Black 'Thor' Actor Blasts Race Debate Over His Casting

11:50 AM PST 3/7/2011 by Pamela McClintock, Tim Appelo

"It's so ridiculous," Idris Elba says of Web sites that criticize his ability to play "the whitest of the gods."

When Kenneth Branagh cast Idris Elba as Heimdall in the upcoming summer tentpole Thor, a furious debate erupted among fanboys, with some insisting it was wrong for a black man to play a Nordic god often described as "the whitest of the gods."