WHAT IF...? | Marvel Race-Bent the Watcher and Hollywood's Double Standard Is Showing 

If voice actors had to match the race of their character, the entire anime industry would COLLAPSE.

Why would he care for the plight of Africans? He’s a cosmic space god! Is there a Space Africa or something, is it next to Space Australia from DBZ Abridged?

Creators are so hooked on the word "relatable" instead of focusing on making characters/words/stories "compelling". As a 19 year old black man I got nothing in commonly with a 30 year old white cowboy (Arthur Morgan), yet I love him as a character because he is compelling. I don't watch/read or play entertainment media to see my life mirrored back at me. It's escapism. I get to be someone else, or be a part of someone else's journey, exist in a different world similar to my own but with different unique things going on. None that requires relatability as a foundation.

Also, why the hell does Tony die in every damn episode he's in???

If they didn’t have double standards, we wouldn’t see posts up all over the place reminding everyone that they have double standards.

Shoutout to all the Redheads Hollywoods got rid of for the past years...

Kevin Michael Richardson also voiced Shredder on the Nickelodeon TMNT a few years ago, and before him James Avery (Uncle Phil) voiced him on the O.G. Ninja Turtles cartoon, and Shredder is Japanese. What gets me is how the people who defend needless race swapping will claim "they're getting the best person for the role", but won't accept that when it's the other way around. The race swapping is ridiculous and needs to stop. They're fine with race swapping white historical figures, like in Hamilton and Anne Boleyn, though. The hypocrisy and double standards are infuriating.

Dr Strange: Destroys the universe *The Watcher: die loser* Killmonger: I'm taking over a country *The Watcher: awwwww*

I demand that Darth Vader gets redubbed by a serious burn victim who also has severe problems breathing!

One random indian dude complained about Apu being voiced by a white guy, and about how the kids he went to school with compared him to Apu because that was the only mainstream indian character they were familiar with. Despite fans almost universally pointing out how stupid that is Hollywood still decided it was a problem and started pushing white men out of voice acting.

I missed the days where actors were casted for their talent and not anything else. I have no problem with representation, but please don't force it. You don't need to race-bend, or gender-swap characters, just add characters who fit the profile. Looking at you CW.

I didn't say anything about this when the episode first dropped cause I wasn't sure if they had already showed the Watcher looking like this before this point but I definitely noticed it when it happened. I was like wait wtf why is the Watcher black and wearing Wakanda looking clothes

Actually this just confirms the theory that the watcher is a red head.

Hollywood: *Political correctness is more important than good story telling!*

I hope thorias gets to collab with young rippa to talk about the tokenization and unnecessary changes in the characters.

They already showed us Watchers in one of the end credits scenes from the movies. They were all pale skinned.

10:18: from what I remember, the Dora Millaje are not just the Black Panther’s personal guard, but also, an entire harem of potential brides, since the Wakandans are all about the Black Panther being the strongest and smartest among them and want only the strongest woman to mate with him.

"What if Killmonger saved Tony Stark" and then Tony dies 1/3 rd through the episode.

Matching voice over work to the animation just gets so old and boring on top of other woke nonsense. David Warner is, in my view, the best Ra’s al Ghul voice ever, and he isn’t Arabic. Oded Fehr was closer for Young Justice, but he is still no David Warner. It’s to the point that acting is going to become an endangered career choice.

Here is a simple rule, race/gender swapping NEVER works. The audience never likes it. The only times were they come close to pulling it off is in situation like The Suicide Squad with Ratcatcher were they replaced Ratcatcher with his daughter. And that situation worked only worked because not only was the person being swapped replaced with a genuinely different character, both the character and the media they were in went out of the way to respect the legacy of the person they were replacing. It was a passing of the torch, not a malicious "not for you boys" moment.

So marvel race bent a cosmic being why am I not surprised.

How does Kilmonger saving Tony change the Queen of Wakanda into a warrior fighting on the front lines, when in all of Black Panther, she's being protected by bodyguards? Tony: "Not a great script."

Didn't we already see Stan Lee interacting with the Watcher in Guardians of the Galaxy?

I've noticed these things while watching what if and not enjoying the show much. But, I still don't get why there are posts everywhere are social media saying each episode keeps getting better. Also the watcher in guardians of the galaxy wasn't black. I wondered what led to this decision.

The complete state of our entertainment media 🤦‍♂️These people just want it all "diverse" or "relatable", well... The whole point of fiction, all fiction like comic books, movies, video games, novels is to identify with someone who ISN'T YOU. If you have to see someone who looks and talks exactly like you to project yourself, well, you're an effin narcissist.

