By Teresa Jusino
As you all read in Lisa’s article, there’s been much ado about Donald Glover having the chance to play Spider-Man. As I type this, I’m engaged in a Twitter debate with Dan Slott and others about it, and I find I’m getting angrier by the tweet.
Now, I have absolutely nothing against Donald Glover. He’s great, and talented. What I’m about to say has nothing to do with him. It has to do with me wondering why everyone is getting so distracted by whether or not this one black actor gets to play this one white character and doesn’t see how inherently insulting that is!
Think about it. A talented black actor can only find inspiring, fun, challenging superhero roles outside his race, and has to force the Hollywood studio system to retcon years of film history as well as years of comic history, because his options for playing an iconic superhero of his own race are THAT limited. HOW MESSED UP IS THAT?!
Dan Slott, in his tweets, brought up the example of kids playing make-believe, and asked “Is it WRONG for an African American kid on a playground to PRETEND he’s Spider-Man? Because– –THAT is all this is– PRETEND. 
It’s all story. And there’s nothing intrinsically WHITE about Spider-Man.” True, there’s nothing intrinsically white about Spider-Man. Yet, he was created as a white character by default. Why?
And no, there’s absolutely NOTHING wrong with a minority child pretending to be Spider-Man. But here is where we can really break down how sad this whole situation is. I’m a Puerto Rican with a dark-olive complexion. I remember being a little girl and pretending to be all sorts of characters, like Jem, or Cheetara from Thundercats, or Vicki on Small Wonder (don’t ask). Thing is, I wasn’t imagining ME as those characters. I was imagining BEING those characters. Looking through their eyes. Being in their skin. I think that, very often, this is what happens when children pretend to be characters. And with so many awesome white characters, minority children are subliminally taught that in order to be awesome, you have to be white. They’re not seeing themselves as Peter Parker, I think they’re seeing themselves as White Peter Parker. And so, most of the time, girls of all races will choose white Barbie dolls over black Barbie dolls unless their parents make it a point to buy the black ones. Recently, I went to FAO Schwartz and was in their Lifelike Baby Doll section, where they have a full-on “nursery” set up where you can “adopt” a doll. The white doll case was almost empty. The black doll case was mostly full. What’s worse? There was a young, well-to-do black family there when I was there, and their little girl was over at the white doll case picking one out. I’m not making this up.
Far from improving the visibility of minority actors and being inspiring role models for minority children, a minority actor playing an iconic (and historically white) comic character is meaningless, because they will always be the other version. When people think of Sue Storm, they don’t think of Jessica Alba. They think of the white version from the comic. Though yes, as Lisa pointed out in her article, the Fantastic Four film tried to avoid that by having Jessica Alba look as white as possible. However, as both comics and film are visual mediums, I respect their trying to make Jessica Alba look like the character there. Still, they didn’t have her play Hispanic Sue Storm. When people think of Catwoman, they think of the comic, or they think of Michelle Pfieffer, not Halle Barry (and they also think of what a crappy movie Barry was saddled with!). When people think of Kingpin, they think of a fat, white guy, not Michael Clarke Duncan in the crappy Daredevil movie. Now that I think about it, all three of these minority actors got saddled with low-quality films. I don’t think they were saddled with them because of their races/ethnicities, but I do think that the fact that the producers randomly decided to cast minority actors in these roles just for its own sake was an indicator of how little thought was generally being put into the quality of the films.
There are so many well-meaning white fans and comic creators on the internet saying things like “It wouldn’t bother me in the least if Spider-Man were black!” Well, thank you very much, but that’s not the point. Also, please do tell us about some of your best friends who are black. Pretending that race is a “non-issue” is silly. It IS an issue, and it’s always important. If it weren’t, comic creators wouldn’t default to whiteness all the time. They’d be alternating races for the sake of variety. But they don’t. Why is that? Race is SUCH a non-issue they’re not going to include differences at ALL! Isn’t that GREAT?!
