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Agreed. There are people from all over the world on this thread, with different points of view, cultural experiences and the like. This particular issue brings all preconceived notions to the fore, which is why I think it's a good debate, because as long as one is open to other's point of view, lessons can be learned.. An open mind and patience is definitely required. I've definitely learned from other's comments here.
Others might answer Why not?
But there are certain iconic characters and i am sure, there are black equivalents and i doubt the black majority would embrace a white actor. I dont believe being anti-racist means, we have to forget what makes each race unique.
If Elba never did another thing, his performances as Stringer Bell and John Luther are top notch. My guess is that many of us who don't want to see him as Bond would be ecstatic to learn he'd be playing a Bond-like character in a new series of films.
What I missed from his reaction was this: "I am flattered, BUT there is another actor playing Bond right now and he is doing a great job. So until he quits, after five films, or six, the focus should be on Daniel Craig, not me."
Sadly, he didn't say that. And it saddens me. Try to think about how Daniel Craig feels about all this. It must be quite a fucked up feeling for him that Amy Pascal already wants a new Bond during this succesful Bond era.
These SonyLeaks....can't they just....STOP? Can't we focus on the upcoming "Bond Year", which 2015 will be?
It's a healthy debate @Gustav_Graves. I prefer a healthy debate to close mindedness. The fact that the issue is out there and is being discussed is a good thing. EON knows more about how people will react now rather than later.
Craig is secure until he wants to leave. I don't think he cares either way. In fact, from what I know about him, he probably is happy this debate is going on. They should ask him about it the next time he's interviewed. I'd be curious on his views on Elba. I bet you he 100% will support him if he's cast (won't happen though).
*If it was a Bond like character it'd be seen as an inferior rip off and the series wouldn't last long because people can just watch the real thing.
*So you'd have to make an entirely different character to set the series apart, and then that's not really the same as a black Bond at all. You're basically saying "why does he need to play a black Bond? Why can't he play a different character that has nothing to do with Bond at all?".
But there is no black equivalent to Bond, at least I can't think of one. So none of these comparisons (like Shaft) really work.
However if there was a black equivalent to Bond, a character that had loads of different interpretations, who had been played by multiple actors and had changed a lot in appearance and personality and who's skin colour doesn't define his character or background, then I'd have no problem with a white actor playing him.
And I don't think we move differently at all. We don't necessarily sound different either, I think a lot of the time you can't tell somebody's race based on their voice alone. And Bond's voice constantly changes anyway. Connery has a Scottish accent, Roger Moore has a posh plummy accent, Craig has sort of a neutral English accent, Brosnan has a weird Irish/English mix with some Americanisms thrown in, etc. And they all move differently too, just look at the gunbarrels.
They would wipe our *** with the idea of having a white play an iconic black role and understandably so, because in a good way, you have a right to be proud of your heritage.
Again - making us all alike is not what anti-racist is all about. Thankfully we have different backgrounds, different ways of growing up in different countries hence a different mentality etc etc. - and yes, different skins.
Nothing wrong with acknowledging that - what's wrong is calling one better then the other, because its not.
Most likely.
All in all, I believe, this will lead to them making a better film to prove, the early nagativity was wrong and DC, because its only human to wanna prove, you still have it and beyond.
Thank you, my best to you and yours. Happy New Year!!! I have lurked for several years and would leave quite often because I thought debate was squashed. The commentary on this thread has been good and illuminating. It was proper that it was allowed to continue. My original title for this thread was Idris Elba is James Bond. Like the marketing campaign for YOLT w/ Connery. I thought it was a challenge to those on both sides of the issue to up there game.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Jews were not considered White until 1945, and still not everyone consider them White. For the record I do, but anyway. I know I am spliting hair, but you would still have someone not White Anglo Saxon Protestant playing Bond. He would nevertheless be playing the same Bond with an unaltered background. What matters here IMO is how faithful you can be to the character, not make the character a generic alpha male or whatever background you can find the actor playing him.
Same with Blofeld: people mentioned Elba playing him and I was dead against, because Blofeld's background would not work if he was played by a Black man.
Your memory fails you, boy. My departure, which wasn't even remotely in the same time frame as the incident you reference, was due to boredom and accidie. There is no battalion of anti-white racist children tough enough or smart enough to deal with me.
I understand Khan is maybe the only Star Trek villain known by the general public, hence the necessity to make him faithful to the original. They only used his name. Yes, Montalban was maybe not the greatest actor, but he played the role earnestly and with certain traits. I said the courageous thing, but I would have said the intelligent thing would have been to write him as this natural leader who considers himself borderline godly due to genetic enhancement (because, psychopaths, cold and calculating or not, are pretty generic these days) and cast him with an actor who fitted the bill. Benicio del Toro for instance, who was rumored, or Antonio Banderas. Or an Indian, which could have been truly daring. Did anyone complained about Black villains being pictured in The Bourne movies or CR?