I actually liked episode 6, though only because I liked Killmonger. I would just develop a headache addressing the politics.

I can play spoiler for the question of when does the bending work; it doesn't, ever. Anything that can be mined from such a move would be better off being done with/to an entirely new character.

The MCU went full woke starting with the Captain Marvel movie, well, many of us guessed it right. So glad I skipped everything after Infinity War, and thanks to daily reminders from people willing to sacrifice themselves everyday, saves my time, my wallet and my brains from headaches caused by this crap. Keep up the good work 😉

Another example of this is in Justice Society: World War II. In that movie, they made Iris West black because her voice actress was black. I blame the CW Flash for this instance in particular since Iris was also black in the Snyder Cut.

DC and Marvel have been doing this for awhile now in the live action realm,they tokenize a character to fit the actor or voice actor in animation

Kratos from the God of War games has also been voiced by not one but two Black actors (T.C. Carson and Christopher Judge). And nobody had any problems because the character still looked like he fit within a more fantastical version of Greek mythology and their voice work fit the character extremely well. Fast forward to God of War Ragnarok (this time set in the realm of the Norse pantheon) and they turned Angrboda into being blatantly African. Which is weird considering they already teased Egypt in the previous game from 2018 (although there’s much debate over the actual ethnic background of the Egyptians) and they race-bent a European character anyway.

Good luck finding a voice actor for Scooby-Doo. Only seen one talking dog and it was a pug.

So Killmonger saves Stark from one of his own missile by grabbing it and throws it several miles away, one handed! "How?!" Even if that missile weigh less than a pound (doubt it), There is no way he could've done that without already having super strength. Which he doesn't.

Character: "is black" SJW media: "quick! Fire the white voice actor!" Character: "is white" SJW media: "quick! Race swap the character!"

For the record- I'm a fan of this guy. One of the few strong men calling out gross hypocritical feminism, race bait/swap bullshit.

Hollywood needs to stop race swapping everything & create new characters.

Okay, the Queen being a soldier can be explained. See, the Dora Milaje are not just the Kings royal guard but also his concubines. In tradition, he is to choose one from his royal guard to be his bride when it is time for a queen to be chosen. That's why she is seen as a soldier. And base off of the battle, she probably was the highest ranking member during T'Chaka's time as Black Panther.

This man is gonna shit his pants when he finds out Jeffrey Wright plays Jim Gordon in The Batman.

03:03 in the animated movie BATMAN vs DRACULA JOKER says : " JOKER'S BACK FROM THE GRAVE ! " PENGUIN replies : " YEAH , ALOT OF THAT GOING AROUND "

Disney takes good writing and takes a shit on it with identity politics. Because Identity politics > Logical writing

Yeah, I didn't understand the death of Tony Stark by being stabbed in the shoulder. Shuri knowing how Killmonger was bad would've been a great thing to actually see, like how Tony figured it out. That was a missed opportunity. As for the Watcher being black, I don't get it lol. Race bending, well all the bending and swapping, is lazy and pointless to me. Voice acting is a bit different since the voice needs to match the character. The look is there so all that's left is finding the right voice. That to me is more acceptable than live action swapping/bending. I don't have to see a character with my skin tone in order to relate to them. We aren't of a hive mind so to do things like this is a waste.

My guy Thorias not Afraid to drop some truth bombs. Respect ✊

To the shoulder death; the auxiliary artery is in the general region so perhaps Tony bled out into his suit and body? It's the best defense of the described scene but even I know it's a piss poor defense.

"Persons of color should play characters of color" ? That sounds like racial segregation to me. This is one of the many reasons why I hate the social justice mindset. Sjws pretend to fight for equality( that they actually already have- along with a side order of preferential treatment due to all their whinning about supposedly being oppressed) while they are actually working to separate groups based on race. Also, if people should only play characters based on their own race, how do they decide who voices talking animal characters and aliens from outer space?

Keep up the great work on your channel 👍 keep hustling

I was surprised when the queen was on the battle front and the king at the palace

If marvel wants to entertain us how about the do a "what if" their writers , animators, actors (etc) had talent and wanted to make a great show

"Know that i see you." - Thorias The Watcher 👁 👁

If they didn't have Double Standards they'd have No Standards

Marvel have been woke ever since the early 2010, this isn't even a surprise. The proof is all over Twitter, especially Dan Slott. Hence Disney Marvel is the same thing.

