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Thread
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Should I be so bothered?
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07-04-2021, 08:11 PM
captain mal
Browncoat
Join Date: Apr 2007
Location: Ohio. For now.
Posts: 4,266
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CADPAT
Pretty much. It's basically Disney Star Wars all over again.
Technically, Snake Eyes's real name should be Bob Light, as that was the Air Cav trooper who Larry Hama met in Vietnam and who apparently inspired the creation of the character in the first place.
However, while Snake Eyes's real name may be classified, his
identity
is not so obscure: much like Steve Rogers, his physical appearance is an example of the blond, blue-eyed, "All-American" (for lack of a better descriptor) visual archetype which used to be so prominent in popular culture, representing his status as an "everyman" character during his war service in Vietnam: a quiet, good-natured, innocent (see his habit of carrying his twin sister's picture in
lieu
of a girlfriend's) kid from the Midwest who had somehow wound up in a jungle on the other side of the world. Being Japanese-American, Hama could look these ideas with both an insider's and an outsider's perspective, which is how the relationship between Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow evolved, Hama (if memory serves) describing the two characters as representing his "American soul" and his "Japanese soul" respectively, two distinct and yet interlinked personalities, sometimes in conflict with each other but also bound together in a way that defies easy categorization.
On a larger scale, this also somewhat mirrors the historical relationship between Japan and the United States, which has been largely friendly, despite recurring tensions over one issue or another (and the rather glaring exception of WWII), and which has been the source of much cross-cultural exchange and pollination, up to and including the ninja craze of the 1980s that heavily informed the original "Real American Hero" mythos in the first place.
But you cast Henry Golding as Snake Eyes, instead of, say, Wyatt Russell, and you discard all of that history, nuance, tension, and resonance. All of it. What you're ultimately left with is more corporate sludge drained of everything that made it unique and interesting in order to (supposedly) appeal to the international market.
Yep.
captain mal
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