blackwashing hollywood and hypocrites

I'm in a terse mood. Wanna know why? Well, there are very few things that really huffle my puffs and this is a list of them: 1) stupid shit; 2) law school shit; 3) racist shit; and 4) “even though God made my body in his image, men in nightgowns tell me that it’s a gross and evil thing therefor I find my natural human body related urges icky” shit (or puritanical views on sexy time for short). That’s it. You steer clear of those categories and you find a very happy and agrreable man of every hour, drew everyday. But then I go and hear about the “controversy” over the casting of Michael Balthasar Jordan (I assume that’s what the “B” stands for), one of the finest young actors not named Jonah in all of Hollywood, as the human torch in fox’s Fantastic 4 reboot.

seriously, the fat kid from "superbad" just turned 30 and has 2 oscar nods already. he's basically on route to be this generation's robert de niro.

Seriously. People are pissed. Why? Glad you asked, and the reason for the misplaced nerd rage took a hard left right into one of my puff huffler zones, then swerved in time to side swipe anothers bloated gas guzzling minitank of a car. You see, this is a fundamentally different issue then the rage over batfleck or superman murder. Those two internet poo-ricanes (tm) were due to questions over ben affleck’s ability to pull off being batman (he can, but much like Clooney was, is too… too… who he is for the cowl) and for the sheer… just un-supermanlikeness of neck snapping a fellow kryptonian. I mean superman will kill a… giant bug monster from the center of the earth, or rip the head clean off an unkillable cyborg (hell, he banished doomsday to the end of time, so he’s no saint) but straight up bare hands murder of a humanoid form his home planet? No. just no.

no.

NO.

Before I go completely on this sidetrack like another, faster locomotive is heading toward me- hold on a sec…

stop it.

Ok, so before I go off on this sidetrack any further like my engine gave out on lap 63, what makes the Michael Bosworth Jordan human torch outcry different? Well, as this article puts it, and I’m paraphrasing, “because white nerds are racist little pricks”. That’s right. The outrage has nothing to do with Michael Benvolio Jordan’s capability of pulling off the complexities of Johnny Storm (b/c, c’mon, being a hotheaded manchild requires Shakespearean depth and character dev skills) as a character.  It’s just because J-Torch is  a fire elemental and we all know fire elementals are white people. Or at least that’s how they drew him in the comic. But there’s a reason that stormfire johnny is  white in the comic… it was first printed inthe sixties. The first black superhero wasn’t invented until a later issue of the Fantastic 4 series.

you know he's black because it says so in his name. BP's a BA BTW...

So that first piece of rage inducing back lash is the easy one. Hell, it's the type of low hanging fruit that has also seen outrage over Heimdall’s movie casting (a decidedly black Idris Elba) or Nick Fury’s (an even blacker Samuel L. Jackson), both traditionally white characters. And you know what? They crushed it in those roles. Hell, Samuel L. “and the L is Motherfuckin” Jackson was so great as the leader of shield, marvel retconned the character to look like him!

who you callin a ret-con, muthafucka?

The second rage inducing backlash (the one they swerved into earlier, remember?) is the other stupid reasons people shit on these fine actor’s being cast in these roles: the purist reasons. These are stupid. Why? Because they’re excuses for people to be racist without feeling like dickholes. The purist reasons range from “but the character was always white before, so casting a nonwhite person in the role ruins it for me” to the equally annoying (and this is fantastic four specific) “but how can he and sue still be sibs if he’s black and she’s white?”. Those arguments seem reasonable until you hear the third, which pulls the sheet off the alleged unracism and reveals the pointier hooded sheet underneath. The third purist argument is, “but I can’t get invested in the character now, because they were white in my head”

this basically

All of those sentiments are coded. They all imply a level of discomfort with black people akin to that of finding your dog has been replaced with another dog of the same breed, but in a different colorway. It’s like yeah, it’s a chow, but you don’t like it now because it looks different than the chow you knew. Bad analogy aside, this has even been used when the character in question was always black. If a character is being adapted from print to film and is belived, white people will often assume the character is white, even if the source material explicitly describes them a different way.

