Yahoo News Iron Fist star blasts comic writer for offensive remark
Iron Fist has been plagued with controversy over the race of its lead character Danny Rand – and it's showing no signs of slowing down.
Jessica Henwick has defended the casting of white actor Finn Jones, but she had no time for the comments of Roy Thomas, one of the co-creators of the Iron Fist original comics.
To get you up to speed, many Marvel fans had hoped that the TV Iron Fist would be Asian-American to avoid the problematic and offensive white saviour narrative of the comics, as well as raise visibility of Asian-Americans.
Thomas was asked about the controversy, but unfortunately in his response used a racially-insensitive word which is considered derogatory towards Asians.
"I try not to think about it too much," he told Inverse. "I have so little patience for some of the feelings that some people have. I mean, I understand where it's coming from. You know, cultural appropriation, my god. It's just an adventure story.
"Don't these people have something better to do than to worry about the fact that Iron Fist isn't Oriental, or whatever word? I know Oriental isn't the right word now, either."
Aside from the fact that his argument to detractors is basically 'don't be so sensitive', he used the term "Oriental", which is considered offensive and racially insensitive. Thomas seemed to be aware that "Oriental" wasn't the right word, but used it anyway instead of something like – how about "Asian"?
Anyway, Henwick wasn't impressed, and rightly so. She took to Twitter to deliver a simple tweet hitting out at Thomas's use of the word.
Later in his response, Thomas claimed that there was nothing "degrading" towards Asians about Iron Fist (which is sadly untrue).
"Now if something is really racist or degrading to a sex or race, an ethnic group or something like that, that's something else. But Iron Fist isn't that and never has been," he said. "It's all about a fictitious race, a fictitious place like a Shangri-La, and one person who happens to be its emissary. There's no reason why he can't be Caucasian."
If Thomas believes that, then it's further proof of Iron Fist's problematic origins from the 1970s.
Iron Fist came pretty close to casting an Asian-American as Danny Rand, with Lewis Tan revealing that he was "on hold" for the part before it went to Finn Jones.
Iron Fist is available to stream on Netflix.
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