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Mehcad Brooks is James Olsen
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- SupergirlTV
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- erikphandel
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- elnovo1234
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erikphandel wrote: So........... The inclusion thing again... I honestly don't know why they have to push black people into everything nowadays. I mean, I'm not racist, far from it. But c'mon, you're adapting something from a comic book. Jimmy Olsen is a caucasian redhead. If you want to have a black character in the show, you either choose a black character from the comics, or create a black character
"The inclusion thing"? You mean broadening the palette of pop culture beyond the lily-white norms of 1938? I don't see a problem with that. In fact, it's a good thing and if they choose to use an existing character with name recognition, good for them. If they'd invented a new character, someone would have complained about them shoe-horning a new character into the mythos just to be diverse. If they'd used Ron Troupe, someone would have accused them of overlooking Jimmy Olsen just to be diverse.
Good god, the DC universe has been completely re-booted twice. Origins are totally different from one version to the next. Wonder Woman can change from being sculpted from clay to being the bastard daughter of Zeus, Huntress goes from being Batman's daughter to the daughter of a mobster back to being Batmans's daughter again, but god forbid they mess with the sanctity of Jimmy frigging Olsen's genealogy! Superman's pal? Whiz-kid photographer? Signal watch? No, the only thing important about Jimmy Olsen is that he's a ginger. Bollocks to that.
- GeekSeven
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I also think that setup makes a more interesting show -- but then I don't get paid to write successful TV shows either, so maybe it's a good thing they don't listen to me.
But they're doing this to set up a story they think is worth telling with this character. And this stuff is as old as storytelling.
Sherlock Holmes in modern day London!! Sherlock Holmes in modern day NEW York! The fans want to see the classic iconic characters on the screen!
What matters is if they cast a good actor who can inhabit the role they need, and do so in an interesting manner that aids the show. Race is only a small part of the character's identity, it's hardly a defining characteristic for Jimmy Olson -- though this isn't him. It's JAMES Olson, with that small change they are indicating that they are already looking to alter Jimmy's character. Choosing this actor is just one of the ways they are doing that.
Sure they could have changed his name and made a completely new character. I don't know why they did not (but i also don't get why Clark Kent and Lois Lane are no longer a couple). Olson is really a Superman character, not a Supergirl one (though he has interacted with her many times). Still, by switching him around to be in Supergirl, and not Superman's Pal, they're messing with his character. I think this is of more importance than the race of the actor they hired.
But the dynamics of the show they are building, it all inter-relates. I'm going to let them tell their story, and judge this choice when I have the full context.
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- TwiceOnThursdays
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As for the TV series, they made Iris West black as well in the Flash series. I don't think that has been such a big deal with the romantic connection with Barry on the show.
ElF
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- elnovo1234
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He's just as much Jimmy Olson as the character they're portraying is Supergirl (a character is more than some cosmetic attributes or list of powers).
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fats
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- fats
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fats wrote: i seriously don’t care who plays Jimmy, as long as he is a better actor than the guy they had in Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, he was awful.
fats
I was just thinking- of all the time Olsen has been done in Live action and animation...the Guy in Lois and Clark maybe the best(well the first one. they recast it in the second season and he wasn't any better). He had a little bit of swagger to him and a vauge sence of New York charm that kind of worked for the part.
This is the best i state. I don't think its actually great, or all that good, but it was fun for TV supporting role
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- castor
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geekseven wrote:
erikphandel wrote: So........... The inclusion thing again... I honestly don't know why they have to push black people into everything nowadays. I mean, I'm not racist, far from it. But c'mon, you're adapting something from a comic book. Jimmy Olsen is a caucasian redhead. If you want to have a black character in the show, you either choose a black character from the comics, or create a black character
"The inclusion thing"? You mean broadening the palette of pop culture beyond the lily-white norms of 1938? I don't see a problem with that. In fact, it's a good thing and if they choose to use an existing character with name recognition, good for them. If they'd invented a new character, someone would have complained about them shoe-horning a new character into the mythos just to be diverse. If they'd used Ron Troupe, someone would have accused them of overlooking Jimmy Olsen just to be diverse.
Good god, the DC universe has been completely re-booted twice. Origins are totally different from one version to the next. Wonder Woman can change from being sculpted from clay to being the bastard daughter of Zeus, Huntress goes from being Batman's daughter to the daughter of a mobster back to being Batmans's daughter again, but god forbid they mess with the sanctity of Jimmy frigging Olsen's genealogy! Superman's pal? Whiz-kid photographer? Signal watch? No, the only thing important about Jimmy Olsen is that he's a ginger. Bollocks to that.
I think that the big point here is: does this change affect the character in any level bu the cosmetic one? I think not, hence it's no big deal for me.
I can see that this casting choice smell of politically correctness, but I insist it's no big deal because it doesn't change any of the character fundamentals. If the production is going to play the character as "sterotypically black" in the worst way possible, then I would have a lot to say about it.
Other characters might be affect deeper by such change: making the human torch black while keeping his sister white is much a bigger deal for me since it involves something of a weirder narrative behind it.