**ahem**

And to all you contrarians who are loading up your, “but just because SOME people said racist shit doesn’t mean EVERY person who doesn’t like these casting choices is racist” cannons to counterstrike, SHUT UP! There are people who dislike Obama for policy reasons, but that doesn’t excuse the inherent bigotry of the birther crowd and the secret muslim coalition. Not to mention the “I’m uncomfortable with the idea of a black president” contingent.

Now, the worst part about these racists and puri-racists is that they’re hypocrits for shitting on the ‘racelifting’ in Hollywood. Oh, you wonder how? Well then, you, you.. drewninite jerk, for the first time in drewniversal history, join me on page 2 and I’ll prove it…

rawr

That black lady up there? the one that was clearly designed after Halle Berry? That’s a character from a small indy comic named  simply Fox. Heard of her? No? you sure about that? Well, I don’t blame you. See, her comic wasn’t a mainstream success. It was more of a culty niche audience thing. It appealed to young men of working age who had become disenchanted with there normal life.

these guys

You know, they gave her comic a movie. When’s it come out and did they actually get Halle for the part?

               

perfect. hooker party for everyone!

 Well, lemme tell ya: Fox’s movie came out already. Like 6 years ago, in fact. Name starting to ring a bell yet? Well, there was a superhero movie that came out around 2008 for a little Mark Millar created series called “Wanted”. The movie starred James McAvoy in the lead role as Wesley Gibson, the surrogate for all the disenchanted working age guys in the theater. So who did they get to play Fox in that movie? You remember now, don’t you?

perfect. stripper orgy for everyone.

What? Angelina Jolie?! She…. She’s not even… Black!!! She looks NOTHING like the character at all! How dare Hollywood racelift this comic character who is very clearly tailor-made for Halle Berry, or at least a black actor! Where is the outrage? Where is the vitriol? Why hasn’t the NAACP issued a statement about this great injustice to comic cannon?

…. No, really. Where is it? I looked! I searched for “Angelina Jolie backlash for wanted movie”. I switched out backlash for “controversy”, switched out wanted for “Fox”. Still nothing. The only thing I found was one article that fell in the “genuinely only concerned about the studio taking liberties with the source material” category. But nobody else was questioning the change in race. Nobody else expressed a since that the movie was ruined because of such an important character changing from black to white. Nobody questioned whether they could care about the character anymore after the transformation. The closet anybody ele came to outcry was an article that’s author couldn’t decide whether going with Angie over Halle was a good decision or not.  Not exactly “Rue being black made me not care about her death” level outrage, is it?

Want it closer to home? Fine. Remember the first run  for the Fantastic 4 in the Fox Marvel universe? Remember who they got to play Johnny and Sue Storm? Chris Evans and Jessica Alba.

them.  also known as the eye candy duo

Chris is a good, all-american white guy (probably why Disney stole him to play Captain America), so great choice for Johnny, right? Right. But di you know that Jessica Alba is a *pauses for dramatic effect* Latina?!?!? And a MEXICAN no less?! But if she’s Mexican and he’s white, how can they be brother and sister? How can she play a white lady if she’s got that hot Latin blood going through her veins? Sue Storm isn’t Mexican! Where is the outrage over this affront to a comic book legend?!? Huh? Where is all the outrage over this Latina playing a white woman?

…… again, I really can’t find it. Googling Jessica Alba fantastic four controversy, only brings up articles on how controversial it is that Wallace and Zoe Barnes will be playing characters traditionally written as biological siblings. 

just like real life

So there you have it. The race of the character only matters when the character was written white and the actor chosen doesn’t look white. You can have a Latina Sue Storm as long as she can pull off gringo. You can cast Angelina Jolie as a character modeled after Halle Berry. But cast Jamie Foxx as Electro? Or even suggest Donald Glover might make a good Spiderman? Blasphemy.

The point is not to shit on the fan’s opinions on their favorite characters and how they should be portrayed on the big screen (I’m sure a white Storm or Lady Deathstrike would have been met with opposition). My point is to call a spade when I see it. So I’m just gonna let you know: racism is still alive and well. It just doesn’t come in lynch mob and jim crow flavor anymore (well… maybe I spoke too soon). Now it comes in 140 characters or less.