If movie studios and comic creators are really concerned about diversity in superhero films, it’s all about the source material. It’s all about purposely (and purposefully) writing/drawing minority characters so that those kids on the playground have someone they can relate to who looks like them. Having a minority actor play a character that has already been white for decades in the name of Cultural Diversity is simply throwing minority communities a bone. And a small one at that. It’s giving them Sloppy Seconds.
When asked about the need to create minority icons, Dan Slott’s response was “Can’t we do both?”, meaning have minority actors play historically white superheroes AND create minority icons. He signed off before I could give my answer, but my answer is no. Because doing the first thing makes people complacent, which distracts them from the second. See? Black actors totally have opportunities! Donald Glover can play Spider-Man if he wants to! So, there! Problem solved. Black actors can simply play THESE roles! Huzzah! Yay for racial diversity! And so creators will continue to default to whiteness, and children will continue to think that the only way to be awesome is to be Caucasian.
Teresa Jusino was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn’t think so. She is a contributor to Tor.com, a website that covers sci-fi, fantasy, “…and related subjects.” Her work has also been seen on PopMatters.com, on the sadly-defunct literary site CentralBooking.com, edited by Kevin Smokler, and in the Elmont Life community newspaper. She is currently writing a web series for Pareidolia Films called The Pack, which is set to debut Fall 2010! Get Twitterpated with Teresa, Follow The Pack, or visit her at The Teresa Jusino Experience.
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TERESA JUSINO was born on the same day that Skylab fell. Coincidence? She doesn't think so. As a writer, her work has appeared in Elmont Life newspaper, and on the sadly defunct website, CentralBooking.com. She is a founding member and editor of The Revolving Door Commune Blog, is currently at work on a collection of short stories, and is writing a web series for Pareidolia Films called The Pack, which is set to debut this fall! As a geek, Teresa loves all Star Trek, Lost, Fringe, comics, and anything Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, and Neil Gaiman ever touched. She is also an aspiring fangbanger. 
Another blog post regarding this same topic:  ;http://thewritecrowd.com/jpatricklemarr/archives/108
Yes, Slott's argument only works if you think of white (and male) as "neutral".
When I think of Catwoman, though, I think of Eartha Kitt, and so I should – she was awesome! But one exception does not detract from your point.
On the battlefield of ideas there is surgery and there is triage. Each has its place. Each is VERY important. You yourself said that Spider-Man has had 50 years to develop. And I agree with you that something like that takes decades to fully come to fruition. So, are we to wait 25-50 years for a black comic book hero to become super popular—or we gonna perform some triage in the meantime to get the foot in the door? Civil rights for blacks in the 60s was a triage move, yeah—but it pointed us in the right direction. MLK said—"Sometimes I get discouraged!" The fact of the matter is is we have to get more minority people in parts. The late Steve McQueen did a movie in which he changed the part of a dog to a black man—The Hunter, 1980—that sounds horrible on its face, but that kind of thing is done a lot in Hollywood, and I'm sure the young LeVar Burton was thrilled that McQueen wrote a part for him. Anyway, sometimes ya have to work in small steps in order to get the big changes.
Definitely. I'm not saying we should create icons overnight. What I'm saying is that we should be creating black characters. I forget where I read this, but someone somewhere said that it would be one thing if we got a black Spider-Man by flashforwarding to an older Peter Parker who wanted to pass the mantle on to someone and chose an inspiring young black man to wear the costume. It's another thing to just decide that Peter Parker's going to be black today. It's the difference between a conscious thought and an afterthought, and I'm just saying that if we're going to cast black actors in roles, it should be done as more than just an afterthought. That's the case for any race. White shouldn't be the lazy default, either. Why is this character white? Why is this character black? Every script should ask these questions.
I agree. Great thought provoking article, BTW.
Of course when I posted my link I had to screw it up. Go me!
Here it is again!
http://thewritecrowd.com/jpatricklemarr/archives/…
*stands and applauds*
Actually, I think Donald Glover would make a great live action Static Shock
you killed this article girl!! excellent post
[...] while this story is Asian in sensibility, most of the leads are non-Asian. Now, it has always been my opinion that minority actors shouldn’t have to play white characters in order to get to pla…; that we need more minority roles written and that it’s up to minority creators to make those [...]
