So here’s the deal with Iron Fist

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

The fact that Iron Fist is Danny Rand, a white guy, is integral to the character. As I recall, he even gets push back from Asians because it’s felt that a white man has no business acquiring the fist in the first place. To cast an Asian as Danny Rand 100% changes the character. He’s no longer Iron Fist, at least how he was created.

Basically, let’s look at it this way: We have had in more recent years another story about someone who seems incredibly unlikely to become a kung fu master who winds up mastering the traits and becomes a mighty warrior. It’s called “Kung Fu Panda.” To declare that an Asian should portray Danny Rand is like saying, “We should have a tiger portray Po.” Any reasonable individual would say, “But wait…if you cast a tiger, it’s no longer Kung Fu Panda. It’s Kung Fu Tiger.”

Exactly.

Now you can chalk up his origins to white imperialism or privilege or whatever you want. But ultimately he’s been around for nearly forty years; he is what he is. To take modern day sensibilities and layer it onto a character created in the 1970s in order to completely change the character is ridiculous. Especially when those sensibilities are so narrowly curtailed along racial cliches that the thought is, “He knows kung fu; therefore he must be Asian!” Why did no one protest when Ant-Man or Peter Quill or Doctor Strange was not cast with an Asian actor? And for the record, my sifu is Greek.

Personally, I’m hoping Iron Fist runs into Shang Chi. How cool would THAT be?

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50 comments on “So here’s the deal with Iron Fist”

  1. By that logic they shouldn’t have made The Ancient One or The Mandarin non-Asian either, but they did.

    1. Well, that wasn’t the real Mandarin, for what that’s worth. That was established in one of the Marvel short films. So we haven’t actually seen the Mandarin, so maybe he is Asian! As for the Ancient One, we haven’t see what they’re doing yet. We don’t know what the Ancient One is gonna be visually.

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    2. There’s also a difference between major characters and supporting cast. A Perry White or even a Nick Fury or Heimdall flips from white to black and there’s talk, but it doesn’t feel as great a change. Flip a leading character or even an iconic character and you’ll need a really good story-line reason. Even then, you’ll still have a character that doesn’t feel “right” to many. For example, I’d no more flip races on superhero like Superman (in official franchise at least) or a fictional character like Shaft because it would just never come across right.

      1. Interestingly enough, if I recall correctly, Shaft was originally a white detective in a novel. Now, most of us can’t conceive of him not being black, due to the movies, even if we haven’t seen them.

        For years, I’ve seen different arguments on when changing a character’s race is okay, from book, to screen, to movie, to play, etc, and I don’t see any overarching guideline. Hamilton the musical shows that people will accept black actors playing the founding fathers in the context of the play. I’ve seen black actors playing Henry IV and Picasso, and asian actors playing Shakespeare’s Italians, and it still worked. I accepted Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury due to him being the Ultimate comic book version, and because I could believe that the WW2 white veteran could have a son around Jackson’s age. I can’t say why some changes work and others don’t.

        (I liked the black Felix Lighter in the newer Casino Royale because I didn’t recognize the character until he revealed himself, and it opened up the possibility that “Felix Lighter” is a code name/role, just as many Bond fans see James Bond as a name shared by successive agents. A black Alicia Masters worked for me in the First FF movie, but when I first saw a black Jimmy Olsen, Pete Ross, or Perry White, I thought, “Why not just write new black associates for Superman? And haven’t there been black associates in the comic?”)

        (I’m also trying to figure how much leeway makes sense for actors who may or may not look like their comic book counterparts. Michael Keaton doesn’t really look like Bruce Wayne, but made it work very well. Val Kilmer didn’t even wear a wig or dye his hair. I can’t look at Ben Affleck and not see Ben Affleck, but maybe he’ll make his version of Batman work. I really don’t think Patrick Stewart looks like professor X (or didn’t until they started drawing the Professor to look like him) but I love him in the role. Same thing with Ian McKellan and Magneto. So again, no absolute rules.)

      2. “Interestingly enough, if I recall correctly, Shaft was originally a white detective in a novel. Now, most of us can’t conceive of him not being black, due to the movies, even if we haven’t seen them.”

