In response to my recent article stating why Idris Elba playing James Bond would improve the character, some asked why anyone needs established characters to be portrayed with greater diversity. Why can’t we just be happy with new characters that are like the established characters that better represent a diverse world?
It’s a very common question that seems reasonable. On its face, it concedes that representation matters, that “Representation in the fictional world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation.” But this response is a dodge, a form of derailment. Yes, obviously creators should tell new stories with new characters—but that is not nearly enough.
New characters don’t answer the central question, which is: Is being white, straight, and male somehow intrinsic to the established characters, the iconic heroes, the role models for millions? I think that the answer is no, and I think that diverse casting is the way to prove that point.
A good example of this is Spider-Man.
In 2010, Donald Glover said he wanted to play Peter Parker in the then upcoming Amazing Spider-Man, and asked, “does Spider-Man have to be white?” There are, after all, plenty of poor nerdy kids in Queens being raised by their aunts who are people of color. An online campaign to get him the part failed but it (and a winking reference on Glover’s show Community) inspired Brian Michael Bendis to create Miles Morales, the black Puerto Rican Spider-Man currently headlining the comic Spider-Man.
Now, Miles is a great character and I’m glad he exists. Donald Glover played Miles on Ultimate Spider-Man: Web Warriors (as well as Miles’s uncle in Spider-Man: Homecoming) so he’s gotten to play a Spider-Man. But there’s the problem: Miles is a Spider-Man, he’s still not Spider-Man: that is, he’s not the character one thinks of when one hears “Spider-Man,” and he will never be Spider-Man unless Peter Parker goes away entirely for like a decade. And maybe not even then. So the creation of Miles Morales doesn’t and can’t answer the question, “Does Spider-Man have to be white?”
If anything, the existence of Miles Morales suggests that Peter Parker can’t be black. Since 2011, a black kid in the costume signifies that this is definitively not Peter Parker, not the Spider-Man everyone expects. This shock reveal is used to that exact effect in both Miles’s first appearance and the teaser of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. And other versions of Spider-Man who are Indian and Japanese who are definitively not Peter Parker mean that Spider-Man, the main Spider-Man, can’t be from those backgrounds, either.
Creating different versions of Spider-Man who are not white does not prove, cannot prove, that Spider-Man doesn’t have to be white—but casting an actor of color absolutely would, and to be super duper clear, Spider-Man does not need to be white.
Yes, Peter Parker was white in 1962 when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created him, and it would be weird if he were suddenly, say, Latino in Amazing Spider-Man #801 when he was white in the 800 issues before that. However, every single new movie, TV show, cartoon, and video game has been a chance to rethink the character, keep what’s essential, and adapt everything else to fit the times.
So Spider-Man changes constantly and dramatically. Every new version of Peter Parker adjusts his age, his dating status (is he single, engaged, married, or magically divorced?), and his job (is he a high school student, a photographer, a teacher, scientist, or a CEO?). These are all drastic changes that radically affect Peter’s history, how he’s treated by society, and what personal problems he faces. Why can’t his race change too?
The only objection, the only objection, one could have is racism. It is the literal definition of racism to believe that Spider-Man possesses essential characteristics by being white that would be lost if he were another skin color. And it is frankly stupid to think that a black actor can’t play a character usually portrayed as white but it’s no big deal for a tiny 19-year-old like Tom Holland to play a divorced CEO of an international tech conglomerate born in the ’80s (which Peter was, in the comics, at the time Holland was cast). Both casting choices require rethinking who Peter Parker is, and both are opportunities to explore new perspectives while keeping the fundamental core and heroism of Spider-Man intact.
It’s also ridiculous to object when we’ve seen so much evidence that diversely recast and reimagined characters work all the time. We know that Nick Fury can be black, as can Jimmy Olsen and Johnny Storm. Sue Storm can be Latina. Aquaman can be Hawaiian. Superman can be Japanese. Hikaru Sulu can be gay. The Doctor can be a woman. And each diverse recasting counters a bigoted narrative that only straight white men can be the hero, that being straight, white, and male is somehow essential to their heroism, and that anyone else can at best be a pale imitation.
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Now, it’s important to note that casting an actor of color to play a traditionally white character is fundamentally different than casting a white actor to play a character of color. A black actor can play James Bond. A white actor cannot, cannot, can not play Black Panther.
First off, as much as Spider-Man and James Bond and most white characters have no connection to a “white culture”, almost every character of color’s ethnicity is an important part of their identity—in part because so many of them were created as a challenge to an overwhelmingly white cultural landscape. Jack Kirby and Stan Lee created Black Panther as a conscientious effort to add diversity to the Marvel Universe. (It’s not a coincidence that he’s introduced two issues after Wyatt Wingfoot, the Human Torch’s Native American roommate.) Therefore, Kirby and Lee made a character who is the king of an insular African nation, someone who could not be anything other than African.
Secondly, minorities have been and still are shut out from wide representation, and there are so few roles, and even fewer starring roles, for actors of color in Hollywood that it dramatically reduces representation every time a role that could have been played by a POC is given to a white actor. As I said before, lack of representation is symbolic annihilation. So even if an Asian character could arguably be played by a white actress (*cough ScarJo cough*), it does literal harm—both emotionally and in a practical financial and professional sense—to whitewash these characters, costing actors of color a job and robbing audiences of color of a chance to identify with the heroes presented.
This is why recasting established characters is important. This is why it’s not enough to create ethnically diverse knock-offs and hope for the best. When we read stories, we don’t want to know that we could be people who are sort of like our heroes. We want to know, we need to know, that our heroes could be just like us.
Steven Padnick is a freelance writer and editor. By day. You can find more of his writing and funny pictures at padnick.tumblr.com.
“The only objection, the only objection, one could have is racism.”
That’s one way to “win” an argument: pre-emptively call someone who disagrees with you a racist, permitting no other interpretation of disagreement.
I think its also worth noting how easy it is for comic book characters to disappear down the memory hole. There’s been a lot of the “the hot new thing” introduced around events or series that fade from your minds almost as you read them. Making Miles Morales a Spider Man has helped his survival, though he still remains overshadowed by Peter Parker.
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Interesting post! I like when ideas that arise in other post get expanded in new ones.
First, I agree that it is importan to bring diversity and promote diverse voices in media and fiction. I’m not American and I know that race has a particular, complicated story in the US. As far as I know, most people in the US treat race as a fact. I studied Social Sciences, and the first thing they told us when discussing race and ethnicity is that race is a social construct, not a biological one, human genome research have find that difference between human “races” is ridiculously small, there is only a human race, if we want to use Linnaeus’s nomeclature.
So, about this quote:
The idea of social characteristics are biologically hereditary isn’t racism, that is the definition of race. Racism is when the idea one race is superior to the other and that it’s used to discriminate.
About the idea that some characteristics are intrinsic of some characters, I think it depends on the character and it’s history. For example, some characters are strongly associated with an actor, for example, even if Star Wars is moving toward having characters played by different actors and it’s completely possible to recast Leia, I doubt they will do it soon.
Some other characters are like general labels with different incarnations, for example, it’s clear that Robin (Batman) and Spider-Man are several different people, in these cases, there is absolutely no reason to have a particular genre, skin color or age.
Some other characters are more like “archetypes”, for example, one could argue that being Victorian and English aren’t intrisic to Sherlock Holmes, considering all the modern adaptations. It seem the intrinsic characteristic is his way of thinking and solving cases (even medical ones). Still, my father doesn’t object a female Watson, but he thinks she should have a military experience because that’s important background to the character.
Honestly, after reading fanfiction, I wonder if there is really something that is intrinsic to a character or is it more about the choices and experiences that they have. One could be a villain or a hero depending on the story.
