Changes: A Rebuttal

Earlier today, an editorial was published.  That editorial rankled me sufficiently enough that I have been moved to attempt to argue many of its more questionable points.

Before I proceed, I need to establish two critical facts.  First, as an editorial of my own authorship, the opinions stated here and below are entirely my own and do not represent the opinions of the site or anyone else that is involved in running the site (unless they choose to agree, of course).  Second, as I have found to be important in the discussion of racial topics on the Internet, I must establish that I am, in fact, a black man.  (Well, technically, I’m a 3/4 black man, but I identify as such.  It’s far too complicated to get into the history of biracial politics at this point, so take my word for it …)

Anyway, let’s get on with this.

Let’s begin with the primary motivator in the most recent outburst of this discussion: the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in a reboot of The Fantastic Four at 20th Century Fox.  The immediate reaction of comics fandom was largely in the negative, focusing entirely on the racial aspects of the casting.  (Tellingly, people ignored the skinny British Ben Grimm and twenty-seven-year-old Reed Richards.)  Most of the argument seemed to break into two branches: (1) They shouldn’t take a character that’s white and turn him black! and (2) How can a black man have a white sister?  He must be adopted!

The second branch is plainly silly, so I’ll just get that one out of the way.  Mixed-race families are a thing that exist.  I should know, I’m in one.  Hell, the one and only time I’ve ever been to Denny’s, they wouldn’t serve us because of it.  The lack of understanding of how a dark-skinned man can have a light-skinned sister is so baffling, especially in the 21st century, that I have to throw up my hands and give up sometimes when I try to explain this to people.

The first branch of the argument, however, is where things get hinky.  

In the 1960s, America was in the midst of a cultural revolution.  Almost a hundred years after the abolition of slavery, blacks were still being denied basic human rights afforded to their white brethren by the Constitution and other laws.  At the same time, and on a much less significant scale, comic books were also undergoing a revolution as the rebirth of the superhero genre at Marvel was taking place.  The men and women that are now regarded as legends by readers — names like Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Romita, and dozens of others — were laying the groundwork for an entire universe of characters that exists to this day.  Due to the volatile situation in the real world and the fact that most (if not all) of these staffers were white, that groundwork was nearly devoid of black faces.  It wouldn’t be until 1966 that Marvel would create their first black superhero, and even then, he wouldn’t get his own self-titled series until 1977.

The point of the above paragraph is to establish that the Marvel Universe as it existed in 1963 was unrealistically whitebread even for its era, let alone in comparison to the modern day — as of the 2010 census, New York City is only 44.6% white.  In other words, when reinterpreting these characters these characters for the modern era, racial issues need to be considered.

* * *

Now, let’s get to the specifics.  A word of warning: this is where it could get ugly.

(1) “Why do they keep turning white characters black!  We need to preserve our white heroes!”

As established in my lengthy preamble, almost all of the characters being adapted into films date from the 1960s or earlier, and thus are almost always white.  Much like in real life, you guys aren’t exactly hurting for representation.

This argument also implies a troubling line of logic: that changing a character’s skin color changes the character.  Making Johnny black doesn’t mean that he’s going to roll up in an Escalade with spinning rims while blasting Jay-Z and drinking grape Kool Aid out of a hollowed-out watermelon.  I think it’s safe to say that won’t ever happen.

If the only change is indeed a palette swap of the character, what’s the damage?  There is none, other than a few bruised egos.  It may even get a few black kids to get interested in superheroes.  People gravitate towards their own, after all — that’s not racist, it’s a fact of life, white or black.  The first time I ever discovered The Black Panther, I was exited to learn more about him because he was the first black superhero I had ever seen.  It positively affected my life to learn that there was indeed one of my own in comics to read about.  Just to my left, there is a poster of Black Panther framed on my wall (right next to a framed Spider-Girl poster … but that’s an argument for another day).

(2) “Why don’t they just make a movie with a black superhero instead of co-opting the white ones?”

THIS IS INDEED THE BEST SOLUTION, but unfortunately, this one goes into the “wishful thinking” category.  Studios aren’t exactly falling over themselves to make a big-budget movie about a black superhero, for many reasons.

