Would you care if Diana was racebent?

[Natamaxxx]

I imagine a retroactive series chronicling a Black Wonder Woman falling in love with a white American World War II war pilot/agent/hero and leaving paradise to fight crime, injustice, prejudice, inequity, sexism, and Nazis in 1941 in the United States would give us a very different set of stories (if we’re being honest and knowing what we know now [and honestly knew then.])

It would be powerful storytelling and quite infuriating, given America’s past (and current) issues and bigotry with racial and ethnic inequality and inequity.

I like this. I think this would make a very interesting Elseworlds story. An astonishingly powerful and confident black or brown woman (who's never known a single day of oppression) that can lift cars suddenly appearing in 1940's America to fight crime and injustice would NOT be greeted with open arms.

[Natamaxxx]

It was a dumb joke saying that her race (species) is Amazon, like Human, Giant, God or Elf

Not so dumb. I think several writers have had Diana and other Amazons state that they consider their race to be "Amazonian". I've always thought of it that way.

With that being said, I have always had a personal preference for when Diana herself is depicted as having a darker skin tone than usual & I love that the film did not change Gal Gadot's beautiful brown eyes to blue.

[marhawkman]

Not so dumb. I think several writers have had Diana and other Amazons state that they consider their race to be "Amazonian". I've always thought of it that way.

With that being said, I have always had a personal preference for when Diana herself is depicted as having a darker skin tone than usual & I love that the film did not change Gal Gadot's beautiful brown eyes to blue.

Given that many versions of their backstory is that they're demigoddesses of some sort, it makes sense for them to not consider themselves Human.

I like this. I think this would make a very interesting Elseworlds story. An astonishingly powerful and confident black or brown woman (who's never known a single day of oppression) that can lift cars suddenly appearing in 1940's America to fight crime and injustice would NOT be greeted with open arms.

This is one of those things where it's easy to imagine her doing like V and deciding the government is the problem and that fighting injustice means forcing the government to change. It's the sort of scenario that sometimes gets used as a supervillain backstory.

[Celgress]

OP - I couldn't care less what her ethnicity/race is assuming the fundamentals of her character remain unchanged.

[Agent Z]

I know she wasn't mentioned in the OP but Artemis being black or brown would also make sense.

[SteveGus]

A lot would depend on the writing and handling. So long as race-bent Wonder Woman is not a hostile act against other elements of the backstory - like turning Paradise Island into a violent, primitive, backwater, and the Amazons into villains - I would certainly be open to it. This would need to do more than just shoehorn in politics of any stripe.

I could totally see WW and the whole backstory moving to Polynesia. If you're doing a primitive Paradise Island, this would at least give it an interesting visual style. You could also swap in a less stale mythology. I know it's impossible IRL, but a WW/Moana crossover would be a total 'shut up and take my money'. In many ways the two characters are quite similar.

[Masterff]

I personally STRONGLY hope that they never change her appearance..

I am a fan of keeping the established characters like they are...

BUT for other Amazons I ABSOLUTELY love the idea of a wide variety of different looks, hair-colors etc.
I always imaginated Paradise Island with different tribes of Amazons who all look different..but they live in peace together..

I for example absolutely didnt like the Tom Hardy Bane, because he was much different from the Comics...

[Lee-Sensei]

Hat depends. The f it’s an alternate universe version of the chnaracter... no. Aside from that, I prefer that the characters stay the way thehof began.

[marhawkman]

A lot would depend on the writing and handling. So long as race-bent Wonder Woman is not a hostile act against other elements of the backstory - like turning Paradise Island into a violent, primitive, backwater, and the Amazons into villains - I would certainly be open to it. This would need to do more than just shoehorn in politics of any stripe.

I could totally see WW and the whole backstory moving to Polynesia. If you're doing a primitive Paradise Island, this would at least give it an interesting visual style. You could also swap in a less stale mythology. I know it's impossible IRL, but a WW/Moana crossover would be a total 'shut up and take my money'. In many ways the two characters are quite similar.

Ooohh… what if.... Paradise Island had as their patron deity Pele?

[mathew101281]

No, but it's mostly because I find race bent characters (or gender-swapped ones), to be the cheapest way of getting diversity. Rather then create new characters that can develop their own identity and fan base that is separate from an existing franchise, you wind up with essentually a an alternative skin in the next videogame at best. A more traditonial Spiderman was in Into the Spiderverse for a reason people. What does making Wonderwoman a different race really add to the character?