I agree that mixing up the characters to be representive of diversity would be a good thing. It is important that we are culturally inclusive in all things and like them or not, comics are influencers of many. I disagree that racism is the only reason we cannot perceive diverse major character changes. Nostalgia is a powerful thing and most identify with the “original” iteration. That being said, Donald Glover would have been a great Peter Parker and I am rooting for Idris Elba to be the next Bond!
I know I wasn’t shocked by the reveal of miles Morales in the teaser, his costume’s color scheme already gave him away.
Probably shouldn’t be surprised at the somewhat hostile comments above, but it still makes me sad. I think the author makes some good points, and I totally agree that “straight, male, and white” shouldn’t be seen as intrinsic to the characters. Honestly I don’t really think that much of ANYTHING, should be seen as “essential and intrinsic” to a character; writers should be free to invent and reinvent characters and universes as much as their creativity allows. I even think *in theory* it is not inherently wrong to reinvent a minority character, but writers should still be aware of the issues outside of the story too, and the majority of the time it probably just wouldn’t be advisable to do so.
I also agree though that it is a little unfair to say that the ONLY reason a person would object to a recast is racism. I know someone in real life who objects to nearly *ANY* change to any character, period. He would object to a black peter Parker exactly the same as he would a white Luke Cage; because to him the classic version of the character is THE definitive best version, and shouldn’t be changed.
I remember first seeing Candice Patton as Iris West and going *record screech “Wait…if she’s black then….is Wally West going to be black. Can we have a black Wally West? WILL THEY ACTUALLY DO IT?”
Then they casted Keiynan Lonsdale, and the world did not end. He is my default image whenever I think of Kid Flash, and now a white Wally West would feel weeeeird.
What I’m getting out of this is: “It would take too long for a new character to enter the public consciousness, so the only solution is to co-opt an existing character.”
Say Miles Morales does gain acceptance as “the Real Spider-Man” and not “the Black Spider-Man.” Doesn’t that victory need to be noted with an asterisk, since no one can say for certain that this new interpretation would have been a success if it hadn’t had 50 years of previous success to piggyback off of? Wouldn’t it be much better to let a new character succeed on its own merits, so it gets ALL the credit?
I disagree with the premise of your article, but not with the idea that Peter Parker could be black (or any other race/ethnicity). Changing the race/ethnicity of an established character OR creating a new character both “solve” the diversity issue and frankly I’d rather see a new character created than have an established one changed, because not only does it allow a whole new story to be told, it decreases the chance that the character will just revert back to being a white dude after a year or six months or whatever.
The whole argument relies on the premise that certain characters, by some standards transparent to the author even though not expressed clearly in the text, have racial characteristics intrinsic to their essence and have to be of a certain ethnic background in every incarnation, while others do not. I don´t think the premise is strong enough to support the arguments.
I have to agree with @1 (accused). While I can’t think of any arguments against casting someone black as Peter Parker that aren’t racist, that doesn’t mean there aren’t any such arguments. My failure of imagination is not the same as stating that an argument that I can’t think of is automatically racist.
One of the things I’ve learned over my lifetime is to be extremely careful with derogatory blanket statements and ascribing motivations to your opponent.
“Now, it’s important to note that casting an actor of color to play a traditionally white character is fundamentally different than casting a white actor to play a character of color. A black actor can play James Bond. A white actor cannot, cannot, can not play Black Panther”
And there you have the problem of why re-casting highly established characters will always raise objections, because implicit in this concept is the notion that white people/culture is unimportant or disposable. Non-western cultures (such as China, Japan, India) make movies and comics with almost exclusively characters from the respective ethnicities of those countries. India has even made remakes of western movies such as Rambo, and recast the characters as Indian. No one cares, but if that situation were reversed then the objections would be endless.
There is a suggestion in all of this, whether it’s intentional or not, that non-white characters are somehow more important or significant than white characters, and that is going to raise conflict and resentment no matter how you frame it, leading to the possible opposite outcome that was intended in the first place.
I think co-opting characters does a disservice to the goal you are attempting to reach. The characters that have been built through stories and history…some 20, 30, 50 years have established a character that generations have known and loved, and to change it for representation does not do either party justice. It appears to be forced coercion. It takes an short cut by not building itself up. There are some great characters who already have a history that could be featured more to speak to the vacuum. Also new characters help as they get established with the history built with the fan base. If a group such as the Irish or Cherokee adopted Kunta Kinte a their character to symbolize wrongs done to their peoples through a charcater don’t you think all parties would feel that this change while maybe well intended won’t really help the issue with the correct amount of “umph”?
As #14 says – and one has to suspect that in the writer’s mind, the quality of possessing racial or other characteristics intrinsic to one’s essence correlates almost perfectly with the quality of not being white, or male, or straight (the list is extensible).
Interesting. I agree James Bond can be any race. His being played by a woman however… I’m not so sure.
The Doctor can be a woman, but it’s a bit trickier with Bond. For the simple fact Bond is as much a walking men’s lifestyle magazine as a character, with a virtual catalog of product placement to prove it. I’m not saying it can’t possibly ever happen, but keep in mind this would be like GQ or Esquire making a similar shift. With this particular case, it’s a business model.
Agreed. It’s one way to win an argument, but it’s not a great way to convince people to change their mind.
I was on board with every point made in the article, but this comment kind of ruins the whole thing.
I think because James Bond is again an established character that to suddenly change ethnicity makes that also a short cut. The name “James Bond” is not a code name, instead it is like “Jason Borne” it is the field name of a particular operative. All of the books & movies represent the same person not several people posing as “James Bond” even though they are all different actors.
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Two points. One, the article doesn’t even address the question of “white, cis, straight, and male” as part of diversity. He seems in a rush to recast all the established heroes.
Two, comics characters are drawn on the page by the original creators. One of Sue Storm’s physical characteristics is that she’s blonde. One of Mary Jane Watson’s physical characteristics is that she’s a redhead. Yes, both were created at a time when “white” was the standard, but it is still somewhat jarring to cast someone who doesn’t share those characteristics or isn’t made to share them with makeup. At that point it becomes a question of the integrity of the original work and the depiction of the character not matching the actor. It can be jarring enough with just a physical description in a novel not being translated to the screen, or actors like Sean Connery and Lorraine Bracco who can’t shake their native accents regardless of what role they are supposed to be playing.
Familiarity is a part of it. I thought it was weird to see an old tv pilot with David Hasselhoff playing Nick Fury, or old Spider-Man cartoons with a white Nick Fury, but I’m more used to Samuel Jackson’s version. These have given me an image in my mind of what the character is supposed to look like. For the Flash and Wally West, I saw the 90’s justice league with a white redheaded Wally, but on screen he was almost always in the Flash costume and referred to as “Flash”. It wasn’t a disconnect at all to see the African American West family on TV, but I can see how it would have been one for those who had been reading him in the comics for years.
Novel descriptions can also not match the physical attributes of the actor hired to portray the character. Sometimes we have a detailed physical description. Sometimes not as much. I’m a fan of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files novels. In the one season on TV, they hired an actress who did not match the book description of Karrin Murphy, and it was a problem for me in enjoying the series. Would any actor work for, say, one of the Weasleys in Harry Potter? Hermione’s description wasn’t as defined, but every casting director is going to have different ideas on what are the necessary elements.
Implying that that a white character doesn’t have to be white but a POC character has to be POC is doing exactly what you accuse others of doing: it says that there’s nothing special about being white but there is something special about being a POC. And while I agree that Luke Cage and Black Panther have to be black, that doesn’t apply to all characters. Does the Falcon need to be black? Does the actress who plays Jordan Ashford on General Hospital? I don’t think so, but it’s a question that needs to be asked every time you want change a characters ethnicity.
