‘Into the Badlands’ Star Defends ‘Iron Fist’ From Whitewashing Claims
Those disappointed with Iron Fist were encouraged to compare the Season 2 premiere of Into the Badlands that very weekend, and the AMC drama has now surprisingly come to the Netflix hero’s defense. Badlands star Daniel Wu says claims of Iron Fist’s whitewashing were “a little too precocious,” defending the Ghost in the Shell controversy as well.
Speaking with Screen Anarchy (h/t Vulture), Wu noted some initial concern with the two series debuting the same weekend, but has since come to regret the dark cloud hanging over Iron Fist. As to as the whitewashing claims, Wu reiterated that the character of Danny Rand was conceived as white, though he agrees that Marvel missed an interesting opportunity:
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.
For its part, Iron Fist reportedly still ranks as one of Netflix’s most-binged series of the year, though Ghost in the Shell’s box-office was hampered with controversy surrounding the film, by Paramount’s own admission.
In the meantime, both Iron Fist and Into the Badlands are available to stream on Netflix, with Season 2 of the latter currently airing on AMC.