        Not unless they changed the books by 1981. I have all three, and he’s black in all of them.

      4. Huh, I thought I’d read in Donald Bogle’s film history of African Americans that Shaft was originally white in the novels. My mistake.

      5. The only things I can think of (having not read the book) that may have gotten jumbled in memory due to the passage of time-

        The writer of both the books and the screenplays was white. He even won a NAACP Image Award for it.

        Mario and Melvin Van Peebles have repeated for years the story of how Melvin’s film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, infuanced the production of Shaft. They claim that Hollywood was originally going to cast Shaft white and Melvin’s film was such a hit the studios went with a black actor.

        For the record, Melvin’s film, while hugely influential on the genre of Blaxploitation, didn’t change Shaft‘s casting. When Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song dropped, the production of Shaft was already well underway.

        That tale may have been told in the book, and maybe you were remembering the “originally cast to be white” bit.

      6. If I recall correctly, John Shaft in the novels is essentially Mike Hammer, if Mike Hammer was black in the 1960’s/1970’s.

      7. If I recall correctly, John Shaft in the novels is essentially Mike Hammer, if Mike Hammer was black in the 1960’s/1970’s.

      8. “I liked the black Felix Lighter in the newer Casino Royale because I didn’t recognize the character until he revealed himself, and it opened up the possibility that “Felix Lighter” is a code name/role, just as many Bond fans see James Bond as a name shared by successive agents.”

        No, it didn’t. The movie was a reboot of the series (also, I don’t see why that would open the possibility, as opposed to the five other actors who played the role and weren’t Jack Lord).

  2. Yeah, I’m hoping the introduction of Iron Fist opens up the MCU to a lot of lesser used characters like Shang Chi as well.

  3. “Personally, I’m hoping Iron Fist runs into Shang Chi. How cool would THAT be?”

    I don’t think that’s quite the right question. The correct question is “How much cooler COULD that be?” The answer THAT question is: None. None more cool.

  4. The reason people wanted him to be Asian was to sidestep the classic trope of a white outsider who becomes better than the “natives” at their own culture. It’s not a bad trope. It’s actually responsible for many good stories. But it is a little outdated.

    But is it possible to avoid this trope without losing the core of the character?

    Well, as I understand it, the point of Danny Rand is that he is an outsider to the (Asian) culture of K’un-L’un. But he does not have to white to do that, he just has to be Western (and rich in relation to Luke Cage). So in principal he could be an Asian-American and still work for the story in exactly the same way that a white Danny Rand did for the last 40 years. But does it actually work? Yes, it actually works really well because it retains everthing about the original concept of the character but adds to it an extra layer about a relationship between a man of Asian descent but American culture, and an ancient Asian culture.

    But why even do it? Why chasnge the character at all? Why switch race or gender?

    First, to avoid awkward outdated tropes. Second, to increase diversity. Third, to open the door to new story ideas. All three reasons apply in this case.

    But you know, there’s also nothing wrong with keeping Danny Rand white. It certainly doesn’t prevent them from coming up with a good story. I’m really looking forward to seeing what Netflix will do with this character. But I also think it would have been interesting if they made him Asian.

  6. The fact that Danny Rand is white is central to his origin story, not only the fact that as an outsider he has to work that much harder, but also the hostility he receives, including if I recall (it’s been a long time since I first read that book) his mentor’s own son. And Micha, I’m sure you’re right, the character doesn’t HAVE to be white, but he is, so people are basically complaining because he HASN’T been changed from the original source material. Which is sort of ridiculous when you think about it.

    1. It’s largely an SJW thing. It doesn’t actually make any sense, but casting a white actor to play him is now an example of whitewashing because Tuesday or something.

      1. C’mon, Jerry, you know that ‘SJW’ has nothing to do with it.

        The Iron Fist show has been a huge question mark since it was announced, due to the nature of the character and the time in which it was created. If they’d cast a non-white person in the role, the backlash would just be coming from another group.