Nonetheless, I think that there needs to be a differentiation between character and alter ego. Spiderman can be of any ethnicity under the sun. But Peter Parker cannot. Batman can, Bruce Wayne cannot. Not in my opinion at least. Because for however many years PP has been white. For good or bad, he’s been white. There may not be any intrinsic qualities that come with being white, but it’s who he’s been and who he is.
For me, changing ethnicities isn’t an issue. Doing it because ‘hey, it doesn’t matter that he’s white, so why not’ is an issue. And almost every argument in your articles seems to revolve around that.
I believe a new diverse character done right can breath new life into an established character. The best example I can give is John Stewart as Green Lantern in the animated JL and JLU. As a comic book reader (80’s and 90’s) I found many of the books didn’t use John Stewart well. The animated John Stewart was very well done and is who I think of as Green Lantern.
I in general agree with everything stated in the article, but as others have pointed out it is a bit unfair to say that the ONLY way to disagree with recasting is racism.
As a person of color myself (which I state on my for context and not as an advocate for the whole lot of ethnically diverse Americans) I know something I have argued with my self about is the slew of additional stories you may have to tell if someone was cast with a different ethnicity. Many characters it doesn’t matter, like the ones listed in the article, but the example I’ll use is superman.
Clark Kent’s whole moral code is based around his life growing up as a Kansas farm boy. Kansas has historically not been the most forgiving to minorities in the past. Even in a modern telling you would have to deal with him coming from a mixed family, addressing his adopted heritage that is normally ignored because he is normally the same race as his parents. If John and Martha Kent are also black, then them being among the only black people in his rural kansas town effects how he may see the world. There are a lot more stories to tell, true, but also some adjustments to a characters personality that may have to carry over, ignoring it would be akin to ignoring those realities. At the very minimum it would seem to be a very unlikely coincidence if none of those factors effected his life, which then would effect how he interacts with other black characters who may have experienced what he hadn’t.
That’s not to say that a bad thing, I would love to see myself represented in Clark, one of my favorite heros, but there is more to it going that way. Because while being white may not seem to come with many defining experiences, since it is the “norm” here in America, deviating from that norm implies experiences that sometimes would be hard to gloss over. Many, or even most, characters may not suffer from this, but it is a consideration that is not, at least in my eyes, racist in nature.
If you are maintaining continuity then what you get is what you are given ATINUW. If you are rebooting or changing medium and not caring about the legacy of before then go for it. Peter Parker in comics and current movie continuity is a white boy, sorry. Bond might be played by an Indian-Subcontinental actor or a Hong Kong actor, sure why not every new Bond is a new Bond (although not in that fanwank way) with only broadstrokes as to what went before (why does he need to be black when the Indian Sub-Continental and Hong Kong exodus communities are more widespread in the UK?) so sure, go nuts with that.
I think adding in new characters of diverse origin though is better, when dealing with an established continuity, it broadens and deepens the universe in question from a world building POV and it means that the communities involved actually get a character of their own which they own, not someone else’s cast offs or told they can only make it if a white person gives them a boost first.
And @20 Not on my sodding television. Roll on the next regeneration. And I say that as a woman. I don’t want my Time Lord representation to be based on twisting a male character. I want my own Time (Lady) Lord not sloppy seconds. The BBC had an open slot after the failure of “Class” and a back catalogue of female characters it could have used instead and that would have been far better than this.
I have mixed feelings about this article. I, like some others above, don’t agree that the only reason to disagree with recasting a character that is historically white is racist. I think it has a lot to do with perspective. For example, while I have enjoyed several Bond films, I am by no means a huge fan of the series. I also don’t see any problem with recasting the role to a man of any other race. Idris Elba would be awesome. But I’ve been a Peter Parker/Spiderman follower for decades and I don’t like the idea in that instance. Not because he is white (I feel the same about Sam Wilson/The Falcon, or pretty much any other Marvel character of note), but because the image of Peter Parker is so ingrained in my head it would cease to be him to me if you made that change.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for increased diversity in film. But it seems more productive to establish new characters in similar genres or even in the same stories.
This is subject I’ve been contemplating since I was a multi-ethnic child with multi-ethnic friends.
First, I think we should acknowledge the difference between characters like Bruce Wayne/Batman and legacy characters like Green Lantern.
Marc Bernardin recently shared the opinion that Batman needs to be white. His reason was being old-money rich and having to deal with the accompanying baggage is an essential part of Bruce Wayne’s backstory. A white writer sharing that opinion would do so at their peril.
Green Lantern is a job. Hal Jordan wasn’t the first or in my opinion the most interesting character to wear the ring. And I always found Carol Danvers more compelling than Mar-Vel. The new Nova is cooler than the original.
As a kid I started creating characters that reflected my diverse friend group because that’s what I knew and what I wanted to read. I’m a big fan of new characters and I love the challenge of repurposing d-list and even e-list characters. No one cared about Blade before Wesley busted out the leather!
If he popped up in an MCU film the audience would lose their minds! I promise you I would!
If Donald Glover becomes the Prowler in an MCU/Sony production do you think there’s any chance “New Black and Latino Spiderman” could eclipse his popularity?
Why are we so fixated on tailoring yesterday’s icons to the awesomeness of today?
Maybe grandpa doesn’t know who Starlord or Deadpool are but everyone under 40 does. Popularizing young characters isn’t the impossible task it’s so often made out to be. How recognizable was Black Panther five years ago? How about today?
I want to see Luke Cage on the big screen! I want to see Khamala Khan and Monica Rambeau and Shang Chi! I want Moon Girl and the Storm that Chris Claremont made so legendary! I want a live action Big Hero 6 with an Asian cast!
It was considerate of Mark Millar to make Miles part Hispanic. I honestly appreciate the thought. But I’m more appreciative that my fellow Perez, George created White Tiger.
#32 – I said the Doctor can be a woman, not that he should be (though I don’t care either way as I’m not a fan of the series). My point is it’s an easier change because the sort of cult of masculine personality and product placement doesn’t surround the Doctor the way it does with Bond.
this article reminds me of how utterly disappointed I was at jake gyllenhaal being cast as The Prince of Persia
@32, well one advantage of a female Doctor is she will hopefully eliminate the super girl companions we’ve been getting. I don’t have a problem with her, but I’m certainly not going to claim those who do must be sexist! There are perfectly good reasons to dislike such a radical recasting.
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I see a lot of Shakespeare. Stage convention allows for multiethnic casting. I would love a Spider-Man, where Peter Parker and his family were black- it might be something different than the same old reboots we get now.
DC has an entire earth number where everyone’s skin is black. Doesn’t change anything socially. Same character view point in a different color. Peter being black brings no form of diversity. His privileged white boy view point never changes. He doesn’t experience what the youth in Harlem faced cuz no one, not even fan fiction writers, will enter the “black” view point. He’s a Lego now. Physically he looks different. socially he isn’t. Therefore miles brings true change. A character is just a body. A head that talks arms that move and legs that walk. Put whatever skin color or gender you want. Unless you dig deep into that viewpoint then “diversity” means shit
To appreciate how little racial looks really contributes to a story or even history, go see “Hamilton” where George Washington and other famous American Founding Fathers are played by dark skinned actors and where the three Schuyler sisters are played by actresses of different ethnicity. I noticed the differences for the first few minutes, but than totally forgot about it as the great story and acting made me totally forget that the actors faces looked nothing like the people they were playing because what makes a person are the actions, speech, dress, behavior, character, emotions, and culture.
