Can Changing Characters genders, race, sexuality ever work?

[burrunjor]

I think yes, it can. 

To me whenever you adapt a classic character. You have to try and find some new angle on it, whilst not changing it so much that it won't seem like the same person anymore. 

It's a very delicate balance to get right, which is why the last thing you want is a clown like Paul Cornell trampling over everything to do with the character. That is as bad as someone who won't take any chances out of fear of changing it. There's no one extreme, it's always trying to find a right balance. 

You take a character and you look at what qualities are absolutely vital and can never be changed, which is different for each character. Take a look at Batman. His origin of his parents being killed in front of him must always be upheld. Regardless of whether that Batman is silly, a murderer, a sci fi superhero. His parents must always be killed. Other heroes meanwhile like James Bond have more flexible origin stories. No one cares about how Bond became Bond, but they do care about other things like his sexuality. 

For me race, gender and sexuality are the same. With some characters you can change those things, others they are more set. 

Hence there have been some successful examples of a straight character being made gay, a white character being made black etc. Look at the Penguin from Gotham. He is gay, whilst obviously all previous versions of the character are straight. However that worked fine, because the Penguin's sexuality was never a big part of his character (and also as an adaptation this wasn't directly linked to the previous Penguin's anyway.) All that matters about the Penguin is if he is a crime lord, has a bird motif, is a slippery customer who can get the public to love him, and is quite pathetic and sad underneath. He has been bullied, humiliated all his life either for his appearance or something else, and therefore despite being crafty he will instantly fall victim to someone who shows him kindness. We see this in so many Penguin stories like Birds of a Feather in the animated series, and even the 1992 film Batman Returns with Max Shreck still being able to manipulate the Penguin. All of that is represented in Gotham with Robin's Penguin perfectly. The fact that he is gay and it's a man he loves who lures him in (Nygma) really makes no difference. It's technically a change sure, but so is setting Batman in modern day and having the Penguin sing Amy Winehouse. (which he does in one ep LOL.) Point is the core of the character has been preserved. 

On the other hand however Moffat and the others making the Master gay for the Doctor IS a betrayal of his character. It rewrites previous stories like The Deadly Assassin and undermines the Masters motivation. It also changes the type of villain he is. Now he is no longer the power mad megalomaniac who hates the Doctor. He is his jealous ex. 

Take a look at this quote from Colin Baker about the Masters appeal. 

My favourite enemy is the Master, because Sherlock Holmes has his Moriarty, and while most monsters have no particular desire to destroy the Doctor, the good thing about the Master is that it’s a personal matter, so there’s great opportunity for confrontation.

Now compare it to this quote from tv tropes about the Master/Doctor relationship.

the strong implication that part of the reason why the Doctor fell for River so hard was because she reminded him of the Master while being actually redeemable.

See how unlike the Penguin that has completely destroyed what the Master is meant to be? Even worse this is meant to be the same version. Even in a remake that would be an unfaithful version, but when it's a sequel you are in danger of rewriting the past. (Hence why TV Tropes banned me from ever editing when I tried to write a more factual version of the Masters origins.)

Ultimately it's different for each individual character as to whether you can change their gender, race or sexuality. And yes that applies both ways. You couldn't make Captain Jack straight or asexual. You couldn't make Blade white (simply because visually he is too recognizable as a black man.) 

It has to be taken on a case, by case basis and above all else suit the particular story. That's why the SJWs are a poison however. They never want to take it on a case by case basis. If you object to their changes in one scenario you are tarred as a homophobe, or a sexist. Again on Gallifrey Base, the user the Fantastic Alice Fox called me homophobic for not liking the stupid Master/Doctor slash fest, and said that I was exactly the type of person who would have objected to the Penguin being gay in Gotham. 

How ironic that the Gotham version of Penguin is my favourite version of that character by far, (even above the original comics) and one of the best tv villains of all time in my opinion! Ironically whilst I enjoyed the Penguin it was Gotham that propelled him into being one of my favourite villains! 

It needs done on a case by case basis. Of course in all fairness, the anti SJWs have now gone too far the other way. I reckon that if Gotham were to make the Penguin gay today, Nerdrotic would do an entire video about it, calling it pandering and not giving the story a chance, which would probably just put the makers backs up and lead to more overt political crap. 

