapping roles was a cash grab
There are a lot of instances in which is can put a new spin on an old trope. Spiderman is a great example. The various swapped Spider-folks all have a unique setting and character arcs. The idea of “Spiderman” as a set of powers they all happen to share give a loose cover for a bunch of really compelling super-hero stories that could only come from a particular perspective.
If new movies can’t make new characters and stories with different races and sexes without seemingly purposefully causing controversy by replacing one race or sex with the other I’d take that as a low blow.
Its not uncommon for a writer/director to have an idea for a piece of media that’s original and compelling, but get told “We have a zillion dollars for Generic IP and pocket change for Original Cinema”. So the original gets adapted to IP. The lead in your spy thrill gets hot-swapped for James Bond. A gothic horror gets turned into a Dracula or Frankenstein film. The sci-fi epic becomes another entry in Star Wars cannon. The coming-of-age film gets Barbie as the lead character.
The IP is what guarantees a minimum viable audience, because its immediately recognizable. Then the screenplay itself is wrapped around the central cast. IP is just an efficient form of marketing.
Fiona and Cake worked, but only because the show is not really about Fiona and Cake. Also, it meta-acknowledges the whole thing right away, that they’ve been shoehorned into a universe where they don’t belong.
Fiona and Cake already existed in the original adventure time show anyways.
Not really. They were intentionally framed as a gender swap fanfic written by Ice King, and only existed as throwaway episodes. They were a meta-joke on the whole thing.
When I heard of the new show I rolled my eyes and thought “of all the Adventure Time stories to tell they picked a dumb gender swap gag?”
But as mentioned it wasn’t that at all and was actually well written.
Yeah, that’s a whole self-aware/self-referencing thing that doesn’t really work as a comparison in this context
Just curious: how’d you feel if they literally and publicly role the dice for any character where race or gender isn’t required for the plot?
Ridley Scott in the original Alien movie literally did that. The names of the characters sound gender neutral, and the production hired actors who would just seem good fit for the role. Now that I think about it, the race and gender of the crew did not matter in the plot, because the main character and attraction is the Alien!
I don’t know if that’s true for The Thing, but the names certainly seem race-neutral (although an all-male cast).
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Part of this is that idiots will predictably react and cause a distraction. Rey and Rose Tito are not what made new Star Wars bad, but the discourse was ruled by WOM BAD for months. Or Ghostbusters or whatever. Going out of your way to attract bad faith criticism so that you can conflate the legitimate with the ridiculous.
I really tried to watch Velma, and the only way I felt I could watch it was to totally disassociate it from Scooby Doo.
The problem in doing so, which is obvious in hindsight, is that on its own merits, there isn’t really a show there that can stand on its own two feet and be compelling. That realisation alone should have been enough for the networks to pass, but with star power assigned to the writing and a known IP, I guess this was enough to get the green light.
I’m all for creative retelling of stories, but the fundamentals don’t change. The absolute WORST thing you can do, once the reviews come in, is to criticise the critical response. Sure, many probably didn’t get the artistic vision, but ultimately you are in the entertainment industry, and the creator and producers arguably gave themselves a heavy job in creating a show that caters across several cultural subjects, while also limiting themselves to the Scooby Doo/Mystery Inc gang. It’s why I don’t consider it “lazy” - if anything, they shot for the stars and hit the ceiling.
IMO, it’s a bad show, but could have been good if they had written original characters. It would have highlighted that some characters were either unlikeable/lazy, or that the premise needed more work.
Don’t worry, Scooby Doo is alright… doing just fine… (cw)
I love this video. That disgusted sound Scooby make after the we are meta line was perfect.
Geez what’s next, a Breaking Bad show without Walter White or Jesse?
Walt and Jesse are there but there’s no drugs.
Breaking Bad reimagined this time it’s about the bad breakup between Walter and Jesse stretched into 8 seasons.
Family Guy without the family… or the guy
Or an All in the Family show with no Archie Bunker? Or a Happy Days show with no Fonzie or Richie Cunningham?
At this rate they’re going to be making Star Wars stuff without Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.
The irony here is that it could very well be much better than whatever Disney did, especially if you consider some of the stuff from the 90s and 2000s games, like Dark Forces or Knights of the Old Republic.
Hey, that last one could work as a movie if not a TV series. Chuck Cunningham comes back.
They could reshoot a few scenes from the TV show with lookalike actors, have Chuck play out his final bit, and then a few more scenes from the show that make it clear that no-one remembers him. At all.
Now, think about it: Extra-terrestrial aliens are canon in Happy Days (Mork and Mindy was a spin-off), so it’s possibly some other alien race abducted Chuck and caused everyone to forget he ever existed.
Depending on what time period he comes back to, this could be played for laughs or for existential horror.
Hear me out. They should’ve put someone’s brain in a dog to make Scooby.
Why the everliving fuck they didn’t do that when the big bad guy was cutting brains out of people is just beyond comprehension.
“Scooby-Doo doesn’t have Scooby-Doo” is like saying that my PB & J sandy has neither PB, nor J, nor is it a sandy. Like, what are we saying, at this point? It’s obviously not even the same thing, it’s like, a bean bag chair, or whatever else. At the same time, I don’t find myself crying for how the symbol has been dissolved, because that shit is happening all the time and only iron law of reality is that everything changes eventually.
I dunno I get it but at the same time the shit strikes me as dumb and every time I hear somebody complain about this shit I get flashbacks to 4chan and also real life where I’m gonna be like “yeah sure that’s kinda stupid, scooby doo should have scooby doo or whatever” and then somebody’s gonna take that as an opportunity to start extrapolating a bunch of shit about how postmodernism is ruining the culture and yadda yadda white genocide, and I’m like. Damn, I thought we were gonna talk about scooby doo.
