12.24.2010

racists officially hate thor


File under f#@%ing idiotic... Fellow geeks are well aware of the Thor movie in the works for next summer. Based on the Marvel Comics superhero, the movie tells the story of the mythical hammer-wielding Norse god of thunder who descends to Earth to battle evil.

Cool, right? Apparently not cool for the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization calling for a boycott of the movie because a character is being played by a black actor: Council Of Conservative Citizens Calls For Boycott Of Thor Over Black Actor.

The CCC, the contemporary incarnation of the segregationist Citizens Councils, apparently has a problem with the fact that one of the Norse gods, Heimdall, will be played by British actor Idris Elba (best known for his work as Stringer Bell on HBO's The Wire):
The CCC is the contemporary incarnation of the segregationist Citizens Councils, which sprung up across the South in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education and which possible Republican presidential candidate Haley Barbour praised in a recent interview.

"It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves," a post on the CCC's website reads. "An upcoming movie, based on the comic book Thor, will give Norse mythology an insulting multi-cultural make-over. One of the Gods will be played by Hip Hop DJ Idris Elba."
The CCC alleges that casting a black man to play a Norse deity is the insertion of "left-wing social engineering into European mythology." Uh, the movie isn't a straight adaptation of Norse mythology -- it's based on a friggin' comic book, where Thor flies around and fights robots and aliens. But hey, if you feel this is something you need to boycott, go right ahead -- but it sounds, quite possibly, like the stupidest reason ever to avoid a movie.

I bring this all up because as I've mentioned before, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano is also in Thor as a fellow Asgardian, Hogun the Grim. I wonder why that casting hasn't drawn the ire of the Council of Conservative Citizens? All I know is, if the racists hate Thor, then that's one more reason for me to go see it.

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