Why does people try to call this man racist and he's not 🤣🤣

To answer your question, yeah, getting stabbed in the shoulder WOULD be dangerious. The shouldee has servel major arteries and if they are shredded or reptured enoguh, it can result in a total bleed out

What If... a colour of a fictional alien didn't matter at all?

I think as long as you fall under their technicolor umbrella of oppression you can retain any role whether it matches you irl or not!🤣

Don’t forget Phil LaMarr as Samurai Jack.

Killmunger stupid fingerprints was everywhere! Like I was angry and laughing they even show the crime forensics specialist in tony building 😂😂😂

When will this woke BS writing end!!!!???

And you can't convince people that actually like this shit otherwise.

For me, Superhero movies and TV shows jumped the shark when they made Jimmy Olsen a tall buff black guy for Kara to fawn over in Supergirl. At this point, the Golden Age of superheroes on the screen is over. Expect "entertainment" companies to start bending comic characters to fit whatever their agenda/egos want, just like the 80's and 90's pre-MCU movies.

Literally infinite universes, and watcher gets all sad over wakanda. Dude probably has seen a universe where Hitler becomes captain Blitzkrieg or something.

So it's okay for a color person to voice a white character but it's not okay for a white character to voice a color character? Everyone just watch anime

The fact that race is constantly brought up nowadays really amazes me because when I was a kid growing up in the nineties,seeing a diverse crowd wasn't a problem or a point of contention.. It just went unnoticed. Now we all wanna fight and argue over skin color. What in the F is going on??

I’m looking forward to that video, good sir! You’ve got some great insight.

So glad to hear someone call this out. I don't approve of the "characters matching the skin color of the actors" No voice is tailored to a certain ethnic group, it's based around the environment you grew in and if someone can bring it our it shouldn't matter. Then making black or female characters overly powerful just for the sake of is so lame, it's so hard to deal with marvel or any movie now because they all just wanna push politics smh

Thanks for the review!💜

The watcher is not white. He is an alien. Concepts of black and white are human dysfunction/invention. What is hole seems to leave out,, that for over 100 years there are far more opportunities for white actors. Then there are for black and brown actors. In some areas Hollywood is trying to rectify this. Which I think is great. Making the watcher’s skin brown.. does no harm to the character what so ever. Of course the changing of skin tone would be upsetting to people that I used to looking at everything and everyone that looks like them. That said,, in certain cases I think that the racial identity of character should remain the same. Such as James Bond. There are plenty of double 00’s where they can put agents of color male or female. James Bond should stay who he has always been. But as far as The watcher goes,, he’s not white. If anything he’s ‘pale’ in the most comic books.

They still need to make the episode with black panther being White

ROFL Mary Shuri striked again with her power of Mary Sueness!

Sad thing is Pepper Pots who been suspicious and wary of him from the start. The character who would try to avenge tony death wasn't the one to find evidence to challenge Erik but shuri does out of nowhere? A black character again has to be the savior sigh. I just noticed that wow

Canonically every "royal guard' to the Black Panther/King of Wakanda is supposed to be his consort - to ensure the line doesn't die. So they are all technically in line to become his queen/wife. So yes, the queen would have been chosen from the Royal Guard, and would have belonged to them. - Storm was an allowed exception because she's an Omega, and frankly can break the whole world if she really wants to, with minimal effort, at any given point on a bad day. So she's probably exempt from the needing to prove how much butt she can kick. Also, as the Royal Guard they wouldn't have left him alone. They would be near to help T'challa protect himself because his survival is their ultimate perogative aside from breeding to ensure there's always a "worthy king" of Wakanda. (Marvel does tend to shove all of that into a little corner box where it will almost never be mentioned; because very technically it is a Harem, but it's in the lore)

Characters it's acceptable to race bend? Exactly 1. Ferro Lad, as he was originally intended to be black and that was blocked because editorial were worried that racists wouldn't buy the book. He can go back to being black as originally intended. No one else.

I did like that killmungur was still his character evil and manipulative but it was too easy for him like realistically he would have gotten caught longtime 😂

Aziz Ansari did a documentary film specifically to knock the Simpsons over Apu. That was the first big push to change animated shows, not taking into the account that the practice of one voice actor doing many dates back to very early animation. No offense was general intended, instead it was a way for studios to save money. Ansari had his own Me Too scandal concerning non-consensual sex which almost knocked his show off of Netflix and killed his career. While his argument has valid points, if the portrayal is done without malice I think older work can be given a sort of historical pass, especially since animation can be very expensive. While hiring specific voice actors to do specific characters is appreciated, it kills the jobs of talented voice actors who can do many voices.