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- Woodclaw
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Every other female companion on the new series of Doctor Who has had a black boy friend.
Clara and Mr. Pink in the last series was so forced and so rammed down our throats that it turned me off to the show.
The actors had actually no chemistry together.
In Arrow they wrote out Digg's African American girlfriend. A great story line with him and his dead brother's widow and replaced her with a new white baby mama.
So they replace one of the very few black FEMALE characters on prime time with a white one.
So much for diversity on Arrow.
Flash got it right. Barry and Iris have great screen presence together.
They are both strong characters.
I have not seen or heard of Mehcad Brooks until today.
The actor is in his 30s so they are already 10 years apart in age difference so we probably won't be seeing the young Jimmy Olsen that I like.
So Jimmy is now James.
He is no longer young.
And he is no longer Superman's pal.
Just make a new character for crying out loud.
To sum up we have plenty of White and African American MALES in superhero shows.
We have a grand total of one African American FEMALE in a superhero show that i watch.
And she is not even super powered.
If the producers had any balls they would have made Supergirl African American.
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- Markiehoe
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Reporter? Check.
Secret love interest? Check.
Alpha,strong and driven? Check.
Works alongside Supergirl's secret identity? Check.
Want to bet he also does the following:
+Tries constantly to figure out Supergirl's secret identity.
+Needs to be bailed out of situations by Supergirl because he's too aggressive in his reporting. The star reporter.
+He's hot for Supergirl, and Kara is hot for him. He works with Kara but would never in a million years guess she's Supergirl. He just takes her for granted.
+ He talks to Kara about how hot Supergirl is, which feeds a touch of romantic comedy that we viewers are privy to, but not the characters.
etc. etc.
The name James Olsen is the canard to trip us all up.
The fact that he's black versus a freckled-faced Irish kid is a detail. What is truly significant is that he's a male Lois Lane.
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shadar wrote: I think everyone is missing the key issue. James Olsen is the new Lois Lane.
Reporter? Check.
Secret love interest? Check.
Alpha,strong and driven? Check.
Works alongside Supergirl's secret identity? Check.
Want to bet he also does the following:
+Tries constantly to figure out Supergirl's secret identity.
+Needs to be bailed out of situations by Supergirl because he's too aggressive in his reporting. The star reporter.
+He's hot for Supergirl, and Kara is hot for him. He works with Kara but would never in a million years guess she's Supergirl. He just takes her for granted.
+ He talks to Kara about how hot Supergirl is, which feeds a touch of romantic comedy that we viewers are privy to, but not the characters.
etc. etc.
The name James Olsen is the canard to trip us all up.
The fact that he's black versus a freckled-faced Irish kid is a detail. What is truly significant is that he's a male Lois Lane.
You put a nail on it.
I kind of wonder how much of his original personality if at all will be in. Also at 35, hes about twice as old as the character in the comics is some times depicted. And an actor whose last major role was a football player.
Lois Lane is a tricky character to do-and agian i am going to say that Terry Hatcher maybe did it best. Its a trick of chemestry and humanity. Kinda curious how that plays out. I do think the love intrest who ever it is a big part of the show for good or for bad.
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- castor
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You may have heard that Rush Limbaugh and other neocons have had a conniption fit over talk that the next James Bond might be black –- treason, treason! Like, was THE WIZ treason to L. Frank Baum? That said, I find recent rebootings of Sherlock Holmes as a muscular type or even as a modern detective with a female Watson as rather silly. Holmes was a PERIOD CHARACTER. Take him out of his period, and he's nothing but a familiar name for marketing purposes. Still, at least that isn't as outright offensive as rip-offs like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES.
--Brantley
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brantley wrote: I can't say I really care which characters are rebooted as black instead of white, female instead of male, gay instead of straight, etc. And maybe that's because the Powers That Be don't care -- these changes are just whims; might as well be produced by a random number generator, like the plot complications on daytime soap operas, which had a lot to do with killing off nearly all the soaps.
You may have heard that Rush Limbaugh and other neocons have had a conniption fit over talk that the next James Bond might be black –- treason, treason! Like, was THE WIZ treason to L. Frank Baum? That said, I find recent rebootings of Sherlock Holmes as a muscular type or even as a modern detective with a female Watson as rather silly. Holmes was a PERIOD CHARACTER. Take him out of his period, and he's nothing but a familiar name for marketing purposes. Still, at least that isn't as outright offensive as rip-offs like PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES.
--Brantley
I have to take exception with your characterization of Holmes. He is NOT a PERIOD CHARACTER, he was originally written to be modern to the time the story was written. You are correct in that he's mostly viewed that way now, because the stories are old, and even movies/tv of the character are old. The two modern settings of Holmes are not the first to put Holmes in "current time", it's just that some of those put him in the 20's which seems Period to us now, but were contemporary at the time. It's like saying that Superman and Wonder Woman should always be set in the late 1930's as that's when they were created.
