So where was the outcry when some idiot made a movie with a black Annie? Isn't taking a 90-year story line and deliberately changing the race of the protagonists a form of racism?
We turned Nick Fury into a black man quite successfully. Of course, that's probably because Jackson was pretty much born to play the part.
Which leads to the Bond argument - I tend to hold to the idea that 007/James bond is a code designation and cover identity for a series of spies. IE the title of 007 tends to be handed down fairly frequently. We just don't see movies featuring Bond dying and being replaced, or otherwise retiring.
As such, so long as the Actor is really the best one for the part, I don't care what race he is - White, Black, Asian, etc... Same deal with Orphan Annie. A musical might not work as well if you can't work in the red haired stuff, but eh. They have to change some stuff for modern audiences anyways.
I think that claiming Captain Picard to be French is actually a bigger deal, because even though he's a good actor, Patrick Stewart can't pull of being a french guy.
I just tend to figure that he's descended from some French guy who emigrated to England, or that in the 200 odd years and the Eugenics wars the ethnicity/speech patterns were a bit messed up. Like lots of English people ended up moving to France, enough to change the speech patterns.