        Dr. Strange has a bit of the same problem, what with that character also being white bread and being trained by an Asian (The Ancient One) in the mystic arts (also traditionally the province of Asian cultures).

        I think what they did with The Mandarin was brilliant, and they’ve taken some grief over the casting of The Ancient One. But no matter what they do, somebody’s going to throw a hissy fit simply because the Internet makes it easy.

      4. Kath here replying to Tom

        SJW = Social Justice Warrior

        A term that has taken on a life of its own.

        Put it into the Urban Dictionary for a few examples.

      5. A “social justice warrior”, one of those new-fangled pejoratives invented by the GamerGate crowd to try and make themselves feel better about being complete áššhølëš toward the opposite sex.

      6. “A “social justice warrior”, one of those new-fangled pejoratives invented by the GamerGate crowd to try and make themselves feel better about being complete áššhølëš toward the opposite sex.”

        Since the Gamergate Controversy only goes back to 2014 while “Social Justice Warrior” was getting noticeable usage in 2012 and 2013 and has traceable uses on platforms like Twitter going back to 2009…

        Not hardly.

      9. I guess you dig deeper into the interwebz than I do, Jerry, because I’ve been on Twitter for way too long now and I don’t recall seeing the term until the manchildren of GG started getting attention.

        But then, anything and everything is labeled ‘SJW’ now, so the term has already been rendered meaningless.

      12. SJW – Social Justice Warrior

        Derogatory term for far Left activists who have gone way over into la la land. These are basically the same people who have done things like start up college social media campaigns informing you that you’re being offensive at Halloween if you, if you’re a white male, dresses up as a ninja or a samurai because of the made-up crime of cultural appropriation. They do things that are more dangerous than just annoying as well. They’re also big into thought policing.

        The only good thing about them is they’re well known for also having the habit of eating their own whenever anyone in their ranks expresses an individual idea on a controversy and says they don’t see the offense in it. Step out of the lockstep of the cult and they’ll very likely turn their destructive focus on you quicker than you can blink.

  8. With all due respect, Mr. David, there is NOTHING in Danny Rand’s backstory that says he HAS to be white. NOTHING AT ALL. Being ANYTHING other than born in K’un Lun means you would be foreign to their culture and having to adjust. And considering he’s been living there since he was about 6, I’d think the REAL culture shock would be when he goes to America.

    With all due respect, that simile is the STUPIDEST FÙÇKÍNG THING I HAVE EVER READ! Comparing an animated movie with cartoon pandas to something with, like, actors, where people can see themselves as these heroes, is so BEYOND missing the point you almost boomeranged around to hitting the point, but not quite.

    I ask you to not presume you speak for the majority of audiences who will be watching Iron Fist, I assure you we are not so willing to overlook that Marvel had a chance to fix a really fûçkìņg awful Mighty Whitey character and they didn’t take it at all.

    1. Well, thank you for your STUPID FÙÇKÍNG REPLY. I would like to point out that his being white IS essential because when you’re talking about someone who is an outsider to K’un Lun, there is nothing MORE outside than that he’s a white guy. This business that I’m hearing about, “Well, he could be an outside Asian, that would work as well,” is what truly misses the point. It is undercutting the alienation that the character feels in order to satisfy the priorities of SJWs who care nothing about the character and everything about their racially motivated causes.

      “He knows kung fu; therefore he must be Asian!” Do you have ANY clue how cliched and racist that comes across? Any at all?

      I’m not presuming to speak for anyone but myself, but I will tell you this: all this BS will evaporate when the show gets on the air and it’s great. And the fact that Marvel didn’t embrace the SJW philosophy in order to fix a forty year old character who isn’t broken is a credit to them. I also notice that no one said squat when Danny Rand turned up on the “Ultimate Spider-Man” TV series white as white and voiced by Greg Cipes.

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      1. All due respect but I think you’re making the mistake of seeing Asian culture as monolithic.

        A white person may feel far less alienated in a Tibetan city than someone Chinese, considering the history between the two countries.

        Also, K’un-Lun was founded by extraterrestrials so everyone is alienated there, I guess.