It literally feels another show with the mystery gang paint slapped on that’s incredibly mean spirited with the jokes.
I don’t even think it just feels like that, is what I’m saying, I think that’s literally what it is, exactly, to a T. “Mystery gang paint” is right on the money.
That is probably why the show is not called scooby doo.
Or like a Star Wars show without Darth Vader
And this is why Araki always has a “JoJo”, so he can keep using the same JJBA brand for his -mostly unrelated- stories lol /hj
Maybe because scooby doo was my least favorite cartoon as a kid, on Saturday mornings it came on once the good shows were done and it was time to play video games, but I didn’t mind Velma. It wasn’t great, I’m not going to go out of my way defending it, but it was a solid okay. I don’t get the hate, it seems overblown for a mid show. It had some jokes, solid sleep time show rewatch (to ruin any credibility my opinion has, brickleberry is in the same category for me).
Which version of scooby doo? The original run of the show was very different from what it morphed into.
Coooiiiiinnnn. Ccooooiiiiiinnnn.
Whatever was on Saturday morning in ~'94, can’t honestly say.
It came on and was boring so I didn’t pay attention.
The 90s Scooby Doo cartoons were pretty awful cash grabs and a far cry from even the first, what 3-4 Scooby shows. Everything from Scrappy Doo until the 2000s reboot (Mystery Inc, which my kids LOVED) was junk.
Scooby Doo started truly scraping the bottom of the barrel when they decided the ghosts were real. The one thing I respected the original show for was that it was about being a skeptic and overcoming your fear of the supernatural, because the supernatural wasn’t real.
Now, now. Scooby Doo on Zombie Island was absolute gold.
Ouch, yeah, brickleberry. Ouch.
My thinking with sleep time shows is they need to be predictable, with the occasional joke.
Interesting enough so that when I’m trying to sleep, but can’t I can chuckle, but not so interesting that I want to open my eyes and look.
You know, a generic mid show.
Ah, that makes sense. I listen to science/astronomy videos on YouTube to fall asleep
That makes sense. Mine are just shows that I’ve already watched a million times.
I don’t want to give myself a Pavlovian response to fall asleep during shows I actually like, lol
It’s a shame that the first episode is the worst of the season. I also think it was ok, but my wife (who’s not terminally online like us, and didn’t knew the discourse around the show) loved it and couldn’t get why internet hated it.
Im with you on Velma. It wasn’t all that bad, and the art direction at times was impressive for what they were going for.
the wording on this comment sounds like copium to me…
okay…
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Best Scooby Doo adaptation is the Venture Bros episode with the gang, and I will die on that hill
There was also the Scooby Doo episode of Supernatural. Maybe not as much of an adaptation as it was a crossover… but it was still great.
Scoobynatural is one of my favorite episodes of Supernatural, right up there with Changing Channels. I wish they had gotten the rights, the time, and the cameo money to do an X-Files crossover.
Haven’t seen it, but it must be fucking amazing because Mysteries Inc. sets a pretty high bar.
They’re middle aged and give off strong “peaked in high school” vibes, ESPECIALLY fred
I’ll always have a special place in my heart for the 2002 film, but that’s mostly because Sarah Michelle Geller is a smokeshow and I’ll watch just about anything she’s in.
What about the Harvey Birdman episode where Shaggy is on trial for driving high?
Bro. Do yourself a favour and check out Scooby&Shag as a comic on Webtoon. It’s the best thing to come out these years.
Wait, was Scooby-Doo not in the new show?
Scooby-Doo was cut, there’s a lot of race swapping, and basically it follows Velma who is an amazing girl-boss (/s) who solves all the mysteries, and everybody else is just kind of “around”. There seems to be a lot of resentment of anyone who is wealthier, more successful, or popular. Fred is a punching bag for a lot of jokes, he’s just a rich white boy who doesn’t really know how to do anything.
Papa Meat (Hunter Hancock of MeatCanyon) has a review. It’s pretty balanced, but even that’s still negative, mainly rated high as it was because he liked the art. 😅
Apparently, despite a seemingly horrendous reception by the public, it has been renewed for a second season. ¯\(°_o)/¯
I think race swapping is a non-issue, unless doing so messes with the character’s backstory or story arc in a meaningful way. So I could care less about that.
I’m all for racial inclusivity but just create a new fuckin character.
If you can’t be racially inclusive by making a whole new character then all you’re doing is pandering/race baiting.
Why does it matter that the characters retain their original races?
Imagine if you just made Peter Parker black. Cool, I guess. But is it enough just to swap the skin color? IMO, it is not. You have to represent the culture as well. So you change the family dynamics, the character background, relationship dynamics etc… after all of that is it still essentially Peter Parker? If so you have succesfully race swapped a character but most of the time I think it fundementally changes the character. At that point I believe it is better to create new character like Miles Morales and call him Spider-Man. But that is just my opinion.
Imagine being an adult and a new show for kids doesn’t appeal to you though.
Problem is that the new show isn’t for kids. It is aimed at adults. I mean… it’s on HBO.
You would let a child watch Velma?
imagine being an adult and rooting for a shitty sports team that never wins because its the one you grew up near.
Why would you bother to resurrect the corpse of a cartoon long dead that children don’t care about and then fail to put the titular character in?
People only cared about the dog, and maybe Shaggy.
Don’t tell me you liked Velma. The only thing she ever did was lose her glasses.
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