Director uses Twitter poll to ask DC fans about casting 'Nightwing' and it was kinda weird
The former Boy Wonder needs your help, apparently.
It was announced not so long ago that a live-action Nightwing movie was in the works, with Lego Batman director Chris McKay at the helm.
For those of you unfamiliar with the project it is about the character of Dick Grayson -- the original Robin who eventually breaks away from Batman's frankly troubling habit of child endangerment to become his own superhero. You guessed it: Nightwing.
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The film's director Chris McKay delivered some news about the project on Twitter, followed by this slightly odd poll.
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Okay, where to start...
Firstly these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example a "badass martial artist" can also play a character as "vulnerable and emotional". Slamming a drop-kick into someone's thorax does not mean you are an emotionally invulnerable ice-person. (No offence, Mr. Freeze).
The juxtaposition of "badass martial artist" and "recognizable movie star" also rings a little strange, but that could be in response to the fan black-lash against Danny Rand's lacklustre fighting skills in Marvel's Iron Fist series.
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Then comes a question about the ethnicity of the actor, and whether it's important to fans that they're Romani.
The character Dick Grayson has Romani roots, something that DC comics has been keen to highlight in recent years.
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The inclusion of this detail in McKay's casting poll is clearly an attempt to show awareness about the discussion around whitewashing in comic books and Hollywood.
However, asking fans to choose whether they want someone Romani as opposed to a "recognisable movie star" is perhaps a clumsy attempt to engage with the issue.
Some commenters picked up on the fact that these suggested categories do not exclude casting a Romani actor.
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Plenty there for the casting director to mull over.
