That's all well and good, as is the looks of Thor's daddy, Odin and his step-brother Loki. In fact, all the cast of the Asgardians look about right to me. Mind you, my calm, collected hippyish world view isn't shared by everyone. Now, bear with me 'cause this is going to get silly...
There's this guy in Norse Mythology called Heimdall, who's the guardian of the Bifrost (sp) bridge between Asgard and Midgard. And he's also in the film. Would make sense, right? I mean he is part of the Norse Pantheon so it makes sense he's in a film starring one or two of the primary gods. Only in the film, he's played by Idris Elba. Who is a pretty decent actor! Admittedly I've only seen him in one or two programmes and one of them was The Losers, which isn't renown for it's Oscar potential, but still a lot more fun that a lot of that nonsense! For some bizarre reason all I can say to his casting as Heimdall is... So what?
For those who haven't been following movie news, white supremacists have decided to boycott the film because of Mr. Elba being cast as a Norse god... Because... that's wrong apparently... Now, I can sort of see where they're coming from yes, Heimdall is a Norse god so therefore he would traditionally be white and most likely blonde. But, this Thor's inspired and based on the comic rather than the original mythology... So I'm struggling to see what the problem is. I will admit at first I was a bit surprised, again for the reasons of "aren't the Norse gods usually white?", but in the long run, it didn't fuss me. If it makes the end product better because they chose the right actor for the job, I couldn't care less for the actor's skin-colour. The best comparison I can think of is Angel Coulby, that's right, the lass who plays Gwen in the BBC tv series. Once more, and I'm probably not the only one, I thought "Hang on, isn't Guinevere usually white?" But again, it didn't bother me beyond that initial reaction. She is pretty good in a series in which they've taken many liberties with the source material.
Now, I am aware that it primarily boils down to hate. Which is one of many things in the human race I will never understand. I don't see the point of hate, dislike yes I can see the point of that, you can't like everyone in the world that's just weird. But hate? Really, what is the point? Intolerance never solved anything and just ends up causing more friction. I'll admit I have said I hate something like, for example, Justin Bieber, I may not like his music, and some of his comments I found ill-informed and slightly offensive, (I have huge issues with idiocy in all it's forms.) but I can't really say I hate him. If any of his crap shows up on tv, I'll simply groan or grunt or make some sort of disapproving noise and change the channel. And that's really all there is to it. I don't see the point of people going out and assaulting someone just because their skin is a different colour or they have a different sexual orientation, or a different belief. I just don't understand it! And really the only thing I can think of about these white-power idiots angry and upset over something as minor and trivial as a guy's skin colour, all I can say is if you don;t like the decisions concerning the film, don't watch it! It's one film, it's not going to shake the world's foundations or fundamentally alter people's beliefs about Norse mythology, the most it'll do is raise awareness of it and I see nowt wrong with that.
Oh and before I go here's some more food for thought, you know Jesus? Well odds are, because of where he was born, he was an Israeli and therefore not as white as the paintings make him look...
No comments:
Post a Comment