It's annoying the way that what's good for the story has been ignored in all this culture war bullshit.  

[iank]

It totally depends on context. I have zero problem with a female Watson in Elementary (on paper it sounded shit, but on screen it was fine because they never made a virtue signalling big deal of it, she was just a character) but then that show was its own thing. They weren't trying to pretend she used to be Edward Hardwicke.
That's one of New Who's biggest issues. They desperately want to ride on classic Who's coattails by pretending to be a continuation, while simultaneously changing everything about it. That's BS.

[Deleted]

“In an insane world a sane man must appear insane.” C. William King

No rational person would have a single problem with that’s posted here. Sadly we are often finding ourselves dealing with people who are anything but. And the more extreme and irrational they get, the more their opposition dose also in response. Worse people who mere more middle grounded may be driven to an opposing extreme is they feel the other side is infringing and penalising them. It’s not the right way to go about but we are only human after all.

Really people should just calm the fokk down and talk to each other, better truly try to understand their opposition. Because understand is an important step making peace. It’s wen you stone wall everyone and be unreasonable that things escalate. I just hope that all this tension will burn out and we can just move past this. Kid are already rebelling against the current systems while the main faces of all this are getting older, more tired or harder to hear. Give it another ten years and this should all be history. By the time I’m in my 60s SJW will have become as meaningless a word as hippie. Because there time will have been long gone.

[burrunjor]

May 23, 2021 21:14:13 GMT iank said:

It totally depends on context. I have zero problem with a female Watson in Elementary (on paper it sounded shit, but on screen it was fine because they never made a virtue signalling big deal of it, she was just a character) but then that show was its own thing. They weren't trying to pretend she used to be Edward Hardwicke.
That's one of New Who's biggest issues. They desperately want to ride on classic Who's coattails by pretending to be a continuation, while simultaneously changing everything about it. That's BS.

I agree that in terms of it being a remake it's not a problem as it isn't connected to the original.



Even then however I'd argue that it didn't work completely in Elementary.



Yes Lucy Liu was good in the role, and the show was good fun. However she didn't seem like Watson. Be honest here, would you have associated this show with Sherlock Holmes at all if it weren't for the names? It has nothing to do with original story or character. Elementary might have actually been better if it had been a new detective, as then those characters could have maybe gone on to become iconic in their own right and spawned future versions.



As it is Elementary is now kind of lost in a sea of hundreds of adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, except it's an in name only adaptation and therefore might not be looked on as favourably sadly by critics in the future.



The difference between Elementary and say Gotham with its gay Penguin is that that the gay Penguin still felt like that character.



In fact Robin's Penguin was arguably like Mark Hamill's version of the Joker, in that he was the only one to blend all the different sides of the Penguin together. With Robin's Penguin there is the fancy, bird themed criminal outlaw of Burges Meridith, the wicked cultured, hiding in plain sight gentleman of crime of the animated series, and comics, not to mention the being a big mommy's boy of the comics and the violent mood swings and psychopathy of Danny Devito, and finally the pathetic, rejected freak who just wants to be loved and is taken for a sap by someone he thinks is his friend. (Like in the animated series episode Birds of a Feather, or again even the film with Max Shreck.)



The fact that Robin's Penguin is gay doesn't interfere with any of that at all, so I think he is the best example of how can it work depending on the character and the context. (Again Robin's Penguin is also in his own separate continuity and therefore doesn't have to rewrite pervious versions.)

[mott1]

I'm not really a big fan of it not because I don't want strong female, BAME and LGBTQ+ characters - quite the reverse - but from a novelist point of view I don't think any character can have had the same day to day life experiences if they change something so important about them, so you lose something by doing so. The recent attempt by the RSC to have Timon Of Athens played by an asian woman was a mistake, I felt, as the play focuses on such a male character flaw in its protagonist.

But there are also good examples above which show that taking a bit of a risk sometimes works, such as Robin Lord Taylor's wonderful spin on the Penguin.

More of a problem right now, arguably, is the increasing craze to overly humanize genuinely unpleasant villains, like Cruella Da Vil in the Dalmations prequel. She wants to skin puppies! What next, a misunderstood Childcatcher!?