Two things about Dracula
Nov. 4th, 2013 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousfic1. Apparently you can now show a man fingering a woman and motorboating her on national television.
2. Not a fan of the racelift on Renfield. I realize they want to have some diversity in there and it'd take more out-of-the-box thinking than I'd expect from a primetime network to do it in a way other than the black guy being a servant (I'm sure you could look through the history books and find a minority, even in Victorian England, that was a corporate person or a professor or whathaveyou. Maybe they were the exception that proved the rule, but still).
My problem is, other than the name Renfield, what does this quiet, calm, dignified guy have in common with mental patient blood addict Renfield of the books and movies? He's really more like Alfred Pennyworth--a wise old butler making sardonic comments about his friendly master's vendetta than a pathetic wretch who's been mind-raped and enslaved.
Nailed it.
That's my problem with a few of these racelifts--if they cast a black man to play Johnny Storm and he's young and handsome and performs the Human Torch as a cocky, brash hothead, fine. If they cast Halle Berry to play Catwoman and she's basically the Crow in a sexy latex Halloween costume fighting an evil cosmetics company... that's a problem. Taking the change of race or gender or orientation to just write an entirely new character and only using the old name for branding. Like if they'd called this guy something other than Renfield people would be going "hey, who's this... Hal Barrymore guy? Where's Renfield!?"
2. Not a fan of the racelift on Renfield. I realize they want to have some diversity in there and it'd take more out-of-the-box thinking than I'd expect from a primetime network to do it in a way other than the black guy being a servant (I'm sure you could look through the history books and find a minority, even in Victorian England, that was a corporate person or a professor or whathaveyou. Maybe they were the exception that proved the rule, but still).
My problem is, other than the name Renfield, what does this quiet, calm, dignified guy have in common with mental patient blood addict Renfield of the books and movies? He's really more like Alfred Pennyworth--a wise old butler making sardonic comments about his friendly master's vendetta than a pathetic wretch who's been mind-raped and enslaved.
Nailed it.
That's my problem with a few of these racelifts--if they cast a black man to play Johnny Storm and he's young and handsome and performs the Human Torch as a cocky, brash hothead, fine. If they cast Halle Berry to play Catwoman and she's basically the Crow in a sexy latex Halloween costume fighting an evil cosmetics company... that's a problem. Taking the change of race or gender or orientation to just write an entirely new character and only using the old name for branding. Like if they'd called this guy something other than Renfield people would be going "hey, who's this... Hal Barrymore guy? Where's Renfield!?"