As a 54 year old Puerto Rican, Hispanic I definitely didn’t see any “representation” growing in The Bronx. It’s all about escaping to a make believe world. The Lone Ranger, Tarzan, Speed Racer, Superman, Batman and Robin etc... Countless of movies, comic books and Saturday morning cartoons, none of them with Hispanic characters, no one cares. Just give us good characters and great stories. The only Hispanic “superhero” growing up was “El Chapulin Colorado” and he was a terrible representation of the Mexican culture.

There are two questions that I ask myself about a race, gender and sexual identity swap. Why are we making these changes to the character? What affects does it have on the overall stories? Most swaps prior to the identity politics era were done for a better person to play that character or to take the story in a different way. Switching a character identity isn’t necessary a bad thing if the character’s personality and story would be the same. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are great example that it doesn’t really matter what the identity of the character because the story’s time period and setting can be modified to more current time. Another example is a Christmas Carol with so many adaptations because the storyline is core. In current culture, most stories and characters are more about specific experiences through certain time periods where major wars, innovations, injustices were done by certain people. That would also applied to our fiction. We have stories that were tailored made where it only makes sense for a certain character to play it. Hollywood used to see a popular character and make different version doing roughly the same. They would change the circumstances around the character and different and new story would arise. This new character didn’t have to steal or bash the previous character to make them better or accepted.. A great example is Indiana Jones is relics hunter/teacher. Then a tv shows in the 90s came out with The Relic Hunter with Tia Carrere staring as Sydney Fox. No matter if you like it or not, it was different than Indiana Jones franchise. The new Indiana Jones 5 will be passing or stealing of the torch. Since the movie is not out, I could only speculate what they will do but I don’t Harrison Ford is going too much on the action. It will be stand in. Another good example is the second and first The Fugitive movies. The story was different based on the circumstances of why each guy was running from the law. In the last few years, I have been hearing how I need to see “X” on screen to be represented which I find very odd. One of the Star Trek captains that I really enjoy the most is Captain Benjamin Sisko. If I have listened to the representation argument then I should not understand him at all. There was panel were Avery Brooks was asked how it was to play a black captain. He corrected them in his answer by saying he didn’t play a black captain, he played Star fleet captain who happens to be black. He went onto to say that if he thought of himself as black first then the character role would be limited. It make me think that the other captains never played a white captain. Instead of looking for outer qualities to be proud of, we should for humanity in ourselves and others. Another reason that it doesn’t make sense is how it changes the overall story. There was talked about when the X-Men come to the MCU, that Magneto should be played by a black person. I made the argument that the motivation between the Holocaust and mistreatment during the Civil Rights are two different things. Since Max or Erik (depending on which version Magneto you go with), the story would changed a lot. Being based on the Holocaust has different horrors than those experience during the Civil Rights movement. Another different is that Civil Rights movements had white people with power to make the changes over the decades. The Holocaust was only ended due to the defeat of the Germans. A great example of changing the character where the storyline was worst for it was with Star Lord not being Peter Quill but T’Challa in one your What If? reviews. The writers would not let T’Challa to suffer or go through the character arc that Peter Quill. The main reason a character works for us because they have flaws or a goal that we can invest in. Other things that change was the tone, other characters and the theme because the writers race bend. Some people say that it was the identity politics of the writers and I would agree that is contributing factor.

Plus technically speaking what if comics were always like this from very beginning.

The what if series sounds like it was done for being nothing more than a Tumbler fanfic for the landwhales.

As the episode went on the writing got worse I was like man that sucks

No one is forcing those voice actors out. They are stepping aside of their own volition because THEY don't feel comfortable. Isn't that their right if that's what makes them comfortable.

Rule of thumb. When a company, industry or institution goes full Gillette, treat them as such.

I have never even perceived The Watcher to be Human let alone Black or White, but they sure are slipping too much into my entertainment.

I hear ya man I complained too with the voice acting nonsense. Like actors too, the point is to pretend to be something you're not. There's no real Kryptonians to play Superman, Supergirl, Zod and all them, can get Google translate to play transformers voices but how's that gonna be? We gonna do another remaster of Star Wars with a white guy's voice as Darth Vader because he's white? When does it freaking end

I find it hilarious they have The Watcher show concern for AFRICA when he was literally born billions of years before Earth formed. The planet Earth was a cloud of gas coalescing in space around Sol when The Watcher was middle aged.