I would love to see superheroes played by actors of different ethnicity. It is not the pale skin of his face that defines Peter Parker. It is the skinny, friendly, nerdy, shy, honorable, teenage boy wanting to do the right thing with spider super powers that makes Spider-man Spider-man. Skin color has absolutely nothing to do with it.
A person’s facial features and skin color does not define their culture, beliefs, or character.
I feel like this is self-contradictory.
On the one hand, you insist that most white characters have no connection to a white culture (and I find the scare-quotes a touch questionable, since it seems to imply that no such thing exists) yet you simultaneously maintain that characters of colour are created in response to “an overwhelmingly white cultural landscape” — the very same “white culture” of which characters such as Spider-Man and James Bond are necessarily a part! James Bond is white culture. He’s a white character, created by a white man, providing a white viewpoint on the world.
As it happens, it’s a horrifically racist and misogynistic white viewpoint (especially in the books), but that’s not the point here.
The social position he occupies, his ability to show up in foreign countries and exploit his privilege to pursue his objectives, they’re fairly key aspects of the character in exactly the same way that the experiences non-white characters have of being marginalised, or of having cultural ties in common with members of a shared diaspora are aspects of those characters.
@39 I think you have hit one of the, if not the, main problems with the author’s argument. If you boil down the piece, the argument goes by:
1. Peter Parker can be not white
2. Therefore, Peter Parker should be not white
This is a textbook is-ought fallacy. You can’t derive a prescriptive statement from a descriptive one. We all can agree that Peter Parker, being a fictional character, can be whatever thing the creator/ writer at the time decides to. But you can’t justify the second statement from the first one. You need to add further propositions to the argument, propositions completely unrelated to the first statement, and propositions that are not argumented strongly enough (why is whiteness not an essential characteristic of James Bond? what makes an “essential characteristic” to a character? etc. etc.). The author’s position is weakened, too, when he asserts the opposite argument not even two paragraphs later
1. Black Panther can be white
2. Therefore, Black Panther should not be white.
So, I’m probably about the least progressive person that regularly comments on this site, but even I can see that there is a galaxy of difference between casting a black man to be James Bond and a white man to be Black Panther.
But even casting a black man as Superman (which, as a representation of America as a whole would be a very, very strong political statement) is only window dressing when it comes to actual representation.
The more powerful and influential form of representation is the one you find in the writer’s room, not on the screen. Its the difference between the MCU’s Samuel L. Jackson giving you his “angry, sarcastic black male” custom-tailored to the expectations of a white audience (who absolutely eat it up, because, let’s face it, Sam Jackson is a bad-a** m… well, you know the rest) , and Luke Cage or Black Panther, which were written from a perspective foreign to me, but were still written in a way as to include me (the American default viewer.) I know there were tons of things in both of those that went totally past me, because I don’t have the necessary context to understand them, but there was still just enough that I didn’t feel excluded, and could still enjoy them. Especially Luke Cage.
Those two productions did far more for diversity in entertainment than any amount of recasting could ever do.
48. Anthony Pero *slow clap*
>Nonetheless, I think that there needs to be a differentiation between character and alter ego. Spiderman can be of any ethnicity under the sun. But Peter Parker cannot. Batman can, Bruce Wayne cannot. <
It’s strange. It worked for Nick Fury.
Why does Peter Parker have to be white?
Why does Bruce Wayne have to be white?
What is an essential characteristic of Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne that a non-white person does not have?
48. Anthony Pero – Although Black Panther may have added to diversity in entertainment, I don’t think it was a good film to address diversity or racial tensions or views. What would have really been ground breaking is to have the country of Wakanda to have a majority of dark-skinned Africans, but also a minority of all other ethnics represented – sort of reversing the percentages of America. It would have been wonderful to see an advanced country with an African culture and to see diverse people all participating in the Wakanda culture and rituals with no racism in evidence. Now that would have been powerful! Instead in Wakanda you have tribes that a based on “race” (how people look). To me it was not a step forward in thinking.
Edit to add one additional comment: To me, Black Panthers moral message that Wakandans should come out of hiding so save their people (those with dark skin) living in other countries around the world is not a good message.
I think my previous comment on this topic went outside the parameters of the discussion, so I’m trying again, this time staying closer to the pertinent details. I don’t have an issue with black characters taking over for white characters. John Stewart is hands down my favorite Green Lantern. My biggest problem when it comes to Miles is that he just seems boring to me.
I’ve read his early stories, and although the story was interesting from a plot perspective, character-wise, Miles just doesn’t make me want to keep reading. I think part of it is that his personality is often morose. True, that’s a frequent characteristic of Peter Parker’s, but there comes a point where I just don’t engage with it where Miles is concerned.
Mind you, I read those when I was getting back into comics during Superior Spider-Man, which I did not enjoy because I wanted to read about Peter, who is my favorite comic book character after Bruce Wayne. Also, I was not a Bendis fan at the time. Maybe now with eyes more willing to look at different things, I’d be more receptive.
@48, Betcha I’m less progressive than you are! :-D However I agree a ”White Panther” makes no sense but a black British agent is perfectly logical.
Part of the problem, I’d submit, is that both “white culture” and “black culture” are deeply flawed descriptors, because — as various folks have pointed out upstream — they attempt to equate characteristics of race (i.e. biological identity) with characteristics of culture (i.e. ethnic identity).
Let me be clear here. I very much do NOT mean to say that the cultures these descriptors attempt to label don’t exist. By contrast, and to illustrate the logical fallacy, I would argue that the parallel “brown culture” is pretty much imaginary, as it would need to incorprorate elements of both the North American “Indian” native cultures and that of India-the-subcontinent, among others.
Looking at “black culture”: I submit that what this label describes is the unique composite culture that coalesced in North America under the shadow of legal slavery. Encompassed within it are components of a variety of African cultures as well as material from non-African sources (for instance, the particular strata of Christian gospel music originating from the merged black population of the American South).
“White culture” is harder to characterize. The phrase is often used as shorthand for “Western European culture” — itself a composite, encompassing folklore as diverse as Norse, Greek, and Celtic as well as the complex set of civil and political institutions arising from the evolution of Christianity. But I don’t think that’s wholly valid today. If by “white culture” we mean “the composite culture driven and imposed by North American political, social, and economic institutions”, then a lot of what’s under that umbrella is either at sharp odds with or explicitly post-dates the European cultures from which the pre-industrial American colonists migrated.
Circling back, then, to Peter Parker, James Bond and Black Panther:
Peter (and Spider-Man) are clearly products of American popular culture…which is, nowadays, much less white than it used to be, and that matters. It also matters that comics and their associated media are historically flexible about retconning both macro and micro details. I think we’ll get a black Peter Parker somewhere down the line — but it wouldn’t surprise me if we got a gay Peter Parker sooner.
I agree that Bond is a trickier case, partly because he’s originally both British/Scots and because of his canonically sexist tendencies — but I think the idea of retconning “James Bond” as a house alias is more of a dodge than a solution (not to mention being at explicit odds with certain parts of the extended source canon). Cast Idris Elba — or Michelle Yeoh — if you like, but the script is going to matter just as much as the performer where that franchise is concerned.
Black Panther is…interesting. The character, the land of Wakanda — and the current movie — are, I think, products of both African culture and what I’ve described as the composite “black culture” above. Which isn’t at all a bad thing; the African roots lend depth, whereas the black-culture perspective offers accessibility. For the practical professional reasons given above, I agree that you wouldn’t want to cast a non-black actor in this role anytime soon. But if the franchise is still alive 400 years from now, by which time “Terran culture” will hopefully have evolved into a more holistic state — the question may be different, or even moot (as by then we may well be able to change skin color as easily as we color our hair now).
