Is Race Important?

By The_Ghostshell October 7, 2009 357 Comments

After the Beyonce/Wonder Woman scare, I started thinking about comicbook characters and their perspective races and whether or not it was important. The answer I came up with was yes, HELL YES. Hollywood has tried to sell us a line that its not important what color the actress/actor is portraying the character, but whether or not they can capture the essence of the character. But isn't part of a characters essence the way they look? In comicbooks image is everything. The way a character looks, appeals/captures the reader just as much if not more then the dialog. We all know and have accepted that when Hollywood makes the movie adaption of a comicbook that it will inevitably have some changes. Gambit not having an accent, Deadpool........well, we all know about Deadpool.

 
But to completely change a characters race is something that's always bothered me. I'll go one step further and say it bothers me when a director sticks a token character in any movie. Morgan Freeman in Robin Hood? Seriously? I remember watching as well as reading all sorts of Robin Hood stories, I remember Big Jon, I remember Fryer Tuck, but I don't remember Morgan Freeman. It seems to me like an attempt to appear progressive or something. Like hey look, we've righted the wrong that was no ethnicity  in (insert movie name here). So when we remaid it we decided to add a new ethnic character. It feels forced and out of place. But is that simply because of the attachment to the history of the material? For example, Disney is releasing a new animated film based loosely of the "Frog Prince." Most of us have heard the story of the Princess who kisses a frog and he turns into a Prince. But in the latest version the title has been renamed to the "The Princess and the Frog" and the story is set in New Orleans. Tiana (changed from Maddy) is now black, and the change doesn't bother me one bit. The Princess from the original story has an established history as a white character and yet here she is, changed for the sake of change and it doesn't bother me. Yet had it been say......the Black Panther, and Hollywood decided to change T'Challa to Trevor I would be pissed.  
 

 Which leads me to my next question. Why does it seem like its only white characters who find themselves replaced? Did they audition Matt Damon for the role of "Blade?" What about Jet Li as "Luke Cage?" I'm not being racist I'm simply questioning the thought process behind what appears, to me anyway, to be pointless Hollywood meddling. When they decided to make a Catwoman movie what in the hell happened between the time that they read Catwoman, liked it, and then decided to completely $#@! it up? Sure Halle Barry is a huge movie star, but so is Danial Day Lewis, it doesn't mean he should play Bruce Lee in a remake of "Enter the Dragon." And what really cracks me up is their attempt to explain the obvious race reversal. "Oh, well, its not Selena Kyle, in fact its got nothing to do with the original Catwoman at all. Basically we're just taking the name and the idea of a woman who fights crime and steals sh!t and turning it into a epic motion picture." FAIL.
 
 
 I don't understand how the powers that be go through a comic and love it so much that they want to make it into a motion pictures, and then stop and say, "You know what, this comic is great but how bout we take Wolverine and, are you ready? We make him Jewish. Its brilliant."
 

 
 So what are your feelings? Does it bother you when a character's race has been switched for what appears to be no reason at all? Is there something untouchable about a comicbook characters appearance?

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