You hit the nail on the spot on what's going on in this tv show. If this show had played ten or more years ago before 2018 and above I wouldn't have given it a second thought. Now and days everything that comes from Disney, Netflix, CW, and others that have any type of female actor no matter what race they have my spider-sense BS going off plus any character that is race bent for no reason also too. Currently, the only shows and movies I enjoy are Korean and Japanese television shows and movies that I can watch over here in Japan and forget about the woke SJW garbage coming from the United States and the United Kingdom. I hate to say this but I'm beginning to think China is doing the right thing by banning girly soy boys in entertainment, stripping away any type of power and influence actors, big tech CEOs, and popular social media people have on the general public. Yeah, I know that the CCP is doing bad stuff to people of color mostly Black, LGBTQ, and religious people of faith which are all crimes in my opinion but you're not going to see any woke SJW feminist race-bent propaganda tv or movies in China in your lifetime. Thanks, Hollywood for ruining my fond memories of watching tv shows and movies in America turning it all into a flaming pile of trash of dislikes and harsh comments.

Did anyone forget the late James Avery used to voice the character of The Shredder on TMNT?? A black guy voicing a Japanese character!!

The only what if that intrigued me was Spider-Man as a sorcerer just on the grounds that Josh Keaton supposedly was voicing Spidey again.

I knew it, only a matter of time! Ok sooooo he is an alien, so he can be any other color but black? Also by your logic when the watcher is helping earth he’s really helping white Americans only? Doctor Doom has been doing shit like Killmonger did in this for years, hell even the joker come on 😏. It’s called marvels what if!! 🤔. Literally means what if! I’m not a fan of race changing characters either but this is reaching!

Unless I'm wrong, they did this with "Invincible". I really don't think Mark Grayson was Asian in the comic, but the race-bent him for the actor. Oddly, no one talks about it.

I hate to run defense for this trash heap but getting stabbed in the shoulder is actually more serious than most media makes it look. There’s a lot of arteries that run through the shoulder region. So severed arteries plus blood loss equals death if not treated immediately.

Yeah.. the watcher just should plain not care, not only is he not human, he is more akin to an eldrich abomination, or an old god (lower case g) he would have seen way worse already, some threat to a bunch of humans should not concern him. The skin color doesn't even matter either he can be asian if he wanted, and cared enought to not just pick the first human appearance he happens to stumble upon.

Actually the current theory I've been hearing is that from the doctor strange episode onward(as that is when he first does something with other than watch one of the characters namely talk) the watcher is going to slowly be more present and active till he finally acts it's not that there black and "his" people it's that he just watched a universe die and is starting to have trouble just standing by it's not a double standard its character building Edited because it almost 12 at night I'm tired and accidentally made it meaner than I ment to

Disney is doing this all the time, especially with red headed characters who are almost always recast as a black character. Geeky Sparkles, of Clownfish TV, who is a red head complains about this regularly.

I love the series,but I get what you mean,although there's actually alot of reasons why they went that direction,except and other than the sexist part.

They always race bend character black and only back.

Part of the fun of voice acting and animation is that race DOESN'T and SHOULDN'T matter. For example, in Spider-Man 2, Venom is being voiced by Tony Todd. Now unless they pull a sneaky on us, Venom is Harry in that universe and he's white. However, they still got a black actor to voice the character. Why? Because Tony Todd has a legendary and amazingly creepy voice that's perfect for Venom. Voice acting ironically allows for a much more diverse cast because it's based purely on the voice. I don't personally care for him but Jeffery Wright has a really cool voice too and could've been a great fit for an animated Uatu. Unfortunately, they had to be woke about it and to quote a certain orange fellow, "Everything woke turns to shit."

Watching a shitstorm in a hurricane. What a disaster.

Chances are Uatu is going to be in the MCU at some point and they're going to MoCap Wright to play the character. Uatu is a big space baby on the Moon whose big stick was his breaking of his vow to stop Galactus from killing everyone, no one's going to care if he's a shade of brown or albino white. Same with Heimdall, a viking god comic space ginger that over the last decade before Thor came out that writers decided to turn his face into constellations, fans just don't care about changes to these relatively minor side characters. Hell the Watcher was dead for the last 6 years and no one batted an eye to him just resurrecting himself.

Wrong The Watcher is not black he is orange just look at the What if Hasbro toy line

Plz never change I like your honesty

I remember many years ago when Whoopi Goldberg voiced Gaia in captain planet, nobody had a problem with it as she simply did the best job for the part and I loved it.