46. Crane
That’s actually a great point about Bond and one that I haven’t thought about before. There was a time in my life when it used to bother me that the Western characters I was reading about in turn of the century stories could traipse all over Africa or the East and lord it over the natives without local consequences for their actions, essentially because they were implicitly protected by the power of their countries’ gunboats. This applied to a somewhat lesser degree for Americans in Europe after the War as well.
Someone from the colonies wouldn’t have the access and would be remarkable in a way that Bond isn’t.
I don’t think the same thing applies to Peter Parker though. Are there any defining, steretypically white characteristics in him? I can’t think of any. Now that I think of it, it’s a shame Batman Beyond didn’t give Terry McGinnis a minority ethnicity; it would have been a great chance to do it.
I strongly disagree with this article. While there are some characters that could have a changed gender/race I always prefer when they create new characters to add diversity. I wasn’t a fan when Marvel decided to change up all of their main characters to add diversity because it just came off as a cheap gimmick – instead of creating interesting stories that were thought provoking for new more diverse characters. It isn’t fair to existing fans to either kill off or sideline all of their favorite heroes just because they are white or male – many people were angry and didn’t care about the replacements because of how poorly it was handled. If the writing was better than new diverse characters would become popular – but it is going to take time.
I also have issues with the opinion that race for white characters doesn’t matter. Characters such as Iron Fist works so much better as a rich white man because his best friend is Luke Cage a poor black ex-con. Iron Fist and Luke Cage are a great team up for showing that money, race or background shouldn’t interfere with being able to be friends and work together. If Iron Fist was Asian that message wouldn’t be nearly as powerful.
There does exist characters, such as Huntress, who are white characters that have a backstory strongly tied to an ethnic background.
I totally understand why people get upset why white actors play non-white characters and I agree that should not happen; but I also disagree with the thought that we should change existing white characters to be non-white characters just for the sake of diversity.
@54-I hope there is never just one “Terran culture”. That would be so dull. My hope is that people realize that “race” does not determine culture and more importantly a culture should never be exclusive to just one “race”.
@56, Amen. I strongly oppose both whitewashing and blackwashing.
56. shadowwot – “Characters such as Iron Fist works so much better as a rich white man because his best friend is Luke Cage a poor black ex-con.” Why do you believe this? How about “Characters such as Iron Fist works so much better as a rich black man because his best friend is Luke Cage a poor white ex-con.”
Come on! Move out of the 20th century. The color of your skin should not and does not determine which social class you belong in.
@53:
I’m a white male Evangelical Christian who has worked full time as a pastor and attends a Southern Baptist church and voted for Bush twice. I’m more fiscally conservative than socially conservative, but there’s plenty about this entire thread that makes me uncomfortable. But maybe you are less progressive than I. If so, I don’t begrudge it to you!
@51:
I didn’t say anything about groundbreaking, I was talking about consuming diverse viewpoints. We got an honest look into the heart of a black writer and director. And what you are describing as the central premise in the movie is not what I got out of it.
The ideological battle waged wasn’t between leaving Wakanda to save people of color around the world or staying hidden and protecting Wakanda, because T’Challa wasn’t representing the old way (isolationism). The ideological battle was between Killmonger’s ideology of coming out in force as conquerors to uplift people of color into a place of supremacy over the world (thereby replacing the old world order with something exactly the same, but inverted), and T’Challa’s desire to use their wealth and knowledge to uplift people of color to stand beside the rest of the world (thereby creating something significantly more egalitarian and “groundbreaking”).
@53 A black James Bond would be great, but only if this would lead to people finally re-evaluating the older James Bonds as not heroic characters but racist, misogynist thugs murdering and cheating for Britain’s colonial interests and nothing else.
@57 “My hope is that people realize that “race” does not determine culture and more importantly a culture should never be exclusive to just one “race”.”
Definitely, but sometimes . . . I found out when I lived in West Texas that Anglos born there are snobby, but everyone else is nice. Anglos born in other regions of Texas aren’t snobby.
It seems like readers would be more interested in what the characters themselves are like than with any point of contact. I don’t read anything looking for points of contact with the characters tho’ occasionally there are some . . . like the same passion for a chosen profession, or nearsightedness, or staying up too late getting homework done that’s due the next day (A Raisin in the Sun, the Harry Potter novels, and Lovelace’s Betsy Was a Junior, respectively) . . . but reading books and not finding any points of contact doesn’t determine level of reading experience, and neither does finding points of contact, except in rare circumstances when the characters’ experiences are cathartic because of something going on with me (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, and the film In the Name of the Father because of Gerry’s “medal” speech in the remand center cell, and the “medal” speech does emotionally resonate with those two books).
60. Anthony Pero – “leaving Wakanda to save people of color around the world” This is exactly the subtle racism that I object to – that because they are people of color, that they need to differentiate between saving people of color and white people. Why not see all poor people no matter the color of their skin as fellow brothers and sisters and want to contribute to all of humanity?
@61, If Bond is not working for British Interests then MI6 really needs to review his terms of employment with a view to disciplinary action. A black (and again, dead horse, other non-white ethnicities which are more common in the UK and in need of representation just as much) Bond would still be working for those same interests. Bond is not a superhero, he is an assassin for the British state; that is his job.
@61, I believe James Bond was always meant to be morally ambiguous. I mean seriously, licensed to kill? How can that be anything but questionable?
@@@@@ 61, maybe you’re a wee bit more conservative than me. ;-) But not more than a wee bit.
@59 adjbaker – Note that I never stated that race or the color of one’s skin determined their social standing – only that in the case of Iron Fist and Luke Cage that is the social class of those characters. There are lots of rich non-white characters and poor white characters but that had nothing to do with the point I was making.
The article’s statement is that white characters can have a change in race but that black characters (or other characters of color) can not be replaced with white characters. According to the article, Iron First could be changed to a character of another race (such as asian, which was regularly brought up when the Iron Fist Netflix show was created) but that Luke Cage needed to remain as a black character as that was integral to his character. My statement is that the relationship works best with Iron Fist remaining as a white character due to his relationship with Luke Cage who is a black character. The commentary of having the two characters that are best friends which are separated by white/black, rich/poor, big business/ex-con is still relevant in the 21st century.
67. shadowwot – Thanks for clarifying your position. I am sorry that I misrepresented your view. I agree that it is still important to have shows that portray best friends “separated by white/black, rich/poor, big business/ex-con”. I like it even better when a show has those differences and it is not made a big deal of … it is just accepted as natural.
#61 – I don’t think it’s necessary to reevaluate Bond in that way, because those things are apart of why he has been popular for so long. He’s a cold-blooded bastard who enjoys the finer things, an individualist who throws himself into danger for the state—it’s those contradictions that make the character.
@63:
I’m not sure why you are equating “Help poor black people who are being oppressed” with “don’t help anyone else.” That’s a false equivalency. Now, certainly, Killmonger’s goal would have been that, but attaching that motive to T’Challa isn’t supported by the story. Of course you are more burdened for people you view as your own, especially when they are in need. That’s how culture works.
And the way T’Challa is going about the change is through access to education and advanced health care. There is no chance those won’t also find their way to the masses. And quite frankly, uplifting a group of people who consume tons of resources without giving back in taxes and economic growth does help everyone, and directly.
@70-“Of course you are more burdened for people you view as your own.” Again the subtle racism, that people with similar skin color as you, that look like you, are “your own” when compared to others. This is the idea that we should be fighting against.
@71: I take your point, I just don’t take it very far. Nor do I subscribe to some sort of double standard the other direction, so don’t bark up the wrong tree. Its not evil to be white, and its not evil to be black, and its not evil to identify as such. Its evil to make judgements regarding another human being based on those things. Or if not evil, at the very list foolish. Its certainly not evil to feel kinship with someone who looks like you in a country where less than 16% of the population looks like you.