[...] And then there was the hubbaloo over Donald Glover possibly being considered to be the new Spider-Man in the new movies. Issues of race, ethnicity, and geeky stories obviously resonate with me. Check out “Donald Glover = Band-Aid. Creating Minority Superheroes = CURE.” [...]
I am a 33 year old white male. The unfortunate thing though is that many people assume that i’m automatically excluded from being able to understand this issue. Here’s the thing though, I’m not. I’ve had many different Role models from many different backgrounds. I wanted to be Bill Cosby, both in the Junkyard talking about Fat Albert and in the Cosby Show. He was a Doctor, had a gorgeous wife, who was a lawyer and wonderful children and was funny as heck. When I watched C.H.I.P.s, I wanted to be Ponch. He was funny, witty and seemed to have more smarts than his airhead partner. When I watched the A-team, I wanted to be Mr. T, and would regularly pick him as the character to play. He was easily the strongest, street savvy and had style with all his chains as well as made overalls cool. I didn’t feel less of a person because i happened not to look physically like them, because being them was much more than appearance. It was a swagger, a mindset and a persona that transcended image per say. Perhaps people don’t remember what it was like being a kid and pretending to be someone else. There is a degree of disassociation that is used, suspending one’s beliefs. It is easier for children, mostly because they typically don’t have the life experiences to develop beliefs to get in the way of their imagination. I don’t think children have as difficult a time in transcending ethnic lines as adults seem to have. I for one always think of Jessica Alba as a smokin hot Sue storm and don’t let her ethnicity factor into it at all. People are upset that because her ethnicity wasn’t hammered home, that diversity in the movie doesn’t count? That’s part of the problem. I can clearly see her ethnic features, but her acting and HOT HOT looks is all I see. When that isn’t good enough for you because you expect some kind of minority monkey dance from anyone who isn’t Caucasian, that is just ridiculous. I will agree that the Halle Berry Catwoman was awful, but as we see from the Batman Movie from the 1960′s, the George Clooney Batman movie of the 90′s and the Captain America movies of the 70′s, this isn’t a phenomenon for minorities alone. When there is bad writing, the movie is bad, no matter who is involved. I find sometimes the actor helps in this regard. Snakes on a plane not withstanding, Samuel L. Jackson is a character actor, whom I also look up to and have emulated even at my current age. Either a person will allow themselves to relate to an actor, or comicbook character or they wont. As far as the white characters go, typically, when they were created, it was in a climate were white people would generally have a greater likelihood to becoming a character. If Batman would have been black, it probably would have been only a matter of time before a person figured out the which rich black man in Gotham was Batman. Could Jon and Martha even been allowed to fake that Clark was theirs if he had been black? They were a product of their times, but have since been recreated many times to become better as icons of the modern world as they were in the world they were created. Once a character is established it is not racism to retain some of the original qualities of characters we grew up with. I’ve looked up to many role models regardless of ethnicity, and if there is a real problem for children of minority ethnicity to relate to Caucasian characters, perhaps instead of seeing it as a one way problem, it can be attacked from multiple angles. Perhaps since children will learn what they live, there should not be a focus on ethnic issues at such a young age, or even an older age. Perhaps creating more original ethnic characters in popular comics and establishing offshoot titles staring these characters would help. Writing these characters as people with super powers who happen to be minorities instead of minorities who happen to have powers would help as well. Killing popular heroes to replace them with minority characters does more of a disservice than help. Each time a popular character is envisioned from the 616 universe to the ultimate, there is an opportunity to change any number of things about them to better portray the world today. Certainly, they did so for Colossus. Not only was he gay, but he also was also a drug addict. Magneto’s twins seemed to have an incestuous relationship, Liz Allen was a mutant, and so on. Once a character is introduced, making such a replacement rewrite is more problematic regardless of who the replacement is. I hope Marvel takes this opportunity to create a character that all fans can relate to….i sincerely hope.