      2. Did you really just use SJW pejoratively? Please be better than that. I agree with your overall point, I just hate that term – a cheap, lazy way of dismissing people fighting for something worthwhile (even if occasionally getting it wrong).

    2. Christopher Max Wall,

      Whiny, impotent display of SJW outrage? Check

      Misguided belief that small group of cranky SJWs with a gripe about it represent the “majority of audiences who will be watching” when the show comes out? Check

      Smugly condescending sense of false moral superiority mixed with insulting presentation? Check

      Combined trick of missing the point of an analogy about film themes and then trying to find offense in the analogy itself. Check

      Completely blind to the fact that you’re arguing the idea of replacing what you claim is an offensive stereotype with a stereotype- saying we have to cast an Asian guy in the lead of a martial arts ášš kicker story -countless Asian actors and audiences have complained about. Check

      Congratulations Christopher, you have just, to use one of the favorite silly concepts of the SJWs, done a pretty good job of filling up the SJW Fail Bingo Card in just one post.

      The Kung Fu Panda example is a perfectly apt one and works even when talking about flesh and blood characters.

      He’s an outsider. He’s treated as an outsider. There’s no way he can hide the fact that he’s an outsider. Why? Because he doesn’t look like anyone else there.

      That’s a concept SJWs should get instantly since it’s a movement built on judging and branding everyone based on skin color and gender. Danny Rand can’t even be mistaken for a native by anyone. He wears his status as outsider on his skin, hair, and eyes. Being so complete an outsider in all ways, and sometimes facing hostility for it, is a part of his origin story.

      You can’t actually replicate that by making him Asian, and you probably shouldn’t when the reason for doing it is essentially to live down to the stereotype that a Hollywood role built on the concept of kung fu ášš kicker with ancient mystical flavoring = cast an Asian guy.

  9. It’s simple Black Heimdall, black Kingpin — they’re awesome. (Sarcasm aside, Chewitel Ejiofor and Michael Clarke Duncan were fantastic in those roles.) Mickey Rooney playing Chinese is hideous. (OK, I’ll give them that one.) But white Iron Fist? That’s cultural appropriation. Changing the races of some of the supporting characters in The Martian is horrific.

    “Social Justice” is a one-way street. It’s only bad when it’s white people doing the transgressing. When non-whites take on parts of white culture, that’s just awesome.

    It’s idiotic on both sides. But I do have to smirk a little when people suggest that non-whites stop appropriating things that, under a division of race and ethnicity, ought to be assigned to whites only. Things like basketball, vaccines, most modern technology (especially things that are developed by Israel, or Jews in general), automobiles, airplanes, modern telecommunication, etc. etc. etc.

    The Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah features on its flag an AK-47, created by white Russians for the officially-atheist Soviet Union. How is that not “cultural appropriation?”

    It’s been noted that the social justice bullcrap is, at its core, virtue signaling. It’s people showing how noble and fair and good and awesome they are by finding all these hidden evils and denouncing them so they can show how much more enlightened they are than others.

    Michael Clarke Duncan was amazing as Kingpin. Chewitel Ejiofor not only had scenes with such talented actors as Anthony Hopkins and Tom Hiddleston, but totally owned the screen whenever he was on it. And both did it playing characters who were clearly (and for logical reasons) established as white.

    (And Ben Affleck’s Daredevil is criminally underrated. For all its flaws, it got a lot of things right. His sensory deprivation sleep tank, his scars, the depiction of his radar sense, and Duncan as Kingpin are just a few of them.)

    There is one angle of attack, though, that might be legit: the long-standing trend of showing how white people are the best at doing Asian stuff. It has a long and shameful history — Kung Fu, Kill Bill, The Last Samurai, and Shogun are just the first examples that come to mind — all cases of how easily a white person can just walk in and outdo the Asians at doing Asian stuff. I can see how that could be offensive, and Iron Fist can be argued to fit right in with that.

    1. Idris Elba, not Chewitel Ejiofor.

      Although, Ejiofor will be playing Baron Mordo in Doctor Strange.

