(Hated)changing somenthing to be more "progressive" ends up being a bad thing

[u/Morr4Seiya]

Now to be clear,i am not one of these "anti-woke" losers that complain some people exist,and i am also not the type to complain about changing somenthing in a new version or adaptation,however there are cases where it did ended up being a bad idea.

-In the anime of Cowboy Bebop there is the character Gren,despite being short lived the character is very memorable specially thanks to his tragic story.Basically his story was that he was a soldier from the titan war who was a great friend with Vicious(the main bad guy)after the war he was emprisioned thanks to Vicious who testified against him and he was forced to take a experimental drug that caused him hormonal problems,giving him a feminine appearence and even breasts.

In the Netflix live action,for some reasons they decided Gren was going to be non-binary,which wouldn't be a problem(some people believe he was gay in the anime)if it wasn't for the fact that they also removed all the nuances and complexities that made the character memorable and interesting,instead of a tragic war veteran that was betrayed and had his body changed against his will,Gren is just kinda there.

-The original Rugrats cartoon had the couple Betty and Howard,Betty was a big and masculine woman while Howard was a smaller and nervous man,it was a genuine interesting relationship that stood out from the other couples who were the standard straight couple.

In the new series however they replaced Howard with a woman named Trish,two things,first off why?What was the problem with having a woman being the stronger in a straight relationship?Second why does Hollywood seem to think that every tomboy or masculine woman is a lesbian?

Overall not the worst thing but it is jarring that they had a gender reverse roled that was progressive and decided that wasn't enough.

-Oh man,this one pisses me off the most so i am gonna have to break it down

So back in the late 80s and 90s there was this anime called Saint Seiya also knows as Knights of the zodiac,it tells the story of knights who fight for the Goddess Athena to protect earth,being divided in the golden,silver and bronze knights,the anime was a huge hit in latin america and Europe and while it floped in the US it still has a loyal fanbase.

Being a fan myself i can't recommend it enough,now granted the story does have a fair share of flaws,and that's because the author was honestly just making stuff up as he went along(also a lot of side characters are poorly used or even forgotten about)still it is a great story you should check out

But then a couple of years back Netflix got the rights and decided to a 3D reboot,in this reboot they decided to make the story more "american" to try to bring more american viewers,now i could go on and on a big rant about how that was a bad idea and the execution was so terrible that it made me want to strangle someone but this post is about one specific change.

So Saint Seiya has five main characters,those are Pegasus Seiya,Dragon Shiryu,Cygnus Hyoga,Phoenix Ikki and finally Andromeda Shun.

While the other four characters were the standard masculine and brute male characters who were always ready to throw punches,Shun was smaller,more sensitive and even feminine looking,a pacifist who didn't liked fighting,but don't mistake that for weakness because Shun was loyal to his friends and was extremely powerful.

Then Netflix decided to change Shun into a girl named Shaun.

So wait,you have a male character who goes against every male stereotype and you turn him into just another generic female character?

When asked about it,the showrunner Eugene Son said he made that change because there was no girl in the group and having a all boys group wouldn't be acceptable nowadays

First off that's not true because Athena was also part of the main cast,yeah she wasn't the fighting type but she still helped quite a lot in the story even saving the knights on several occasions,second if you wanted to add a girl to the main group why not use Marin or Shaina?Hell,if you were going to change the story anyway why not turn Seiya sister into a knight?

Thankfully this monstrosity was cancelled(so much for trying to bring more fans)

[u/Budget-Television793]

In Artemis Fowl there's a character Holly Short who's the first female LEPRecon officer. This is a big deal, and the books actually show it well, her Commander who's your typical burly, gruff army guy is harsher on her than on other officers and yes, at first this comes off as super sexist. However the reveal is that when she questions him, he tells her that she HAS to be better than the other officers because she has so much more scrutiny on her meaning she carries the weight of all future female officers on her shoulders. If she isn't exceptional, they might never get the chance.

It was a wakeup for me as a teenage boy and the first introduction to how, maybe the world isn't always fair for boys and girls.

And then...the movie comes along and they decide to change Commander Julius Root into a woman. Sounds progressive on paper right? Hey, let's make this tough, military authority figure female. But it completely kills a super interesting plot point and in practice...actually makes it LESS progressive because it removes any of the interesting examination of gender roles in evolving society.

Though to be fair, this is one of the smallest of the crimes committed by this sad excuse for a movie.

EDIT: Seeing so many other people also bringing up Artemis Fowl makes me feel vindicated.

[u/sugar4roxy → u/Budget-Television793]

on top of that, they whitewashed holly and made the SERVANT CHARACTER that calls artemis MASTER. BLACK. i wish i was joking.

[u/Foreign_Penalty_5341 → u/sugar4roxy]

Funny thing is that his (and his sister’s) appearance is noted as racially ambiguous. There was enough there for particular casting calls. 

[u/A_Town_Called_Malus → u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

Dave Bautista would be a great Butler, I think. Has the physicality, and can deliver the dry humour that Butler uses.

[u/Longjumping_Angle523 → u/A_Town_Called_Malus]

Fuuuck you're absolutely right. The guy would kill as Butler.

[u/coatimundos → u/A_Town_Called_Malus]

Butler is supposed to be around 30. Bautista is too old for that

[u/A_Town_Called_Malus → u/coatimundos]

Can use make up and some cg in the first 2 films and the beginning of Eternity Code. After that, events make Butler age and you can dial them back.

[u/SmoothDiscussion7763 → u/A_Town_Called_Malus]

all i wanted to see was butler breaking the pickpocket's fingers without looking down or stop walking

[u/Diogenes-the-mad → u/Foreign_Penalty_5341]

Somehow I always figured that Butler was Russian. I don't know why.