Precisely. Every race and culture is allowed, nay expected to jealously preserve its own culture and cultural artifacts (Bond is such an artifact). This is righteous defense against white cultural imperialism, dontchaknow! But if whites identify as a group and state that we possess a distinct culture and have unique interests, we are in danger of losing our jobs and our freedom. And that is because the Anti-White Racists fear white identity more than anything. They understand that once we recognize our own interests and that our culture and our nations are being stolen from us daily, we will put an end to it. They also know that if white culture is ever recognized, then we will quickly see that it dwarfs all else. With allowances to the Chinese, civilization is white, and we cannot allow that knowledge to exist now, can we?
My issue as well. I love Elba and when Ejiofor was rumored to play a villain I was advocating for Elba instead, far more fitting IMO. But that lacks class. When a fellow actor has a role you want (whatever the chances are that you could get it, at your age), then you mention that the role is already taken for now.
Happy New Year to you, too, old amigo.
I'm afraid Pascal knows one very important thing: Bond is a white man. And what's more, he's a traditional white man and an icon of white culture. For that reason alone he must be transmogrified beyond all recognition by changing his race. It's a part of the onslaught.
As I mentioned upthread, his ilk seek to silence with charges of racism, and when that doesn't work, they call on the censors to do their work for them. They don't have the brains or the stomach to deal with the truth. And they are as predictable as the sun and the moon.
And, I may add, however I love the actor, his eagerness to take the role and his blatant ignorance of Craig's current tenure makes me want him even less for Bond.
Weak. Bond is the very essence of the upper-crust, white Brit. By his behavior, his mannerisms, and his tastes, Bond is the archetypal white man. And that is why he's such a major target for the Social Justice Warriors.
If Shaft--or Fred Sanford--were played by a white actor, the usual suspects would scream "cultural appropriation," and begin looting and burning in the streets as a means of rectifying the situation.
Bring on LaJameis Bond!
They key point here is that Bond himself need not change. It is his very difference, his almost archaic whiteness that makes him unique and refreshing in a sea of oaten and cardboard film protagonists. Dare I suggest that James Bond represents substantive diversity? Ah, but it's the sort of diversity the Anti-White Racists, in their boundless inclusivity, cannot tolerate.
Ah, so the coward outs himself. Didn't you post as Kennan on another site? What a weak-minded knave you are.
http://moviepilot.com/posts/2014/12/28/sorry-idris-why-daniel-craig-isn-t-leaving-james-bond-and-shouldn-t-2546135?lt_source=external,manual,manual
I never said you were bullied off the site (if only). I was referring to @harkaway, a member who called you out for what you are (a racist) only for him to basically be told to fuck off. That incident is also what I was referring to when I said your actions in the past had been ignored, as you posted some BS similar to what you posted earlier in this thread, and you weren't punished at all for it.
I don't think I'm being cowardly at all. Although I am being weak minded in a way because I told myself I was done with this thread now, I've said my piece, but when I saw you'd posted again I couldn't help click on it.
Although I don't know why I'm bothering. Just like last time, you won't be punished, simply because you're a long standing member. Although of course this post will be edited and maybe I'll even recieve another warning, because I said fuck before, and swearing is against the rules. Racism though is apparently fine.
@Germanlady Fair enough, I understand what you mean now.
Your highfalutin vernacular evokes Russell Brand and the similarities don't end there.
When Elba isn't talking about "the millions of fans that adore me" stuff, he brings up Bond in every interview. This was a quote from his interview in the Huffington Post over a year ago.
"I say it all the time, but if it was to ever happen and if I was ever to get offered that role, that would be the will of a nation. That would be like, "Wow, human beings are really powerful. They really made that happen, because Barbra Broccoli certainly didn't" ... it would be the will of a nation because everyone has been saying that to me.
Not smart to diss Broccoli and you don't campaign hard for a part that another actor already has. It is unprofessional. Naomie Harris is someways worse with the way she kept bringing it up in earlier interviews for Mandela, and then bragging that she started the rumor. She is Craig's co-star. She was unprofessional and disloyal. As a side note, EON no doubt has taken notice that the two of them together bombed in Mandela.
If EON wants to keep Craig, and I can't see Craig throwing over another $20m salary so easily, they better step up and nip this flood of press caused by Pascal's leak, or they will lose control of their casting to an actor you can bet they do not want to work with for 10 years. This PR push for Elba doesn't just undermine Craig, it will harm the press reaction to Spectre which has already started as a result of the script/email leaks. Elba is a very charismatic and talented actor. But he's too old, and he is an egomanic and neither fact has a damn thing to do with his race.
And no, this particular opinion isn't because he is black.
Lots of interesting thing have been written here.
Initially I loathed the idea of a black Bond.
Then some posts here convinced me that especially film Bond would be versatile enough to be black.
Right now I´m thinking that a black Bond would probably feel like a political decision above all else.