What Is This ‘Iron Fist’ Controversy? (Also, What Is ‘Iron Fist’?)
With a racially-tinged controversy and terrible early reviews, few Netflix projects have had as bumpy a rollout as the new Marvel series “Iron Fist.” The fourth Marvel-Netflix collaboration, after “Daredevil,” “Jessica Jones” and “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist” introduces the final character in the coming Avengers-style superhero crossover series, “The Defenders.” All 13 episodes of “Iron Fist”arrive on Netflix on March 17, so before deciding whether or not to watch, familiarize yourself with the character, the controversy and what people are saying about the series.
Who Is Iron Fist?
Conceived in 1974 by writer Roy Thomas and artist Gil Kane as a nod to the kung fu films popular at the time, Iron Fist drew his powers from a mastery of the mystical martial arts. At age 9, the boy born Danny Rand accompanied his wealthy father on an expedition to locate the mythical city of K’un L’un. After a hiking accident left him orphaned and alone in the wilderness, Danny was taken in by the local kung fu monks, who trained him in their ways. He quickly emerged as the most skilled student the academy had ever seen.
He made his return to New York after 10 years, moonlighting as a masked crime-fighter while assuming control of the empire his father had left behind. (Yes, there are heavy shades of Batman here.) The character reached the peak of its popularity when he was teamed with Luke Cage — then going by Power Man — in the “Heroes For Hire” series, which found the street-level defenders working as private investigators. Iron Fist demonstrated some staying power as he bounced around other characters’ books, but the character hit a new high with the award-winning “Immortal Iron Fist” series that ran from 2006 to 2009.
What Are His Superpowers?
Like his fellow Netflix superheroes, there’s nothing too supernatural or over the top about his powers. He can punch really hard. His hands glow when he summons the power to punch really hard. That’s it!
So What’s the Controversy About?
“Iron Fist” has drawn harsh criticism for following the comics’ example of casting a rich white man as a master of distinctly Asian traditions of fighting. What could have been a rare chance for an actor of Asian descent to land a high-profile role at a time when that is still relatively rare went instead to the actor Finn Jones. People were not pleased.
As part of the promotional press tour leading up to the show’s release, Jones has taken to Twitter to defend his casting. It has not gone great. After reposting a tweet from actor Riz Ahmed about the importance of representation, the backlash was so intense that Jones felt compelled to take a temporary hiatus from Twitter.
Jones objected to the response to his casting, releasing a prepared statement on March 6 that denied any racial faux pas: “We have gone to great lengths to represent a diverse cast with an intelligent, socially progressive story line. I hope people can watch the show before making judgments.”
Addressing the many negative early reviews, Finn said in an interview with Metro, “I think some of the reviews we saw were seeing the show through a very specific lens, and I think when the fans of the Marvel Netflix world and fans of the comic books view the show through the lens of just wanting to enjoy a superhero show, then they will really enjoy what they see.”
Here’s a Great Article From Vulture to Read About the Contretemps:
• “Why Should Netflix Have Cast an Asian-American Iron Fist?”
What Are Critics Saying About the Show?
Early notices from critics have been dismal. Everything from the acting to the writing to the fight choreography has drawn jeers. Uproxx’s Alan Sepinwall declared it to be “easily the worst of the Netflix Marvel shows” and lamented that “the early episodes violate the ‘show, don’t tell’ rule of storytelling at almost every turn.” In his D-grade review at Entertainment Weekly, Jeff Jensen called the show “devoid of vision, lacking in executional chops.” In The Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg described the show as feeling like “a step backward on every level” and “a major disappointment.”
Other Bad Reviews:
• Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson writes: “‘Iron Fist’ is all the bad things from the other Marvel Netflix shows condensed into one staggeringly incompetent series, one that’s so toxically bad that I kind of hope it takes the whole enterprise down with it. Not Netflix itself — just this iteration of Marvel world-building, slapdash and dismal as it is.”
• Vulture’s Matt Zoller Seitz says: “You’ve probably also heard that ‘Iron Fist’ is a big bag of Orientalist clichés. This is true. It’s far from the worst of its kind, but coming on the heels of ‘Jessica Jones’ and ‘Luke Cage,’ both of which took greater risks with both style/mood and cultural point of view, the show feels like a regression.”
And What Does The New York Times Think About It?
• “Is ‘Iron Fist’ as bad as its 14 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating would indicate? Not exactly,” writes Mike Hale. “Through six episodes it’s blandly mediocre, though it starts to perk up a little in Episodes 5 and 6. In the Netflix-original catalog, it’s well ahead of ‘Fuller House’ and ‘Hemlock Grove.’”
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