[u/Foreign_Penalty_5341 → u/Diogenes-the-mad]

His name is Domovoi. It must be somewhere in the mix. 

[u/C0RDE_ → u/Diogenes-the-mad]

Russian or generally eastern European, but even northern Turkey would have worked. Basically everywhere from the Finnish border down would have worked.

[u/DePachySupreme → u/Diogenes-the-mad]

The books keep calling him and Juliet "Eurasian" and if I remember correctly he has some backstory connections to Russian organized crime. It's definitely implied he's either Russian or perhaps Caucasian (as in Georgian or Dagestani) or Central Asian.

His casting as Black is strange because the character could definitely be portrayed by an actor from one of these underrepresented regions, but oh well.

[u/YetAnotherNom → u/Diogenes-the-mad]

He is called Eurasian.

[u/sugar4roxy → u/Diogenes-the-mad]

iirc hes heavily implied to be russian/japanese

[u/hahaimatwork → u/sugar4roxy]

A lot of the race/gender swapping in movies like this seems to be done without any real thought put into how it effects the story or the characters. It's pretty transparent that, especially in this case, it's only being done to generate headlines about the movie and nothing more. Just like Snape in the new Harry Potter (you could have made any character black? it could have even been Hermione since there's already demand for that, but no, you chose the one character who is notoriously greasy and pathetic).

It doesn't even have to be recasting a character to look different, these same types of thoughtless changes can happen for story beats too, like the live action Lilo and Stitch having Nani go off to college and leave Lilo with a neighbor in the end. They probably thought having the strong female character go to college looked progressive, but didn't stop to think about how that completely destroys the entire theme of the movie being family.

[u/DogOwner12345 → u/sugar4roxy]

They have never been... consistent with Holly's skin tone.

[u/Professor-Xivass → u/Budget-Television793]

Also, two minor things in addition: the whole “Giant Dwarf reverse napoleon complex” thing with Mulch, and to a lesser extent, the fact that most of the LEPRecon or The People(fae’s name for themselves for those who haven’t read) are supposed to be short proportionaly but developmentally adults(like a human that was shrunk in photoshop), are cast as children, including Holly…was there no budget for making them seem smaller? No chi masks or anything? If Ant-Man & The Wasp can do it why not here? Just use green screen or something. Half this movie is already cgi.

[u/VanGoghNotVanGo → u/Professor-Xivass]

I assume they cast a child to play Holly so that possible sequels could include the romance without being creepy. 

[u/GenGaara25 → u/Budget-Television793]

Yeah it's wild. Root specifically says that if he treats her equally or better than the male officers, everyone will accuse her of getting special treatment or Root going easy on her. He has to come down on her harder than the men, that way when she still succeeds, nobody can try and discount it.

[u/Manofchalk → u/Budget-Television793]

I think the problem is that 'women being in police/military' was a cultural conversation back when Artemis Fowl was being written, but it really isn't nowadays. To keep that element dates the narrative in a big way.

Like I read a lot of W40K novels and they went through a phase in the 2000's of having women in the Imperial Guard be a big deal, while the modern books even in the same series with the same characters it's totally unremarkable.

[u/whatthewhythehow → u/Manofchalk]

Even when it was written, though, they make a point that Fairy society is less progressive than human society, in spite of their technological superiority. Because the characters live longer, there is less change. That’s part of what made it interesting.

Also, in a lot of places, we’ve circled back to the “women aren’t fit for service” narrative. I don’t know if it ever fully went away.

[u/A_Town_Called_Malus → u/Manofchalk]

Just because that specific job 1 to 1 isn't as relevant, doesn't reduce the theme that it brings with it.

[u/Ok_Somewhere1236 → u/Manofchalk]

i feel still fail to work because the Fae are an isolated society with a much strong long-term tradition, so it works for the fae. and to be honest still send a very storng message that if you are the first of anything, you have a duty with the ones that will one fay follow your footsteps.

[u/tnsnames → u/Manofchalk]

It was more that men/women regiments were strictly separated by gender and mixed ones were rare exception. WH40K was always kinda equal in right to die for Emperor unlike real world, where only men are forcibly mobilized. 

[u/Notte_di_nerezza → u/tnsnames]

The first book states that an annoying Lieutenant would go on to become the first ever Lady General in Imperial History.

In-story, though, this could be a case of not having all the records. Especially since we've seen some pretty high-ranking women in the Horus Heresy series.

Spot-on about the mixed regiments in the Guard, though. Those are not the norm for SO many reasons, and Cain's stack of disciplinary actions is part of it.

[u/Manofchalk → u/tnsnames]

It was more that men/women regiments were strictly separated by gender

And we just never saw or heard mention of the all-women regiments in the lore until it came time in the 2000's era novels to make a big deal about how they were integrating.

W40K as an IP doesn't really have a stance on feminism like it does religion or bigotry, it passively reflects real world bias so women in the guard just didn't really exist until the real world was having that conversation.

[u/tnsnames → u/Manofchalk]

All women yes. But women guardsmen existed for A LONG time. Female Trooper Vaskez in 1987 white dwarf miniature I suppose earliest example. In novels I suppose it is Abnet Necropolis from 2000. But I did not read that much older novels, so hard for me to say. 

And there definitely were women guardsmen  in catalogues of that time. 

[u/Zoodud254 → u/Budget-Television793]

Artemis Fowl is hands down the worst adaptation out of all the bad adaptations. It's so far removed feom the source material that it might as well be a separate entity.