Post by Deleted on Mar 1, 2015 23:14:47 GMT -5
Diversity in comics and comic book movies has been a bit of a hot button issue. Michelle Rodriguez recently got scorched for her remarks on the issue and was compelled to apologize for having an opinion that was very politically-incorrect (ironically, it was probably mostly by white people- because that's kind of our thing... but I'm speculating).
The incident occurred when a TMZ "reporter" asked her if she was going to be playing the Green Lantern. She laughed and very candidly said, "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Because of this whole 'minorities in Hollywood' thing ... It's so stupid. Stop stealing all the white people's superheroes. Make up your own." As expected, people were "outraged"... because that's what people do nowadays. She apologized and then clarified her remarks by saying, "What I really meant was, ultimately at the end of the day there's a language. And the language that you speak in Hollywood is successful franchise. And I think that there are many cultures in Hollywood that are not white that can come up with their own mythology ... I'm just saying that instead of trying to turn a girl character into a guy or instead of trying to turn a white character into a black character or Latin character, I think that people should stop being lazy, and that people should actually make an effort in Hollywood to develop their own mythology."
The topic of diversity has come up several times on the podcast, but until Michelle Rodriguez, I've really only ever heard white people debating the issue and complaining about the disparity. While she has not been in any comic book movies (that I'm aware of), Rodriguez has been in movies based on video games. Video games are of course a much newer form of media compared to comic books, and the creators of video games don't seem to have any problems creating diverse, interesting characters and stories. Yes, I'm aware of the differences. Really though, are comic book writers being lazy? Is swapping the gender or ethnicity of a character that's been around for over 50 years really that "brave"? Last week on Facebook, artist Tom Derenick questioned Dan Slott's tweets about changing Spider-Man's ethnicity. Slott received praise for his remarks. It should be noted that Slott responded directly to Derenick's post and said, "I'm not pushing for a Black Spider-Man or an Asian Spider-Man or a Hispanic Spider-Man. I'm saying that race SHOULDN'T be an issue when casting Spider-Man."
A segment of people are pushing to change the gender and/or ethnicity of established characters, but I don't hear them pushing creators to create new, interesting, diverse characters. Or at minimum, give more attention to minority characters that already exist, but have been severely underutilized. Wouldn't that make all sides happy?