Popular Asian star, Henry Golding, whom many of you might remember from his starring roles in "Last Christmas" and "Crazy Rich Asians" is now cast as Snake Eyes in the new GI Joe reboot. The film is said to center around the iconic character, Snake Eyes, and exploring his backstory.
Although the film has been met with a lot of controversy for varying reasons. For starters, in the original 80's cartoon and comics that the film is based on, Snake Eyes was a white guy, who practiced the arts of ninjitsu. However, Paramount has decided to race bend the character to be Asian instead of white like it was in the cartoon and comics. Normally, this wouldn't bother me because the way I see it unless there's a key essential element about the character that requires them to be a certain ethnicity and/or gender, then it doesn't matter if they want to cast a minority actor to play a white role; unless the character is too iconic, then that's an entirely different story. Moving on.
However, I should point out that the GI Joe comics that fleshed out the 80's cartoon characters more had an author that happens to be an Asian Vietnam war veteran. He made snake eyes a white person, and made it tie into his backstory. Yes, there is a key essential reason why Snake Eyes has to be a white guy.
In the comic book, Snake Eyes trained in a dojo in Japan, where he was treated like an outcast because of his race, as many Japanese members of the dojo didn't think it was right for a white person to train alongside them in ninjitsu. However, when their ninja master dies, snake eyes gets falsely accused for the murder, so he takes a vow of silence, and never removes his mask under most circumstances.
Needless to say based on what I've heard about the reboot, Paramount is essentially saying fuck all of that. Not only is Snake Eyes going to take off his mask often throughout the film from what I've heard, but he's also going to speak throughout the entire freaking film. Keep in mind, this is hardly unheard of for a starring role in a film. It's the same reason why all the spider-men on the big screen always insist on having scenes where the mask gets torn off during the climax as they want audiences to see their faces in a film. Cheesy and self absorbed I know but it's just how most actors are.
And Paramount seems to think it's racist to cast a white guy as snake eyes because they believe only Asian people should play ninja roles and be involved in roles that require martial arts.....isn't that a bit racist to think that?
Plus wouldn't that make Larry Hama racist against his own people for making snake eyes white in the comics back in the 80's? Um....I digress.
Needless to say, all these changes have royally pissed off a lot of hardcore fans of the GI Joe franchise, which could result in the film flopping if they're not careful.
And to make matters worse, it's been reported that Henry Golding was CRYING on the phone after the first week of filming as he claims training to be Snake Eyes on the big screen is too hard. Needless to say, this has enraged fans even more about the role, but what are your thoughts on this? Personally, I think it was a mistake to give Snake Eyes his own film to begin with.
Don't get me wrong, I loved GI Joe as a kid as much as anyone did growing up in the 80's, but Snake Eyes was always a supporting character in that series, so it may have been best just to reboot the GI Joe franchise instead of giving Snake Eyes his own film but that's just me. What are your thoughts on this?
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