In the very specific case we are discussing, the Wakanda of Black Panther is less an actual place in Africa then a place meant to represent the spiritual “ancestor” and mythology of Black America, similar to how Middle Earth is supposed to do the same, to recapture and reclaim the lost mythology of an England conquered and subsumed by the Saxons during invasion after invasion.
@72-Very nicely put and the idea of Wakanda being the spiritual “ancestor” is a new thought. Thank you.
I definitely agree it is not “evil” to identify as white or black. In fact, you are forced to identify yourself as a certain “race” even if you feel it is unnatural or doesn’t apply. Which again I maintain is a subtle form of racism. In my opinion, the recent trend in society is to embrace racial identity more, which I total disagree with and I believe leads to more racism. I would much rather the emphasis be on embracing your culture or your ancestors culture or your adopted families culture, which is different than race.
@74:
Thank you for the kind words.
I’m not sure that “not seeing color” is the solution to the systemic racism found in the United States. It’s certainly the desired outcome, but the problem is that being blind to color will also make us blind to those same systemic issues.
Don’t get me wrong, there are TONS of other systemic issues in the US as well, some of which run parallel to those of race relations, like systemic poverty. But they are not the same issues, and they aren’t the issues under discussion.
A poc or female Peter Parker would only be a temporary fix as someone could easily revert to the white male one in the next retelling. It’s better to have a completely seperate/new character with their own origin story that can’t be overriden so easily.
It’s like female Thor, she was her own seperate person from male Thor, and though she was Thor for only a short time, she really was Thor. And you could still make movies, comics etc about her without having to erase the other one or vice versa.
Here in South Asia when original movies or remakes of foreign movies are made, we naturally cast all our own people, from all across the country, with maybe a foreigner to give it a dash of the exotic. I’m pretty sure other countries do this too. The same should hold true for America with it’s diverse range of population being reflected in its media. It doesn’t make sense for them to only hire movie actors from a small (white) portion of their population and then complain when the rest of the population is disappointed at being left out.
@50
To me it didn’t work for Nick Fury. I understand why they cast SLJ in the movies and I get why they changed him in the comics to match the movies. But it’s not Nick Fury.
And PP & BW are intrinsically white because they’ve always been so. To argue that a white character can be any color because there’s nothing intrinsically white about being white is bothersome to me.
But as I’ve said, spiderman or batman or the flash or Captain America can be of any ethnicity under the sun because as characters they transcend ethnicity. They represent ideals that are intrinsic to being human: the search for redemption, the duty of the powerful to those who are not, the quest for justice and lawfulness, the defence of freedom… etc.
The same cannot be said for Black Panther or Luke Cage or others like them. Yes, they represent a human ideal, but only as it applies to their very specific context. You can’t replace Black Panther with a white character because being the defender and King of an African nation isn’t a white character’s place.
Same with Luke Cage. It wasn’t a white character’s place to be the defender and champion of Harlem in the 70s. Now though, things may be different so you could introduce a white character as protector, but it wouldn’t be Luke Cage.
Look, I think. I’m getting off track a little. Suffice it to say that declaring that there’s nothing special enough about being a white character to stay white doesn’t sit well. And neither does the OP’s claim that the only reason for that is racism.
I think that Idris Elba as Bond would be great. I was always under the impression that “James Bond” was just a code name to show that the several different actors playing him was by design, and anyone could be Bond.
Up and changing the ethnicity of an established character does more harm than good. That being said, I liked the idea of a black Montag in Fahrenheit 451, and I picture Mistborn’s Kelsier as a black guy, too. I guess my argument doesn’t make much sense. One “seems right” and the other doesn’t.
@78 That was always just fanwank until the Craig reboot in our continuity obsessed times. It was always intended for all Bonds to be the same Bond just in broadstrokes continuity in order to allow for Bond to always be part of an ever moving present day. Really, this is why we should never allow fanwank to make its way into canon, it never improves things.
@77 Quick point – he was not redesigned due to the casting, but cast due to the design.
Ultimate Marvel continuity Nick Fury was designed to look like Samuel L. Jackson in 2001. The actor later appeared as Fury in the post credit scene of Iron Man in 2008.
You seem annoyed that Miles Morales is a different Spider Man. Are you similarly annoyed that the Black Nick Fury is a different Nick Fury?
While I agree with you that some “black” super heroes couldn’t really be white (e.g. black panther, storm), I think that some probably could be (e.g. Falcon, especially the MCU Falcon). But you’re right, casting white people into traditional black roles is not a good idea (whitewashing).
Meh. The proclamation that “The only objection, the only objection, one could have is racism.” sort of defines the author’s own prejudices, doesn’t it?
Peter Parker is white in the comics because his creators defined him as white. That’s what Lee wrote and what Kirby drew. Miles Morales is not white, because that’s what Bendis wrote and Pichelli drew. Neither is superior to the other (that’s Otto Octavius in Parker’s body), they are different. Both are Spidermen. If Parker is the default, it is only because he came first.
Both characters have stories to tell, and under different writers, those stories have, for both characters, run the gamut from being pathetically stupid to awe-inspiring. If either required a race-change to be relevant, then they fail as characters.
The example of Nick Fury is a bad one. The Jacksonesque variant of Fury of the Ultimate and movie universes and the classic Fury of the 616 universes are utterly different characters, sharing nothing in common beyond a name, a job, and penchant for eye patches in worlds where fully functioning eye prosthetics are readily available.
Perhaps, much like the fan theory behind the many James Bonds, Nick Fury is not a name, but a job title for the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. Rise to the head of SHIELD, you get an eye patch and everyone calls you Nick.
“We know that Nick Fury can be black, as can Jimmy Olsen and Johnny Storm. Sue Storm can be Latina. Aquaman can be Hawaiian. Superman can be Japanese. Hikaru Sulu can be gay. The Doctor can be a woman.”
It took me a few minutes to come up with your black Jimmy Olsen before I recalled the Supergirl tv show. Again, a pair of characters that share a name and very little else. Do you really want to bring the Fantastic Four movies into the discussion, because then we got a black Johnny and a Latina Sue in horrible movies? The disasters their movies turned out to be were not the fault of the actors, but still…
Yes, Hikaru Sulu can be gay… but can he be Hispanic? Can Motoko Kusanagi, a Japanese woman whose brain and nervous system is housed in a full body prosthetic not be any damned ethnicity or gender she chooses? Can Boris Badenov be Irish? Can Sheldon Cooper be a Pacific Islander? Can a bio-pic about Kareem Addul Jabar have a lead actor that is a dwarf? If your answer for any of these is ‘no’, then what is your point?
I am bi-racial (half white and half black (in no particular order of importance…lol ) and I understand your view Steven and appreciate it and agree with it mostly
I’m proud of a Miles Morales, or a Nick Fury, or black King Pin ( in Daredevil Movie lets not forget that …bad movie and all) BUT let’s definitely not DEPEND on established characters to proof out or insulate or take a shortcut with because that also damages a person of color (or sex) own standing in that they can’t make it on their own merit…..it just brings it to question.
PLUS, let’s not be so damned lazy about creating and writing a character for ANY minority out there and let them stand or fall… I imagine many white male heroes had limited runs and fizzled out simply because of bad story, character, and/or concept or all the above.
TAKE MORE RISKS ON MINORITES IN GENERAL I SAY IN ALL AVENUES OF ENTERTAINMENT . Trust in the person reading or watching and let them come to a natural feeling of inclusion on being presented with something new.