But to me it's a good example. Can you retell this story changing pieces to make them fit? The BBC's Sherlock is excellent, despite me initially thinking it's premise was going to not work. CBS's Elementary while being an entertaining show, I don't view the lead character as "Sherlock Holmes". I do for Sherlock. Too many variables have been flipped for Elementary, and it's ones essential to Holmes (and some on Watson), but the change to New York or Watson's gender aren't it.
Supergirl will face similar issues -- but the primary one is going to be "is is a show worth watching".
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- TwiceOnThursdays
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shadar wrote: I think everyone is missing the key issue. James Olsen is the new Lois Lane.
Reporter? Check.
Secret love interest? Check.
Alpha,strong and driven? Check.
Works alongside Supergirl's secret identity? Check.
Want to bet he also does the following:
+Tries constantly to figure out Supergirl's secret identity.
+Needs to be bailed out of situations by Supergirl because he's too aggressive in his reporting. The star reporter.
+He's hot for Supergirl, and Kara is hot for him. He works with Kara but would never in a million years guess she's Supergirl. He just takes her for granted.
+ He talks to Kara about how hot Supergirl is, which feeds a touch of romantic comedy that we viewers are privy to, but not the characters.
etc. etc.
The name James Olsen is the canard to trip us all up.
The fact that he's black versus a freckled-faced Irish kid is a detail. What is truly significant is that he's a male Lois Lane.
I think this is so spot on that I don't know how I didn't see it before.
I hipped to Kara being "Clark Kent" but totally missed that.
Now I can't wait to see the show to see how right this prediction is. I don't yet know what I think about it, but it does give them a time honored template to work with.
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- TwiceOnThursdays
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ElF
castor wrote: I kind of wonder how much of his original personality if at all will be in. Also at 35, hes about twice as old as the character in the comics is some times depicted. And an actor whose last major role was a football player.
.
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- lfan
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shadar wrote: I think everyone is missing the key issue. James Olsen is the new Lois Lane.
Reporter? Check.
Secret love interest? Check.
Alpha,strong and driven? Check.
Works alongside Supergirl's secret identity? Check.
Want to bet he also does the following:
+Tries constantly to figure out Supergirl's secret identity.
+Needs to be bailed out of situations by Supergirl because he's too aggressive in his reporting. The star reporter.
+He's hot for Supergirl, and Kara is hot for him. He works with Kara but would never in a million years guess she's Supergirl. He just takes her for granted.
+ He talks to Kara about how hot Supergirl is, which feeds a touch of romantic comedy that we viewers are privy to, but not the characters.
etc. etc.
The name James Olsen is the canard to trip us all up.
The fact that he's black versus a freckled-faced Irish kid is a detail. What is truly significant is that he's a male Lois Lane.
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brantley wrote:
TwiceOnThursdays wrote:
brantley wrote: I.
I have to take exception with your characterization of Holmes. He is NOT a PERIOD CHARACTER, he was originally written to be modern to the time the story was written. You are correct in that he's mostly viewed that way now, because the stories are old, and even movies/tv of the character are old. The two modern settings of Holmes are not the first to put Holmes in "current time", it's just that some of those put him in the 20's which seems Period to us now, but were contemporary at the time. It's like saying that Superman and Wonder Woman should always be set in the late 1930's as that's when they were created.
But to me it's a good example. Can you retell this story changing pieces to make them fit? The BBC's Sherlock is excellent, despite me initially thinking it's premise was going to not work. CBS's Elementary while being an entertaining show, I don't view the lead character as "Sherlock Holmes". I do for Sherlock. Too many variables have been flipped for Elementary, and it's ones essential to Holmes (and some on Watson), but the change to New York or Watson's gender aren't it.
Supergirl will face similar issues -- but the primary one is going to be "is is a show worth watching".
Beg to differ. Holmes is a period character in the same sense that Jane Austen's characters are period characters -- they were part of cultures distinct from ours, with different mores and manners. Of course, you can do a modern version of an Austen story, as witness CLUELESS -- but the movie doesn't borrow the names of Emma and the other Austen characters, or any details that would be out of place in the Valley. With superheroes; it's all about superpowers; they may have fought period villains 70 years ago and be different period villains today, but Mary Marvel, say, wasn't a bobby soxer back then and she isn't a Valley girl today.
--Brantley
BBC's Sherlock and the Basil Rathbone's movies are well regarded adaptations of Holmes not set in Victorian England (and they are hardly the only ones). They prove that there is something about his character that is not tied to Victorian England. He's not something that can only exist in that context (i.e. a "bobby soxer" or "valley girl"), despite you insisting the the contrary. It does take good writing and effort though. As the counter example of Elementary shows -- nice show -- it's lead character just isn't Sherlock Holmes.
Good examples of Mary Marvel and Austin's novels though. They highlight the problems of adapting material and making it still work, and being true to the essence of the original.
For Supergirl, it's not going to be "Supergirl", but I'm hoping for a good story about a strong Kryptonian Woman. This thread has pretty much convinced me we'll be getting a gender swapped Clark Kent/Lois Lane story, with enough details changed to make things work (as all adaptations need).
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- TwiceOnThursdays
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