      1. Thanks for the correction. Chewitel was The Operative in Serenity, and was phenomenal there.

        I keep hearing about Idris Elba on The Wire, but I’ve never seen that show. I just know him from Thor, and he totally blew me away in those movies.

  10. Wouldn’t he be just as much an outsider if he were Hispanic? Or black? Or Indian? Or Arab? Or Native American? Etc? Why is the choice white or Asian?

    1. It’s not so much an either/or except as the presented change is to go Asian male actor rather than original character concept, and the original character is white. We’re not talking about starting a character from scratch here. The discussion might be more open if this was a new character having never been seen in any visual medium before, but Danny Rand is about as old a character as I am.

  11. There’s also another reason I can’t take the whining, crying, and gnashing of teeth over this from some quarters seriously.

    I’m going to copy and paste myself from a Needless Things piece I wrote about a different casting flap. My point here goes triple for a character and story being given casting and treatment in line with the original concepts than it does when talking about a transplanted adaptation of another work.

    ***********************************************

    When both Sgt. Emil Foley and Gideon Oliver are played by Lou Gossett Jr…
    When James T. West is played by Will Smith…
    When Red is played by Morgan Freeman…
    When Harvey dent is played by Billy Dee Williams…
    When The Kingpin is played by Michael Clark Duncan…
    When both Joyhn W. Creasy and Ben Marco are played by Denzel Washington…
    When Denzel Washington is announced as being cast to be a lead role in the Magnificent Seven remake…
    When Agent Jay is played by Will Smith…
    When Jackie Burke (Jackie Brown) is played by Pam Greir…
    When Cinderella is played by Brandy Norwood…
    When Nick Fury is played by Sam Jackson…
    When Kojak is played by Ving Rhames…
    When Heimdall is played by Idris Elba…
    When Michael B. Jordan is cast to play Johnny Storm…
    When Annie is played by Quvenzhané Wallis and the Daddy Warbucks role is played by Jamie Foxx…
    When Django is played by Jamie Foxx…
    When the entire lead cast of Steel Magnolias is switched from white to black…
    (I could keep going, but I won’t.)

    … and your response is either silence or discussing how great colorblind casting is, it’s hard to take you seriously when you want to cry foul about a casting change you don’t personally approve of. Taking your complaints seriously becomes even harder when, even as you join the chorus demanding that Johansson be removed from Ghost in the Shell and screaming about the evils of whitewashing, you’re also on the net talking about how great it would be if the rumors of Idris Elba being tapped to play James Bond were true.

  12. Well, fans of the original/Caucasian Iron Fist can still enjoy his cool-looking Lego figure!

  13. I think the bad thing about casting a white guy to play Danny Rand is that it’s another white guy that goes to Asia and becomes better than them. I think he should at least be asian-american. He would still be pushed around, because he was born in US.

  14. The thing is, I kind of understand why complaints mostly flow one way, and not the others. Last I checked, African-Americans (just to focus on one group for a second) are something like fifteen percent of Americans. All other things being equal, they should be about fifteen percent of American roles. They’re not. Why? People can debate old boys networks vs. geography vs. racism vs. everything else, but even if it’s just plain old inertia, it’s still a problem. I think the analogy I saw on the website, “Black Nerd Problems” compared it to inviting a black child and a white child over to your house and giving them dishes with unequal amouts of candy in them. If you take some candy from the more full dish and give it to the less full, that’s seen as being fair whereas taking some pieces from the less full dish and giving to the more filled dish is increasing the unfairness. Yes, that’s a very simplistic analogy, but I get what they’re going for.

    Similarly, look at actors who use wheelchairs. Often, they won’t be accepted for a role for a character who doesn’t use a wheelchair if full mobility is required, and the role won’t be rewritten. Okay, that’s how it works. But what about when the character spefically is in a wheelchair? Then it becomes, supposedly the best actor for the role, and the few wheelchair roles we see (professor X (again, I love Stewart in the role), FDR, and the kid on glee) go to actors who don’t use wheelchairs. If you are an aspiring actor who uses a wheelchair, what message does that send you? You’re screwed both ways. (Btw, I follow a casting website, and the show “Sense8” specifically called for an actor who uses a wheelchair for a certain role. If that hadn’t been required, I would have auditioned; I’d love to be on that show.)