Business executives and honchos tend to think of race and the average moviegoer in a subtractive way.  The late, great Dwayne McDuffie called it the Rule of Three — if you put three black people in prominent roles in a comic, movie, TV show, or any other form of entertainment, it’s the same thing as slapping a label on it that says “FOR BLACK AUDIENCES ONLY”  because the business suits have no idea or concept of how to sell it otherwise.  As pertains to our argument at hand, Hollywood has no idea how to sell a movie with one or more black leads to the white audiences that make up the majority of their revenue.  This is just plain awful for many reasons, but the worst is that it presumes that white people wouldn’t watch something with black people in it.  One need only look at the saga of the movie Red Tails for a very obvious and recent example.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u16sKK-1oLQ?rel=0]

We got three Blade movies, which is great, but I wouldn’t exactly call them blockbusters.  All three were relatively low-budget, low-grossing films.  Notably, he also had white sidekicks in all three films — escalating, in fact, from one in the first, two in the second, and three in the third.  Hell, in the third movie, the white people nearly shoved Blade out of his own movie.  More business executive thinking, I suppose.

After the announcement of the Green Lantern film, my sister asked me, “Why is the Green Lantern a white guy?”  It hadn’t occurred to me previously, but to the general public, the Green Lantern is a black dude.  Thanks to the DC Animated Universe and its merchandising and marketing tie-ins, most people recognize John Stewart as The Green Lantern.  If that’s the case, why was Hal Jordan the movie’s Lantern?  Wouldn’t that just confuse audiences and leave money on the table?  

Come on, you should know the answer by now.  If not, go back and re-read from the beginning.  I’ll wait.

A Black Panther movie is the most obvious choice here.  That has been in various stages of development hell since the 1990s, so I’m not holding my breath for that one, lest I suffer a large amount of physical pain.  The fact that a computer-generated, gun-toting raccoon with a British accent is going to be in a movie before Marvel’s first and most prominent black superhero is insulting enough already.

(3) “How would people react if they turned minority characters white?  Let’s see a white Luke Cage!”

For starters, this has happened already.  You don’t have to go far into the past, either.  Remember the Nolan Batman films?  Ra’s Al Ghul, Talia Al Ghul (um … spoilers?), and Bane are all minorities in the comics, but white in the films.  But I digress.

The more important factor here is historical context.  Blacks have been an oppressed minority for the entirety of this country’s history, both legally and culturally.  There were anti-miscegenation laws in affect in this country until 1967 (that’s only four years before my parents married!), and segregation wasn’t abolished until The Civil Rights Act of 1968.  In fact, there was still an (unconstitutional) anti-miscegenation law in Alabama until they finally removed it … in 2001.  That’s just the legal angle, mind you — there is still significant resistance to racial equality to this day.  That Denny’s anecdote I alluded to earlier happened in 1992, part of a string of such incidents that led to a massive class-action lawsuit in the mid-90s.  I still get stopped by security in most buildings to this day for much the same reason.  That isn’t even getting into the number of times I’ve been called a subhuman animal, either, and if that offends you, IMAGINE HOW I FELT.

Turning a black character white isn’t to be taken in a vacuum.  Not only is it illogical from a demographics standpoint, as previously discussed, but it also laughs in the face of historical context.  There’s an associated baggage that cannot and should not be ignored.

* * *

I think I hit the three most significant points, and considering that this is 1600+ words already, I should hope so.  I could go on about this for hours.  After all, race issues are my life, as they are with anyone that isn’t white.  Whether or not you want to believe it, race affects our lives in profound ways, some of which are so insane that you wouldn’t even believe the stories.  Suffice to say, bringing up this topic to somebody that isn’t white is a bit of a rage trigger.  

To the white readers: I’m not calling you a bunch of racist, cross-burning Klansmen.  Quite the contrary in fact — I’m giving you much more credit than Hollywood does.  All I’m asking is that you take a moment and try to think about it from the perspective of someone that doesn’t have their own representation forming a comfort zone around them at all times.  It’s tough to accept somebody telling you to be quiet and accept it when this is something that we’ve been hearing for all of our lives.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask to see a few nonwhite faces in movies once in a while, and I await the day when I can finally sit down in the theater to watch a blockbuster superhero movie with a black lead.  For now, I can’t wait to see the Falcon soar on the big screen next week, even if he is just wedged into a movie about a white guy fighting another white guy under the ominous watch of another white guy.  

Progress?