r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Morr4Seiya • 3d ago

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

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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)

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229

u/yeezusKeroro 3d ago

The Ancient One from MCU Doctor Strange. Kevin Feige thought they were avoiding the wise old Asian man stereotype by making her a woman, but replacing a Tibetan monk with a white person was a controversial choice in itself.

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u/GXNext 3d ago

I would argue this was less for performative reasons than it was economical. Making the Ancient One Tibetan makes any movie with him completely unavailable in China, the second largest movie market, because China claims Tibet as it's own land and any deviation from that is enough to get something banned there.

It's still not a great reason by any means though...

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u/Dimsum852 3d ago

This was the main and only reason

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u/ProfessorPhi 3d ago

They could have at least cast another minority to protect themselves tbh

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u/FlamingWings 3d ago

I feel they chose not to but an galiec ancient one to show how the magic soceity was a amalgamation of different ethnicities and that origin doesn’t dictate who can become sorcerer supreme

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u/M1ck3yB1u 3d ago

Woke ends when it's not profitable. All gay affection stuff are always shoehorned in a way that scenes can be cut or cropped, etc.

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u/Pumpkin_Sushi 2d ago

Tbf I dont think woke was ever "profitable", Disney learned that the hard way lol

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u/yeezusKeroro 3d ago

You're probably right but Feige said in an interview they did it to mix things up and actually stated that he regrets erasing an Asian character. But it makes sense that the real reason would be Chinese censorship.

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u/Pumpkin_Sushi 2d ago

He cant have regretted it too much, they brought her back in Infinity War

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

but...why not make him CHINESE then?

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u/VanGoghNotVanGo 3d ago

"If they can't make him Ukrainian couldn't they at least make him Russian?"

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

yes, why not?

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u/Ae3qe27u 3d ago

When one group is historically oppressed or pressured by another group, it looks bad to replace them by the group that pressures them. It'd be like replacing a native character with a white one.

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

So lien china ?

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u/Ae3qe27u 3d ago

In that China is a group that's pressured Tibet? Yeah. Replacing a Tibetian character with a Chinese one could come across similarly to replacing a native character with a white character.

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

And ?

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u/Ae3qe27u 3d ago

That would be considered offensive and in poor taste.

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u/VanGoghNotVanGo 3d ago

"If they can't make him Swedish, couldn't they at least make him Danish?"

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

how does that relate?

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u/ViriditasBiologia 3d ago

This must be bit because if you have to ask this, you are ignorant

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

So u can’t explain why

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u/ViriditasBiologia 3d ago

Here’s your explanation they’re two different groups of people’s. There I gave you whatever every four-year-old already knows congrats.

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u/myrmonden 3d ago

Ok so you can’t explain

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u/ViriditasBiologia 3d ago

Bot or troll, cya chud loser!

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u/Ill_Leg_7168 3d ago

first is human, second Ork, diff races

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u/Luciform444 2d ago

I hope this was meant to be sarcasm.

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u/myrmonden 2d ago

no, why would it be?

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u/decader12 3d ago

The reasoning behind this is actually not that woke as it was more to appeased China, one of the biggest markets, who doesn't want anyone to be reminded of Tibet's independent before China took over

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u/DEVIL-HIMSELF-666 3d ago

this doesn't get that much pushback because tilda swinton killed that role!

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u/Tar_alcaran 3d ago

She's incapable of not being amazing

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u/OK_x86 3d ago

She carried Constantine. Well I guess her and Weisz. And Stormare when he shows up for all of 5 minutes.

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u/koopcl 3d ago

Still my favourite depiction of Satan in any media. Stormare just kills it.

And I say this as someone who is really mad at the Constantine film because I love the Hellblazer comics and the adaptation was just... not an adaptation at all. It was almost WWZ levels of "this is entirely unrelated to the source material except for one or two very superficial details".

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u/OK_x86 3d ago

Oh interesting. I need to find copies of those books then.

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u/Johnnyblaz3r 3d ago

The 2014 TV show was the closest they came to accurate casting for Constantine if you want another media portrayal, but they still Americanised virtually everyone else in the cast and set it in America.