[Agent Z]

No, but it's mostly because I find race bent characters (or gender-swapped ones), to be the cheapest way of getting diversity. Rather then create new characters that can develop their own identity and fan base that is separate from an existing franchise, you wind up with essentually a an alternative skin in the next videogame at best. A more traditonial Spiderman was in Into the Spiderverse for a reason people. What does making Wonderwoman a different race really add to the character?

A potentially new way the character is seen by audiences and how the character's story can be viewed. Of course, this will depend on how the character is written to begin with but racebending isn't any less legitimate than other ways of diversity inclusion. It isn't like we haven't had racebended versions of characters that were well received like Mamoa's Aquaman or Anna Diop's Starfire.

[marhawkman]

It isn't like we haven't had racebended versions of characters that were well received like Mamoa's Aquaman or Anna Diop's Starfire.

Except, do those really count? The Momoa version of Aquaman is in-universe the same ethnicity as the Aquaman in Superfriends. And Starfire? her ethnicity is Tamaranean.

[Agent Z]

Except, do those really count? The Momoa version of Aquaman is in-universe the same ethnicity as the Aquaman in Superfriends. And Starfire? her ethnicity is Tamaranean.

No he isn't. His Polynesian heritage is acknowledged in the film.

As for Kory, she's typically depicted as an orange-skinned humanoid yet is shown as looking like a black woman in Titans.

[kjn]

Except, do those really count? The Momoa version of Aquaman is in-universe the same ethnicity as the Aquaman in Superfriends. And Starfire? her ethnicity is Tamaranean.

Ethnicity (and racism) is tricky, and depends a lot on cultural context.

To take but one example, Mad Max: Fury Road was at the same time criticised for being too white and praised for including actors of maori and polynesian descent. This split can partly be explained by that I think one can look at three levels of groups, rather than two: the privileged, the exotic, and the oppressed. For Americans, being white means privilege, being black means oppression, and other groups can fall into either exotic or oppressed (with a rule of thumb that if they are viewed as a threat to the privilege of the dominant group, for whatever reason, they will be oppressed). But from an Australian viewpoint, maori and polynesian fall into the oppressed group.

Within the comics, Aquaman has traditionally been presented as white and privileged, like nearly every other superhero. But by casting him as polynesian, they were moving him towards the exotic spectrum; arguably they did something similar with Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. And Starfire fit firmly into the exotic spectrum in the comics, but by casting a black actress in Titans they emphasised her status as other to a much higher degree.

Or take Frozen. There was a lot of criticism of whitewashing in the movie, but Kristoff was clearly coded as sámi. For a Swede, Finn, or Norwegian this was directly apparent; maybe not so much for people outside the Nordic countries. (Note: there was also a discussion about how the movie used sámi culture and how well it depicted it, but there is no doubt that the movie did show sámi people and depicted elements of sámi culture).

So racebending cannot be limited to only casting a black actor as a traditionally white character or vice versa, and depending on the actual case, might not be readily apparent outside specific contexts. To me, Jason Momoa's polynesian ancestry is invisible, because I haven't learnt to see those markers. That doesn't make them any less real.

[Rogue]

The thing is race is a social construct
black and white races are social constructs and ignores the diversity of Africa, Europe, and other continents

Africa doesn't mean black just like Europe doesn't mean white

Race is a silly concept that was originally made to keep certain groups down and no one can even agree on a solid definition of it. Heck centuries ago certain ethnic groups were socially seen as below "white" and you had the whole disgusting one drop rule.

By American standards (since Wonder Woman is an American creation) "white" people are defined as anyone of European, Middle Eastern or North African ancestry. Even if there are many people of European descent with brown skin and there are many Arabs with white skin and "European" looking features. But then what is the "white" or "black" or "brown" race? Many Asians have literal "white" skin and I've seen many Asians called themselves "white". But by "white" they meant skin tone. Just like I've met Europeans who if you'd call them "white", they'll look at their skin tone and say they're "brown" or "olive" or whatever.

Wonder Woman's appearance was supposedly inspired by Olive Byrne whose name suggest British ancestry. In the movie-verse they cast Gal Gadot. A woman from Israel, which is in West Asia. Gal's ethnicity is Ashkenazi Jewish, and I remembered reading that Ashkenazi Jews are a "mixed" ethnicity. Many can trace their paternal line to the Levant (from the ancient Roman state of Judea) while their maternal lines are usually European, of Mediterranean/Slavic/Germanic extract. And Gal Gadot has pretty "brownish" looking skin to me.

Wonder Woman went from being portrayed/drawn to look like a woman of Anglo Saxon ancestry to being portrayed by a woman from West Asia of mixed West Asian/European origin. Does that make her "mixed"? Or "racebent"?