Netflix’s latest entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Fist, has had a bit of a rough time so far, not only was it hit with overwhelming negative reviews, it was also accused of ‘Whitewashing’ the main character. Which is strange, considering that Danny Rand has been white for his entire history in comics. Now, the star of the other Kung-Fu based show, Into the Badlands, has spoken out on this issue in a recent interview. Read on to find out what he said.
In a recent interview with Screen Anarchy, Daniel Wu, who portrays the shows main character spoke about the Netflix series. He explained that despite initial concern about the show debuting on the same weekend second season of Into the Badlands began on AMC, he was disappointed with the issues that Iron Fist faced.
He explained:
“I think that’s people going a little too precocious on that because originally the character was written white – it wasn’t like it was a whitewashing thing. It’s not like you are talking about a “Ghost in the Shell issue,” right? And I still don’t actually buy the Ghost in the Shell whitewashing issue either, and I certainly don’t buy into the cultural appropriation bulls— because that’s saying [for Iron Fist] that “only Asians are allowed to do martial arts” then that means only black people can play basketball and rap? That means Jeremy Lin shouldn’t be playing basketball? And Eminem shouldn’t be rapping? That’s bulls—, you know. So I know Asian Americans are angry, but they should calm down and choose the correct fight in that case – I agree that Marvel missed the chance of doing something interesting and casting against the race – they could have done that – and that would have given them some credit, but they didn’t, so what are you going to do about it? I think the important thing is that everyone learned a lesson from that – including people that weren’t involved, so I think we just need to move forward, that’s all.”
It’s good to see that he isn’t offended by the way the series went about the issue, despite agreeing that the show could could have taken the opportunity to change up the character’s origin and give some more representation to a minority group in desperate need of it. It wasn’t just this issue which was a recurring theme in the reviews, many other reviewers also complained about the poor quality of the shows fight scenes, something which is the polar opposite of Into the Badlands. Hopefully, Iron Fist will take some inspiration from this other series if it gets a second season.
Iron Fist is available to stream now on Netflix whilst Into the Badlands can be found on Sundays on AMC.
What do you think? Do you agree with the stars comments? Do you wish Iron Fist was more like Into the Badlands? Let us know below!
Source: Screen Anarchy