On 6/1/2022 7:00 PM, shawn wrote:
> On Wed, 01 Jun 2022 21:54:35 -0400, A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
>
>> In article <t78r6v$8d9$1@dont-email.me>, Adam H. Kerman
>> <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> A Friend wrote:
>>>> Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:
>>>>> A Friend wrote:
>>>>>> BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> A Friend <nope@noway.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> trotsky <gmsingh@email.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> On 5/31/2022 6:16 PM, RichA wrote:
>>>
>>>>>>>>>> He's a black superman who acts just white enough to be acceptable to
>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>> credulous, ill-read teens who might watch this.
>>>
>>>>>>>>> Why do you fucking losers keep talking about these Gen. Z shows?
>>>
>>>>>>>> The hero is black. This fact cannot be tolerated.
>>>
>>>>>>> More like, the hero is black and gay-- not just gay but mincing gay--
>>>>>>> and bears no resemblance, either in form or manner, to the actual Tom
>>>>>>> Swift, which makes this cultural appropriation.
>>>
>>>>>>> This fact cannot be tolerated.
>>>
>>>>>> There is no actual, historical Tom Swift, so your insistence that he
>>>>>> must be white and straight like the real one doesn't make a lot of
>>>>>> sense.
>>>
>>>>> Why the hell are you behaving like this?
>>>
>>>>> There is an actual literary character Tom Swift in a series of 100
>>>>> novels that began in 1910.
>>>
>>>>> 100 novels. I'd say that's a well-established character.
>>>
>>>> I didn't say he wasn't well-established. What I was saying is that the
>>>> Tom Swift books are fiction, not biographical. I don't think a new,
>>>> more modern take on the character is necessarily out of line. There is
>>>> no real-life Tom Swift to misrepresent.
>>>
>>> This isn't "a new, more modern take on the character". This is an
>>> entirely different character.
>>
>>
>> If you say so. I haven't seen any of what they've done with him. All
>> I'm saying is that it's not out of line for them to try.
>
> It's fine if they want to create a new character in whatever mold they
> want but there comes a point when changing an existing character that
> it becomes dishonest to the viewer who will know the existing
> character and so have certain expectations.

Like casting Tom Cruise in the Reacher movies when he's about 10" too
short and maybe 100 pounds lighter.

> Changing the character's
> race is something a few people may dislike but most will just roll
> with it, but the other changes are where the writers/producers are
> taking it to the point of making it an entirely new character that
> just uses the name of an existing character to try to trick viewers
> into watching.

Yep.