Why Do All the Superheroes Have to Be White, and All the Thugs Black? (2813 hits)

Michael B. Jordan, who rose to fame portraying 22-year-old Oscar Grant in 2013’s Fruitvale Station, has been tapped to play Johnny Storm (“the Human Torch”) in the popular film franchise. Since the news broke, racist trolls, mostly white men, have come out of the woodwork in comment sections and on social media, decrying the lack of “authenticity” of a black Storm. He must remain blond-haired and blue-eyed, or else. Because, clearly, no little white boy feverishly reading his comic books under the covers with a flashlight dreams of one day being a powerful black man, right?

There is little doubt that forced diversity can potentially weaken a story when it’s a clear departure from that story’s truth. This is not the case, however, with director Josh Trank’s “contemporary reimagining of Marvel’s original and longest-running superhero team.” Drawing inspiration from his own multiracial family, Trank's goal is to normalize that representation in film, a medium that traditionally relies on a racially homogeneous family structure that no longer reflects America. This makes sense. Still, so-called comic book purists are actually upset because Storm, a fictional teen who transports to another galaxy and gains superpowers through cosmic radiation, thus arming him for an epic battle against Dr. Doom, is no longer white.

Yeah ... no. That’s not how any of this works.

Jordan responded to criticism with a forthright essay in Entertainment Weekly, writing in part the following:

Sometimes you have to be the person who stands up and says, “I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll take the brunt for the next couple of generations.” I put that responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much. Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.” Or maybe we have to reach past them.

To the trolls on the Internet, I want to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around. Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world we live in.

Unfortunately, the world we live in breeds the criticism Jordan is receiving. Some mainstream media outlets seem hell-bent on amplifying the parallel myths of white superiority and black inferiority. African-American men in particular are primarily packaged as “thugs,” wrapped in pathology so stifling that even when the opportunity presents itself, mainstream media won’t let them breathe. They don’t get to be heroes.