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u/Cacafuego 3d ago

I was so happy when I found out he was Czernobog in American Gods

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u/ItsNotMeItsYourBussy 3d ago

The three of them carried it despite the writers, and actual cannibal Shia LaBeouf, trying to drag it into hell

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u/RoiDrannoc 3d ago

Let's be honest it doesn't get much pushback because most people discovered this character with the movies and not with the comics. Same reason why there wasn't the usual wall of complaints when SLJ was cast as Nick Fury.

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u/DEVIL-HIMSELF-666 3d ago

I mean SLJ wasn't even based on white nick fury from main 616 timeline,instead he's based on fury from ultimate universe! that was years before first ironman movie came out!

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u/PointPrimary5886 3d ago

The people who original did the Ultimate comics back in the early 2000s promised Samuel L Jackson that once plans for Nick Fury to appear in a movie was set in place, he'd automatically be casted as the character so that they may continue to use his likeness in their comics. This was basically a self written prophecy, but he does a good job with the role.

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u/tinyrottedpig 3d ago

It also helps that the actors did phenomenal with their acting, they brought their A-game to these characters and interpretations of them.

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u/National_Equivalent9 3d ago

It got a fuck ton of pushback up until the movie released. It was pretty much the main thing people were talking about. Then it came out and she was good so people stopped brining it up.

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u/Just-Antelope-8069 3d ago

Kevin Feige was pandering to China

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u/Dramatic-Emphasis-43 3d ago

The reasoning never made much sense because “the wise old Asian man” doesn’t seem to be something people were against compared to white washing. They also could have still made the Ancient One a “wise youngish looking Asian woman” to break the stereotype.

What’s very funny though is Wong is arguably the “wise Asian man” stereotype they wanted to avoid but he’s an extremely well liked character who has been in way more projects than Swinton’s Ancient One.

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u/NadeshikoEatingPasta 3d ago

Tilda Swinton killed it though so while it technically fits, nobody really complains about it legitimately anymore. Race swaps can be fine, IF you nail them.

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u/LordAdversarius 3d ago

I think this was done more for cynical marketing reasons. China is a big money maker for marvel and they didnt want to offend the chinese market by mentioning Tibet. 

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u/mmcjawa_reborn 3d ago

This was a doomed if they do, doomed if they don't situation, that I think they legitimately made the best of.

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u/NatBornFilmCritic 3d ago

The reason for this change was actually a bit more cynical than that. Its because China does not recognize Tibet as its own sovereign nation and any movie that even hints at the idea tends to get banned. So they changed the Ancient One from a Tibetan monk in order to make sure the movie does not get cut off from the Chinese market. So yeah....money.

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u/Feisty-Fill-8654 3d ago

lmao no, this one is plain and simple CCP interference. China is also ruining everything we love.

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u/ExciKaiser 3d ago

This one is really weird. I like Tilda a lot. I like the idea of not going for the caricatural old Asian man. But the end result really doesn't work at all.

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u/OzbourneVSx 3d ago

Despite the appeasing China angle

I'd argue this made more thematic sense in the movie because it gave her a stronger connection with strange at least visually cause you assume her reason for getting into magic was to fight her cancer, but instead of fully healing herself like the guy playing basketball she found a higher purpose in serving the order

Now she doesn't actually have cancer so they kinda missed on that one

All the fucking doctor strange movies feel like they have bones that make sense but just refuse to give strange actual foils

Like in Strange 2, America Chavez is known in the comics to be an ultra confident girl whose a super hero partly because of her massive guilt complex around chucking her parents into spacetime.

In the movie, they could have framed this as her unhealthly masking to cover up her guilt just like strange was, which would have given strange a parallel with her and one where he could be the surrogate father he is supposed to be framed as by ripping off that mask cause he knows how unhealthy that is.

But instead of America being "confident girl boss" thinly covering up her mental breakdown about maybe killingher parents and causing chaos anywhere she goes as she is chased by monsters, we helpless damsel in distress who barely emotes.

I hate these movies.

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u/Darmok47 3d ago

It also helps that Mordo is there played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

So you get the sense that Kamar-Taj attracts people from all over the world.