Affirmative Action Heroes Part 1

Affirmative Action Heroes Part 1 

By Brandon Alexander

I’m a huge fan of comic books and films so it should come as no surprise that I love comic book movies. After watching the recent Man of Steel with a friend, he brought up a this point: this was Hollywood’s opportunity to have more “people of color” on screen, yet they completely ignored it (an out-of-shape Laurence Fishburne does not count).

MCD as the Kingpin.

I pride myself on being able to step away and maintain the sanctity of comic book characters, but could not come up with an accurate rebuttal other than “that would change the character entirely” or “that’s just how it’s always been and people wouldn’t like it”. Later on I thought, “why not push the boundaries and show heroes in a slightly different light (and I’m not talking about the New 52 scam).

Hollywood has already done part of what I’m mentioning, they cast Idris Elba, a well-known black Englishman, in the first Thor as the Norse god Heimdall, who is proclaimed as the “whitest of the gods”. In the same movie, Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano was cast in the role of Hagun (a character not necessarily of East Asian descent). Wolverine featured a similar change in ethnicity in character by casting Daniel Henney, of Anglo and Asian descent, as Agent Zero. The late Michael Clarke Duncan even showed up when they cast him opposite Ben Affleck in the flop Daredevil as the Kingpin.

The issue with these characters is the scale of their importance. Why hasn’t anyone pushed the envelope and just cast a major character as a different ethnicity?

Ultimate Nick Fury vs his Earth- 616

Marvel was pretty progressive in casting Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury (and keeping him on for nearly a dozen movies total). I applaud that effort, knowing that his portrayal of the character is based on Marvel’s Ultimate universe version. This is an unfair assessment to what I am describing, because who can really say no to the likeablility and sheer force of will of Samuel L. Jackson (not to mention the money he’d bring in).

I try to bring this movie up as little as I can.

Another instance of a lead character being cast as another ethnicity comes from the DC universe back in the early 2000s when they decided to cast Halle Berry as the title character in the movie Catwoman (though Berry is of both black and Anglo descent). While race caused a bit of a stir, I think the lack of a good story, changing the main character’s name, and the overall cheesiness of the film overshadowed the issue of ethnicity.

In spite of, it seems that Catwoman played it as safe as it could by featuring the most popular actress of that time period and, it’s sad to say, also choosing to perform this experiment with a female lead (a problem to be discussed in a later post).

Going back to Man of Steel, I agree that there would be a strong potential for backlash if they cast a nonwhite actor as Superman, but none of the top tier of characters were people of color. Why couldn’t Zod be another ethnicity? Kryptonians are an ancient race, I’m sure there are various skin tones and cultures. Even Lois Lane could have been cast differently; Amy Adams did not necessarily own the role enough for no other actresses to be considered (Zoe Saldana anyone?).

We met our black guy and woman quota.

Another pertinent example comes from the biggest superhero movie of all time, The Avengers. As previously stated, the character of Nick Fury was played by Mr. Jackson, but aside from him, all of the main characters were white: Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk (though at times he was green), Black Widow, Hawkeye, and even Agent Coulson. Would it have killed Marvel to adjust Hawkeye’s (probably the least known and least popular of the group) pigmentation?

That was a risk with nearly nothing to lose and at least something to gain: a nonwhite child could have had a superhero to look up to that actually looked like them. I’m not saying that people only have the capacity to admire people of similar genetic makeup, but surely it does not hurt to see representation from multiple ethnicities and backgrounds.

Green Lantern was the perfect opportunity to cast a person of color as the main character (John Stewart anyone?). I think that DC may give that a chance with the inevitable reboot that will wipe our memory clean of the 2011 disaster.

The coolest member of the League.

Actually, I remember in eighth grade when it was announced that John Stewart character would be the Green Lantern in the Justice League cartoon, one of my white classmates said, “he shouldn’t be black,” noticed me, and quickly added, “I mean, no offense, it’s just that they should have left him white.”

I, of course, responded,  “Yeah, I know what you mean,” taking everything I could to stop from saying “well at least there’s one black guy next to five white people and a martian”. This opened my eyes to some of the level of distaste that even my young peers had at the thought of a “white” character being “black”.

Side note: Points for DC’s forward thinking in allowing Stewart to be involved in a literal interracial relationship (Hawkgirl isn’t even from this planet).

The real question in all of this is, why has Hollywood skated primarily on the side of caution when it comes to “race-bending”? Star Trek: Into Darkness did nearly the opposite by recasting Khan (a role that was originally played by a person of color) with a white actor.

Kind of a dope pic.

Another note: remember when Donald Glover put his name in the hat for the role of Peter Parker in the Spider-Man reboot? Well, this is what Stan Lee had to say. Honestly, Glover would have been phenomenal as Spider-Man; he has that blend of “outcast with a sense of humor” that was needed and that Andrew Garfield really didn’t provide. Yet, ethnicity was an issue (not the fact that Garfield looked like he was a college senior).

None of this is saying that the outcries only go one way. Remember when the entire cast (except for the villains) of The Last Airbender were portrayed by white actors? The cartoon series the film was based on strongly suggests that these characters are from a variety of Asian and Inuit backgrounds. This caused a bit of stir and I’m sure that directly affected the movie’s poor ratings.

For a while now, we believed that the media only shows us what society is capable of seeing, but now we know better. The media shows us things that they think we want to see, which says much about our society. I, for one, think we’re ready for a black Bruce Wayne or an latino Reed Richards; though I would anticipate strong distaste for breaking canon (even though films have always done that).

I look forward to that day when everyone is represented and the generic feel of these films is gone. These are movies, and movies are made to push our beliefs and our reality (there’s a reason it’s called “movie magic”). What we see in these films should mirror what we see in reality, and last time I checked, there was a bit more diversity (and less spandex).