    When I see some fans complaining about a black kingpin or black heimdall, I generally don’t care that much. When I heard about a black Johnny Storm, my thoughts were, “Well, in the comics he’s not, but my biggest concern about the FF movie is that it doesn’t suck as they tend to.” Never saw the movie, as I don’t watch most superhero flicks these days, but for the most part, audiences seemed to have the view of “It was boring, no matter what race the actors were.” Same with the Daredevil movie.

    Again, I don’t claim to have any great answers or guidelines for this, especially as I’m used to the stage, where the race of the actor is often flat out ignored if it’s not a part of the play.

    I also think throwing around the term SJW is a bit too easy and facile, and tries to make an insult out of those who care and try to change things for the better. I know we’ve always had the “far-too-easily-offended brigade” but this reminds me of how the term politically correct started out being used by those who were trying to respect what groups called themselves, morphed into a synonym for ridiculous word changes, and ended up being used as a blanket defense and attack against any justified complaints. I remember David Gerrold complimenting Gene Roddenberry as an original SJW in a piece about those who complained about SF becoming too SJW instead of the hard SF only bloc they thought it was in Star Trek’s time.

  15. While it is conceivable to have an Asian character who is seen as an outsider in the middle of a secret Asian culture, it doesn’t necessarily do anything to advertise it visually. While there are people who can pick out different Asian ethnicities by sight, a lot of this show’s audience is likely going to be Americans (notably White Americans) and we suck at it. What can I say, we’re a society of Euro-mutts anyway. We can’t even pick out our own traits because we’re so many different shades of White mixed together. So, sticking a Japanese or Korean American in the middle of a Tibetan secret city may work on some level, a big chunk of the audience is going to look at it and say “I don’t get it. He looks like he would fit in”.

    The interesting thing is that Iron Fist would actually be a really interesting place to explore the concept of culture. Danny Rand is a White American child from a rich family who watched his parents die and got raised in a mystical Tibetan city. He was born into an affluent American culture but was raised in a traditional Asian one. He worked harder than anyone else to master the martial arts because he wanted to avenge his parents and because other martial artists would see him as unworthy because he’s an outsider. They’d see it as cultural appropriation, but is he appropriating it if he was raised in Kunlun from the age of 6? Also, anyone in Kunlun who knows about the outside world would know about the White privilege that a rich White person would usually enjoy, but Danny barely had any chance to enjoy that, separated from the outside world like he was. And while Danny would look like an outsider and be treated like an outsider in Kunlun, he should feel like an outsider once he gets to America because he was barely raised in that culture. There could be a whole focus on the difference between the culture someone’s born in and the culture they’re raised in and “othering” and what traits make someone an outside.

  16. Let’s face it, one of the major reasons that Marvel would cast an asian in the role would be to appeal to the huge market in China. Cha-ching is more powerful than Shang Chi, y’know.
    Cracked.com has an interesting article today on changes the studios made to movies to get them to appeal to Chinese audiences.

  17. The biggest reason to have a non-white Iron Fist would be to attempt to expand the diversity of Marvel’s video properties. It would be extremely difficult to change the race of a more popular, well-known hero, but for much of the general public this will be their first exposure to Iron Fist, so they won’t have any preconceived notions. I honestly could have seem the same thing done with Peter Quill.

    I think more than being white is central, is him being non-asian. A black American (or European) would have been as much an outsider as a white one. Diversity isn’t a quote, it’s a goal. And yeah, they’ve changed the races on secondary characters and villains, but they’ve for the most part avoided it on the heroes. And when you couple that in with the lousy merchandising of female characters, it’s hard to accept Marvel’s claims of trying to increase diversity (except in the comics, where they’re doing a better job).

    But the ship has sailed. It’s not a major issue for me either way. I just wouldn’t have had a problem with a change in his race, or if they end up making him gay or something, as long as whatever they did wasn’t gimmicky.

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