And you writers better write the hell out of it :)
@45 – Actually, the racial mix of Hamilton’s casting IS significant as an artistic choice (although one can certainly enjoy the show without noticing it). One of the most common (and lazy, IMO) critiques of the American Revolution and the Founding fathers is as a narrative centered around “rich white guys”. Lin-Manuel Miranda (who is Puerto Rican) read a biography of Alexander Hamilton and was struck by the identification of Hamilton as a boy who had grown up in extreme poverty in the Caribbean, had his talents discovered, immigrated to America and made a legacy for himself. With the mixed-race casting and doing the score largely in hip-hop style, Miranda is making a statement: This is relevant to us too.
I am honestly disinterested in most major superheros right now- but I would wait in a line around the block to see a black Batman.
My head cannon for this is that his parents would have been shot by the cops.
I mean- it’s cannon that the Arkham city police force is corrupt, right? And that’s the entire reason why he goes vigilante in the first place, right?
The entire fabric of Batman’s story takes on significance and intensity that I don’t think it ever had if you change that one detail.
I mean- so many of these mass shooters think of themselves as vigilantes. But wasn’t part of Batman’s shtick that he refused to kill anyone, even criminals?
How much more intense is that desicion if it’s made by a black dude?
And it would reflect a real relationship that the civil rights movement had with Ghandi and the philosophy of non-violence.
How would the relationship between him and Commissioner Gordon be?
How would he relate to being rich and high class- if that hadn’t been enough to protect his parents?
How much more intense does Alfred become if he’s acting not as a British person fulfilling a British role towards a stand in British Aristocrat, but acting as a loyal servant towards someone who’s people had been enslaved by the British and their stand ins?
Would Robin still be white? After all these years of Coach Carter and Finding Forrester crap, what would it look like for a disadvantaged white kid to be mentored by a successful black man?
Or would Robin be black too? What would it be like to see a black man presented as a loving and responsible father figure?
I really want to see a black Batman. It’s not even about representation, for me, although it probably should be. It’s mostly because white rich guys jacking off by ignoring laws and doing whatever all the time makes for a boring story.
Responsible father figure- I mean, who wasn’t Bill Cosby, I guess.
Ha! Jklol- We have already seen it- Will Smith in After Earth. And, like, probably many other shows that I haven’t heard of as a white person.
But still. I want Batman to be black soooo baaaaad.
On the other hand, Clark Kent existed for almost 50 years before the comics version was a Kansas farm boy.
For most of those years, he was the adopted son of small-town storekeepers in a town a few stops up the train line from the big city of Metropolis, a major city on the East Coast.
Putting Smallville in Kansas worked well, both for the movie and then in 1986 for the comics. But it’s clearly not essential, because it wasn’t part of the character for decades, during which period he became one of the best-known characters on Earth.
*
I think there are white characters for whom whiteness is essential — although, generally, it’s not simply whiteness, it’s their specific cultural background (Colossus is from Russian peasant stock, for instance, and that’s important to the character) — but for many of them it isn’t, because they’re kind of generically white at a time it was simply a default.
A black Peter Parker could work fine. So could a black Tony Stark.
I think it would be much harder to do a black Steve Rogers (the US military in 1940 wasn’t going to make a black man a symbol of the nation, and if you take that part away from the character it’s a significant change) or a black Clark Kent (because a black man showing up out of nowhere and doing superpowered-savior things would get a very different cultural reaction than a white guy, no matter what era you set the debut in). It doesn’t make either of those ideas bad — Marvel’s done a few black Caps, including one set back in the 1940s, and there’ve been multiple black Supermen, both literal and metaphorical, like Icon.
So I wouldn’t say it’s the case that all white characters can be recast, or that all black characters can’t — and I’d guess that if you’re making movies in Asia, where white is not the default, you play against or to a different set of cultural expectations — but it’s more likely that ethnicity, gender or sexuality are intrinsic to characters who don’t fit the default of the culture than it is to characters who do. Not always, but probably more often.
I’d love to see a black Peter Parker or Tony Stark sometime. Or a Latino Professor X, or a trans Cyclops.
I think that taking a different look at classic characters is a time-honored thing in entertainment, whether you’re updating Shakespeare or The Wizard of Oz, and if superhero characters are “modern mythology,” the world’s big enough to play with them, too.
But mostly, it’s been a long time since people argued that Starbuck had to be male, so it’d be nice to see the argument eventually become less reflexive…
88: Tegan Giesel
Excellent interpretation of Batman as a black man. (I’d also like to reiterate the seemingly popular opinion that claiming racism is the ONLY reason for opposing a black Spider-Man is a poorly constructed argument.) While I’ve often held the same opinion as others in this thread that changing the race of a long-established character is a poor replacement for creating new, well-written characters to increase the diversity of a fictional universe, you make the psychology of a black Bruce Wayne’s origin fit the mold of the justice-seeking knight. There are so many incredible parallels to our reality that could be drawn from how his personal trauma shaped the pathology of his alter ego if we consider his parents struck down by corrupt police. As a white guy with an overwrought sense of justice (but with far less economic superpowers), I’ve always identified with Batman. Reading your description of how the Dark Knight could be a man of a darker skin tone, I was struck by how appropriately the story you describe fits, and how it in no way takes away from my ability to identify with him, aside from the obvious (yet unimportant) difference in our skin color. My parents were not killed, by either criminals or police, but I can sympathize with Bruce Wayne’s loss and search for balance. I am not rich, but still can use my resources to better the world. I have no costumed Archenemies (or they are extremely well-disguised), but have struggled against villainous unfairness. While I can’t empathize with systemic racism and culturally-accepted bigotry from my own experiences, the concept of Batman such as you’ve described him let me connect to it more understandably, and help me to more easily see the effects of racism in ways I might not have, before.
That alone is a superpower that can change the world. Good job, and thank you for sharing.
That said, I am still generally opposed to changing sex, race, or other characteristics of my beloved characters, due to my own nostalgic feelings for the way I imagined them growing up. But if it was done with the same thoughtfulness and adherence to story that you’ve shown, I could accept it much easier. After all, there is a new generation moving forward every day, and if the cost of a world full of acceptance and equality is my own preconceived visions of people in Spandex Superwear, then I would gladly dash the statues of my imagery against the Grindstone of Time. I *personally* don’t think James Bond, Bruce Wayne, or Peter Parker need to be adapted into other races as much as new heroes of color need to rise to fill the world (both fictional and in real life), but who am I to stand in the way of change? I refuse to become a bitter old white man resistant to a changing world: I will NOT become a stereotype from fear of a brighter, more colorful future.
With respect, I think it’s more accurate to say “A white actor shouldn’t, shouldn’t, should not play Black Panther.”
The beautiful thing about stories–including in visual media–is that you could get virtually anyone to play any part; indeed, this article speaks of that.
The reason I say “should not” is more accurate than “cannot” is that stories often pre-empt our usual suppositions by placing people in situations and places we do not expect them to be.
While it’s certainly true that Black Panther is the king of an African nation, there’s no reason a story teller couldn’t go “Moses being drawn from the Nile,” on the story, and have a benevolent queen raise a white baby to be her son, perhaps because she finds she can’t have her own children for whatever reason.
Sure, that would almost certainly be taken as a slap in the face against blacks (“See? White supremacy even in a black movie!”), T’Challa’s culture is manifestly more important than strictly his skin color–as evidenced by the movie, wherein T’Challa and Killmonger–who share not only skin color but a grandfather–are clearly at odds with one another over cultural differences (Wakanda vs. the ghettos of Oakland). Thus, it’s entirely possible for a white child to be raised to be fully immersed in Wakandan culture no matter what color his skin is. If nothing else, he’d actually probably face internal discrimination from other Wakandans because he’s clearly not one of them. That can make for some good storytelling as well.
