When he was a kid in the 1974 flashback he looked almost like an Indian Asian kid, and yet when he's grown up and old he's a pasty-faced white dude? Did I imagine the kid looking like that, or was it the lighting both in the car and in the Wizard's lair?
I think you're getting him mixed up with a Jonny Quest villain, Dr. Zin. He was darker skinned, Asian, bald and looked very similar to Dr. Sivana. He was the arch nemesis of Dr. Quest.
In the original Captain Marvel comics and from all Saturday cartoons I ever saw, Dr. Sivana was a older white man.
He merely had to say "Sim Sala Bim!" and presto - race change.
shareWhat? He is saying in the movie Shazam, an Indian child (looked like it to me as well) and a white adult played the same character. Not sure what you're talking about Johnny Quest for lol
shareMy bad! I thought he was talking about a cartoon from the 70's and questioning why Sivana looked different from that cartoon. He was talking about the flashback in Shazam! Duh. It's been a long working weekend for me and I wasn't fully awake when I read his post. Sorry!
shareLol fair enough :)
shareNo, you're right. The kid at the start looked quite dusky/ethnic-looking. Not Indian, but certainly not Northern European. More Mediterranean/Southern European or possibly Jewish.
share[deleted]
Thing is that Sivana is an indian name, and the kid looked more ethnic than the person who played grown up Dr. Sivana. However hollywood tends to not cast indians in there movies unless they're taxidrivers, dheli-workers, doctors etc. So it wasn't the biggest suprise that they would change the apperance when Dr. Sivana got older, to more jewish/white looking.
shareHe looked like a white kid to me.
Looking at IMDb, he was played by a kid named Ethan Pugiotto. He was in the sequel to My Big Fat Greek Wedding where he presumably played a Greek.
Why are us ethnic whites always portrayed as the baddies, but the blondies, the Brad Pitts and the Chris Hemworths, the real bearers of white privilege, are always given a pass?
Is everyone's memory so short?
One only needs to go back sbout fifty/sixty years and Jews and Southern Europeans, like me, were still being considered as 'non-whites' by many Americans.
If it makes you feel better, the child actor who played Sivana was mostly a good kid. The adult Sivana was played by a Brit who would have brown hair if he was younger and less bald.
shareBut clearly he wasn't a good kid because he grew up to be evil, and even as a child he wasn't considered worthy enough by The Wizard to be Shazam.
shareEvil is just a label people put on things to make it black and white. Being manipulative and hateful is typically something you learn. You could tell at the beginning that the kid's family didn't care much for him and the Wizard may have somehow seen that influence coming. You even used the words "worthy enough." Thats most definitely not evil. That sounds like the kid was on the good side of the scale but he was too close to the middle to be worthy. As in he has some worth to be Shazam but not enough of it. The movie was setting it up by showing the father's reaction after the car accident that the kid's life was going to be a hard one.
shareGood post!
I just wish we'd got some more of Silvana's backstory. My guess is that more was filmed but left on the cutting room floor since the initial IMDb listings gave a credit for 'Mrs. Sivana'.
Still, as likeable and decent a guy as Billy Batson was, was he that worthy in comparison to young Sivana? I know he had experienced a difficult childhood, but he was rather truculent and a bit of a jerk to begin with, and clearly he wasn't beyond sin, seeing as the first place he thought of when he needed to transport him and his friends out of The Wizard's lair, was a strip joint.
If anyone was sinless in this scenario, it was Darla or maybe Mary. The foster parents are another possibility, but they were probably too old to be granted with the powers of Shazam!
I think in this movie worthy just means whether things would work out with this character versus that one. It appears to be a situation where the Wizard is able to detect if Billy Batson would use his powers positively when put to the test. Whereas with Sivana the Wizard saw some potential but there was too much negative influence to risk it.
shareFinally. . .an interesting discussion!!!!
This is a fascinating issue, that could've been really central to the movie and lifted it from popcorn fun to an experience that worked on several levels. Alas. . .
My take: the label of "worthy" is a catchall for "Good person who will make the right decisions, in the most difficult of situations." Both Billy and Sivana went through terrible times; it seems clear Billy made better choices, and had a better heart. So, this is a useful read for what the *Magic Worthy Label* refers to. YMMV. . .
>ethnic whites
The what now? "white" is not an ethnicity. Its a generic term for certain shades of skin. There are many ethnicities that share it, including, for example Arab-Berber ethnicity that arent native to Europe at all.
Pugiotto is an Italian last name.
shareYes. I thought the young 1974 Sivana was an adopted child from India with a Jewish dad and a WASP brother. Strange choice of actors for a biological family.
shareThe dad was WASPy too. Don't let the glasses fool you. He was played by John Glover.
But Sivana doesn't strike me as a very WASPy name.
It might have been interesting if Thaddeus Sivana was revealed to be an adoptee (which would explain his apparent ethnicity). It would have created an intriguing parallel with Billy Batson.
He was evil so he had to be portraited by an ethnic guy for believability. It's how Hollywood works.
shareYeah I was wondering that too i saw the kid and i was just thinking adopted or all his looks came from his mother's side
but than Mark Strong plays him grown up.