X-Men: The (fan fic) Series

The latest report on Wanda for Avengers 2 is that Elizabeth Olsen is in talks for the role. Now, I have to admit, I haven’t seen her in anything. I can’t say a single thing about her acting, but I’ve heard a lot of good things. And even though she’s not of Eastern European decent, she at least looks close to right for the part. Looks good in brown curly hair and very expressive eyes. A little spray tan and it could work. But here’s the rub, Wanda is Eastern European, she’s the Marvel version of Romani, so why couldn’t they hire one of the hundreds of very capable Eastern European actresses to play her?

An argument could be made that getting an American actress to play an Eastern European isn’t any worse than getting a British person to play an American, or an Australian to play a Canadian, or a Frenchman to play a Czech. It’s not about race, it’s about culture, and as long as they stay true to the character, the actor’s own bloodline shouldn’t matter, right? It’s an argument that is fraught with difficulties with no clear cut answers.

Personally, as much as I would prefer to have a culturally Romani/Eastern European play Wanda, I will settle for an American actress as long as she and the production respects Wanda’s character as Eastern European.

But in that same report, we have comment that she won’t be speaking in a European accent but a British one, thereby clinching the earlier comments that Whedon and Co. were looking to make the twins “edgy and British”.

This… is not acceptable. When you take a character out of a country then you redefine them. Gone is their heritage and birthrights. Gone is their world view and motivations. This is especially true when the culture is something as distinct and unique as Romani. It would be like taking a character that is Texan and making them a New Yorker, or vise versa. It’s a complete disrespect for everything that made that character who they are, for better or worse.

This is especially true for Wanda who is a basically a witch. There is a very spiritual element to her magic/powers and it is highlighted by her heritage. Granted, there is the possibility of going the wrong way with it and turning the character into a racist stereotype of a ‘Gypsy’, but there is also the very real possibility to use Wanda to help rid the world of that negative stereotype. Instead, it looks like they aren’t going to risk it and are taking the safe option of making her British, after all, British is in right now and we can’t offend them no matter how hard we try because they’re just so much better at insulting people than we are.

So the last question is, if Wanda is being stripped of her spiritual heritage, and can’t be a ‘mutant’, then will her magic be dulled down into something much more sterile and cold?

I always try to wait till I have the whole picture and not jump to conclusions, especially this early in the game, after all, Olsen hasn’t been officially signed on yet nor has Wanda’s character traits been absolutely confirmed… but I having a really hard time trying to maintain that level of neutrality.

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