Yes, it would absolutely be jarring (and, again, probably insulting) to feature a white guy as T’challa. But it’s not impossible, as the article contends, and for some of the very reasons the article argues.
On a different note, I think adding new characters with greater racial/ethnic/male-female diversity does more to actually promote diversity than simply “replacing white males with women and people of color,” which the article implies is a solution to the lack of diversity.
Why can’t Miles Morales be the Spider Man? Why do we have to change Peter Parker? To use a slightly different angle on the article’s contention, what is it about Peter Parker that is essential to being Spider Man? Isn’t Spider Man more about someone who acquired amazing powers because of being bitten by a radioactive spider? Isn’t the whole “web-slinging, wall-crawler who fights bad guys” more of what makes a person “Spider Man” than simply the name “Peter Parker”?
I’m fine with Spider Man being non-white, and I’m even fine with the “Spider Girl” thing (which has been done). I’m 100% fine with keeping the Black Panther Black, too (and I really think we should). But if we’re going to start down a rabbit hole, maybe we should go all the way.
Just some thoughts.
I think a lot of times it’s not actually due to racism, it’s due to the jarring change when you know what someone looks like, then all of a sudden they don’t look like that anymore. The comics have been around for ages — everyone knows what a character looks like, so when it suddenly changes, it just seems like the artist or director or whoever is just… doing it wrong. For anyone who saw the *shudder* horror that should never have existed that was the live-action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender, there was a similar uproar when it cast two (multiple, actually, but main character-wise) pasty white people to play people in the anime that were very definitely not white. Not just for all the lack of representation issues, but also because THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT YOU DID IT WRONG.
That being said, I don’t think there’s much reason to get upset over changes to Marvel’s characters in particular. I mean, come on, they retcon everything every few years. Maybe that’s the way to approach objections next time to having someone of a different race play a formerly white character — just tell them it’s a retcon and start everything over.
The article is called “Miles Morales is not Peter Parker: Why new characters don’t solve the problem of diverse representation.”
I’ve read the article, and the comments, and I’m still none the wiser.
The article makes the point that (to put into my words) you are never going to cast an actor who completely matches what is on the written or drawn page [Ultimate Marvel Nick Fury being an obvious exception], so you should cast someone who matches the essence of the character. For generic white characters, you can ignore race. For PoC, they’ve been so few that there aren’t generic PoC superheroes. The ones that did make it into the page were deeply rooted in their ethnic culture, making it almost impossible for a white actor to capture that essence.
As Donald Glover pointed out, Parker’s background isn’t inherently white. They didn’t cast him because the MCU version was going to be a high-school student. While I respect Mr Glover’s acting ability, I don’t think he could have managed that. I don’t see a problem with casting a PoC actor in the role in principle, though.
“Ghost in the Shell” handled it badly, but the whole point of robbing the Major of her ethnic identity was both a commentary on Japanese culture (in anime it’s changing, but the villains look ethnically Japanese, and the heroes traditionally look more European) and a way to dehumanise her. The shady government that rebuilt her was deliberately breaking down her sense of self. The way her makers (both in the film and the film’s makers) see being white as less human and more easily controlled is way more disturbing to me than accusations of whitewashing.
In the comics, you couldn’t make Parker black. Changing the inks the artist used would just be putting him (and potentially his family) in blackface. You could potentially send him through the Siege Perilous, which would allow you to completely redefine the character, but then you get weirdness like Betsy Braddock. She’s the full sister of Brian Braddock (Captain Britain), and (like Brian) was born looking like a full-blooded Anglo-Saxon (and minor nobility of England). After passing through the Siege Perilous, she’s still Brian’s sister, but also an ethnically (Cantonese, I think) Chinese psychic ninja. I know there’s been some retconning to explain it, but that still make me uncomfortable.
I get what the article says about the Indian Spiderman, but Pavitr Prabhakar was created by an all-Indian team. Naming him Peter Parker, with all the cultural baggage having such an Imperial British name for an Indian in Mumbai just wouldn’t work. It also would change the tone of the Spiderverse stories, when Pavitr suspects the subtle changes in all the Spiders’ origin stories point to a Peter Parker being the Ur-Spiderman.
But to bring this back to the start of the comment. The MCU’s Spiderman is essentially a new character. They could have made him black. Instead they made him specifically Italian-American. The made him a high-school student. And they made him a Star Wars fanboy. <shrugs> It could have been worse. The rest of the cast is as ethnically diverse as a Marvel movie has been, featuring new characters and existing characters cast as PoC.
The article makes a good case for why Peter Parker (or most other generic white superheroes) could be cast with a PoC actor. What is doesn’t do is explain why new characters don’t solve the problem of diverse representation. Why not introduce more and more new PoC characters until there *is* something like a generic PoC superhero character? Why does it need to be a recycled white character? Surely a legacy character like Miles is the best of both? He’s a new PoC character, yet relates to the history of the existing character. Why *isn’t* that better than recasting a white character with a PoC actor?
The article has been given a title it then fails to justify. Can anyone answer these questions the article (with a title like that) *should* have answered?
While I understand the spirit of the post there are some major issues here, mostly on the conviction that the author knows the absolute true path. As Mr Wednesday might have put it “The really dangerous people believe that they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”
– That the only reason to object or take a contrary view means someone is a racist is inflammatory and insulting e.g. Nostalgia as another poster mentioned is indeed a powerful force. Changing some characters is messing with readers childhoods. I grew up reading Spiderman and the fantasy world where a young geek from a poor background could become a superhero was important. Messing with the character never plays well with me (and that includes some of the divorced, CEO etc story lines). Doesn’t make me a racist thank you very much.
– The implication “white” culture doesn’t matter is, frankly, crass. To pick just one whole in this, “white” is a ridiculous catch all here. There is no such thing as a universal white culture. Even within the UK tell someone that there are no cultural differences between the English, Welsh, Scots and Irish and wait for the response (laden with expletives is my guess). Add to that differences between France, Scandanavia, Russia etc. and see what you get.
Just two examples: Norwegians would definitely argue messing with Thor is a cultural issue, Viking heritage matters. Celtic culture? The French would get rightly prickly if you mess with Asterix the Gaul. Mel Gibson got enough stick for his accent in Braveheart (why not a Scottish actor?)
The basic premise of actors don’t need to be white is fine, things like the BBC Hollow Crown series showed that brilliantly but this doesn’t need to be via a reboot/rewrite. Sophie Okonedo was superb as Margaret of Anjou but this was still Shakespeare. I dont care what colour the actor playing the role as as long as they still play the role.
Biggest objection however is that if all we do is rewrite existing heroes to make a political point then we stifle creativity. I want to see new and exciting fantasy/fiction rather than the stuff I love redone. Every movie that gets a big budget to do Spider Man or Iron Man or the FF4 yet again means someone doesn’t get to make a film with new ideas. This is one of the reasons I rarely read Marvel/DC anymore and would rather pick up stuff like Rat Queens, Saga, Southern Bastards or Manhattan Projects. How about we get some of them on a big screen?
I’m glad Miles Morales isn’t Peter Parker. I like that Miles is his own person. I loved this article and I agree with it. Just saying I love that Miles is his own character because I was ready for a(nother) new spider-man. I’ve been a spider-man fan my entire life and Miles is by far my favorite spider-man, now. I just loved Bendis’ story in the first run of issues. Very much.
I feel like this logic doesn’t check out because other versions of Peter parker apart from 616 aren’t the same guy, every adaptation takes places in a different reality. If spider man from mcu were to be black, that tells us that mcu spider man can be black but that doesn’t tell us anything about the comics.
@131 / Me – exactly. That’s wha I was trying to say, but you’ve managed it much more succinctly.