I certainly understand why conscious Westerners would be angry and dismayed. First they take our countries away—and now our gods! (The Norse deities simply aren’t universal—they’re for the white man alone.)
Still, pagans can take some solace in the fact that Odin & co. have retained more of their dignity than the Lord God. The fiery, sublime, unknowable, and, eventually, merciful God of the Bible has, in modern America, undergone a Morgan-Freemanization and been rendered a laid-back, wise uncle in the sky who wants all people to live up to their potential. Odin and Thor, on the other hand, here portrayed by Anthony Hopkins and the robust Chris Hemsworth, have remained badass.
With regard to race, the Canadian Immigration report mockingly photoshops a poster of Roots with a White face as Kunta Kinte to highlight the outrage.
Yes, there is a double standard, but it’s far more ironic than the Roots analogy implies.
I remember reading, a number of years back, about an ideological debate in the theater world over casting Black actors in the Classic works. The controversy wasn’t about heavy-handed political statements—such as the Othello production in which the Moor was White and everyone else Black (oooh…)—but meritocratic, “color blind” casting (and not ghettoizing Black actors as slaves and Moors.) The winning argument was that it doesn’t matter if there weren’t any Blacks in Shakespeare’s time; his plays are masterpieces of poetry and drama—universal in their appeal and significance.
Most would agree. (Even an avowed White Nationalist might not object to Soprano Jesse Norman’s interpretations of Wagnerian heroines; she was no mere “diversity hire.” Note as well that Thor was directed by Shakespearean actor Kenneth Branagh.)
The real double standard is that while a black man can perform Hamlet or Wotan, a white man can simply not be cast in comparable roles in A Raisin in the Sun or Porgy Bess. Indeed, if a White were cast in a leading role, the performance would come off as a bizarre, insulting minstrel show.
Much like multiculturalists presume that it is only Western nations that shall become omni-racial Universal Societies, it is only Western art that is applicable to all. White culture is supreme. Other races’ cultures are just local color.
I’m not writing this as a defense of Thor, or even of "color blind" casting. I’m simply pointing out how so much of left-wing, multiculti discourse is based on implicit White supremacism.
