DC/WB Films/Worlds (No Spoilers)

[LordUltimus]

Huntress is black post-new 52. Why not have her be "the black one"? Or if you really care about diversity, why not make BOTH of them black?

[Korath]

Huntress is black post-new 52. Why not have her be "the black one"? Or if you really care about diversity, why not make BOTH of them black?

Huntress never looked black to me in the New 52/Rebirth.

She's South-European. It isn't uncommon to see Spaniards, Italians or Portugueses with such skin tones who are considered white, here in Europe.

[Thirteen]

Huntress never looked black to me in the New 52/Rebirth.

She's South-European. It isn't uncommon to see Spaniards, Italians or Portugueses with such skin tones who are considered white, here in Europe.

On the topic of Helena Bertinelli being “Black”...

On the topic of Helena as a WOC, her visual portrayal in the series GRAYSON:Agent of Spyral depicted her as darker skinned than usual with intention of giving her a distinctive curly haired, olive-skinned Sicilian appearance. Discussion of Helena being race-swapped was common during its publication...
https://comicbook.com/blog/2014/05/2...rayson-series/
https://www.cbr.com/grayson-an-itali...of-skin-color/





It didn’t last much beyond that series...

[Keyotheseasons]

She was at least at some point considered by DC to be a POC.

[Korath]

Strange.

The way she was drawn, even in Grayson, really screamed South-european white people to me, and certainly not black woman. I'll have to re-read Grayson still.

Then again, there is rather wide range of white body-type here, and it's easier to tell when one comes from Northern Europe or from Southern Europe by look, most of the time.

[Agent Z]

For the same reason that Scarlett Johansson playing Major Kusanagi was tasteless and objectionable.

These two are not the same.

Johansson’s casting as the Major was bad because being Japanese was intrinsic to the character and Ghost In The Shell has always been in a uniquely Japanese story. Everything from the character’s names to the location’s aesthetics to the way technology is viewed is rooted in Japanese culture.

Black Canary, by contrast, is not a character where being white is important to her character the way being Japanese is important to Motoko Kusanagi’s character.

Think of the things Black Canary is most well known for (martial arts, sonic scream, her costume) and ask yourself, “are any of these dependent on her being white?”

Finally, making Black Canary a black woman adds to diversity while Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi erases diversity.

And who cares about people bitching because said character is black and not from the BoP comics ? They'll complain about any deviation of the comics/use of a black actress/actor anyway.

Again, if this is the case, why object to a black woman playing Black Canary?

[LordUltimus]

These two are not the same.

Johansson’s casting as the Major was bad because being Japanese was intrinsic to the character and Ghost In The Shell has always been in a uniquely Japanese story. Everything from the character’s names to the location’s aesthetics to the way technology is viewed is rooted in Japanese culture.

Black Canary, by contrast, is not a character where being white is important to her character the way being Japanese is important to Motoko Kusanagi’s character.

Think of the things Black Canary is most well known for (martial arts, sonic scream, her costume) and ask yourself, “are any of these dependent on her being white?”

Finally, making Black Canary a black woman adds to diversity while Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi erases diversity.


Again, if this is the case, why object to a black woman playing Black Canary?

And again, why is Huntress black too if they really care about diversity?

[Johnny]

These two are not the same.

Johansson’s casting as the Major was bad because being Japanese was intrinsic to the character and Ghost In The Shell has always been in a uniquely Japanese story. Everything from the character’s names to the location’s aesthetics to the way technology is viewed is rooted in Japanese culture.

Motoko Kusanagi is a brain encased in a cybernetic shell. Her physical appearance differs based on the type of mission she's deployed to in order to blend in with the crowd. It's not the same thing. She even looked Caucasian in the 1995 movie. If she's deployed somewhere in Egypt, chances are she won't take the form of an Asian woman. An argument could be made that casting ScarJo in that role would not erase anything, provided that she wasn't the only type of shell Motoko used. In this day and age it was always going to be seen as controversial but the concept of the character is that she's meant to look different depending on what she does and where she does it, so her being played by a white actress would not have been the end of the world had they been smarter in adapting the property.

Black Canary, by contrast, is not a character where being white is important to her character the way being Japanese is important to Motoko Kusanagi’s character.

Think of the things Black Canary is most well known for (martial arts, sonic scream, her costume) and ask yourself, “are any of these dependent on her being white?”

Finally, making Black Canary a black woman adds to diversity while Scarlett Johansson as Motoko Kusanagi erases diversity.

It's awfully convenient to use the old "there's nothing about this character that says they need to be white" thing, when we all know that Hollywood doesn't care if there is or isn't. If they did, then someone like Mordo, an Eastern-European native Transylvanian in the comics would not have been played by a black actor in the MCU. 99.9% of the comic book characters in general are American, 99% of the white comic book characters are American as well. It's easy to pick a white American character created 50+ years ago and say there's nothing about them that says they need to be white, despite that you can make a similar argument about a good portion of the non-white characters, who are not defined by their race. Why does Victor Stone need to be black? A Detroit native born to wealthy scientist parents. What is it about this particular character that says he "must" be black. What is it about his race that's so intricate to his character other than the recognizability factor. So yes, Canary was obviously made black for diversity, but let's not act as if her "whiteness" had been a more intricate part of her character, it would've made any bit of a difference to whether Hollywood should've chosen to raceswap her.

[Frontier]

Think of the things Black Canary is most well known for (martial arts, sonic scream, her costume) and ask yourself, “are any of these dependent on her being white?"

And being blonde, which, of all those traits, seem to be one thing confirmed to still be the case with this version of Canary .

[Colossus1980]

There is no such thing as concrete continuity in comics anymore. Characters change races and sexual orientation all the time to show progress. Comic readers have to accept the fact that only the hero name is the only constant. Decades when the DCEU is rebooted the Trinity will undergo a race and sexual orientation change among them.

[Kon93]

So characters don't matter, just their superhero name... Ok

[The Darknight Detective]

There is no such thing as concrete continuity in comics anymore. Characters change races and sexual orientation all the time to show progress. Comic readers have to accept the fact that only the hero name is the only constant. Decades when the DCEU is rebooted the Trinity will undergo a race and sexual orientation change among them.

They are basically the only DC characters that are untouchable in that regard, except for Elseworld-type stories.

[HandofPrometheus]

I had no idea Helena was black. She was never drawn as a black woman especially her current design.

[Badou]

Felt very obvious to me while reading Grayson that Helena was black or a person of color. I mean she wasn't full African but it was obvious she was designed to be an Italian/African mix. She was very much designed to be that way to help differentiate her from the classic white version of the character because Helena Wayne was still being used at that time I believe.

Setting that aside it is odd they had this new black/PoC version of the character and decided to change Black Canary's race instead for the movie. Just shows how little influence the comics have on these big productions like this. I wonder if they felt they needed to make Black Canary the poc because of the black title in her name. That is something I was wondering about.

[Stick Figure]

There is no such thing as concrete continuity in comics anymore. Characters change races and sexual orientation all the time to show progress. Comic readers have to accept the fact that only the hero name is the only constant. Decades when the DCEU is rebooted the Trinity will undergo a race and sexual orientation change among them.

That would be interesting. I think movies will have a big impact on how characters are portrayed in comics. If Michael B Jordan has a huge hit as an alternate Superman, I’d expect the traditional version to be pushed aside in the comics. I think good stories are what matters.