Would you care if Superman was portrayed by a person of color?

[Jon Clark]

To an extent, yeah. These days, much of the time when someone voice acts a role that doesn't represent his or her race, the actor uses such a bland accent that it becomes hard to tell. They try to avoid situations like Apu from The Simpsons, which seemed socially acceptable in 1989 but not so much in 2019. Regardless of the motivation, if you try to nail a specific accent or dialect, and then cast someone who is non-representative of it, you're going to draw some negative attention. If you want your character to have a thick accent like Jian-Yang from Silicon Valley, and then you get a non-Cantonese person to do that accent, there's going to be some fallout.

My point is more of the opposite approach. Would having an Indian actor voicing Apu be better received with a natural Indian accent or with the "bland accent" they would use for another ethnicity?


Or to get to the subject of the thread will a minority actor cast as Superman require a different approach to the character or could you write the script prior to casting and have it work equally well regardless of if you cast Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington?

[stargazer01]

I know Doctor Who is a woman now, but how are CW Superman and Luke Skywalker changed? If the guy playing Superman isn't white, he looks it.

EDIT: nevermind, I just saw what the point being made was.

And you can't even hate on Who. Way back in classic Who it was said that some of his prior regenerations were female, we just didn't see them. And since the Doctor is always a different person, making him a woman is no bigger a change than making him a ginger (which still hasn't happened, despite his wanting it to!)



.

I really doubt that. Pretty sure we have seen all his regenerations and he was never a female before. I'm not Who lore expert, but I hate the female Doctor idea. To me it's a whole different character and purely stunt casting to get bigger ratings.

[GodofBoredom]

On the issue of racebending as a whole.......the fact is new characters struggle to catch on, and the C-listers who are PoC or LBGT or whatever aren't in a much better position despite having some history behind them. Since the audience wants the classic names far more than anything else, if comics are to achieve representation some racebending might be required. Call it a necessary evil if you will, but the idea of "just make new characters!" doesn't sell outside of the rare exception

I have to disagree.

That implies that in order for POC/LGBT characters to have an audience, they need to 'steal', for a lack of a better term, the white, straight character's identity.

In essence, that's not only rings of the soft bigotry of low expectations, but also denotes a lack of creativity, patience and skill on the part of the writer.

Black Panther didn't become an A-lister because he stole some white character's identity, but because he had his own development and storylines.

Luke Cage, the same way.

Cyborg, the same way.

Storm, the same way.

I could go on and on and on.

Even inside the same stories, John Stewart didn't become probably the most recognized Green Lantern because they painted Hal black.

Miles isn't racebender Peter Parker. He's his on character.

The same way, we can have Val-Zod be his own Superman.

What you're asking for is shortcuts.

Instead of taking the time to introduce and develop into great characters, as so many have been before, who happen to be POC/LGBT, they should just straight up swap the races/gender/sexuality of already established characters, and ride on their coatails.

You know what this leads? People referring to them as "female Thor". Or "black Wally West".

Their identity, being forever tied to the one they stole it from, just to fill a diversity quota.

And that, in itself, is quite sad.

[Osiris-Rex]

I really doubt that. Pretty sure we have seen all his regenerations and he was never a female before. I'm not Who lore expert, but I hate the female Doctor idea. To me it's a whole different character and purely stunt casting to get bigger ratings.

How is being a woman a different character than being a different man? Isn't that like saying a different man also a different character? Dr. Who looked different each time. It's just the features are softer this time.
Just like a dark skinned Superman would still be Superman. Maybe in world no one even notices that Superman has dark skin. Race isn't a thing in that universe. Just because a black actor is cast as Superman doesn't
mean that they have to have Superman be a black man with all the experiences a black man has in our world. Just like no one notices that Perry White in universe is black. Perry White never says "As a black man I...."

[DochaDocha]

My point is more of the opposite approach. Would having an Indian actor voicing Apu be better received with a natural Indian accent or with the "bland accent" they would use for another ethnicity?


Or to get to the subject of the thread will a minority actor cast as Superman require a different approach to the character or could you write the script prior to casting and have it work equally well regardless of if you cast Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington?

With regard to Apu, I think yes and no. I think a lot of people who hate Apu are especially annoyed that it's a white guy doing his impression of an Indian guy. It's a bunch of white creators and a white actor doing a stereotype of an Indian guy, which has negative consequences on how Indian people are perceived, all the while the employment went to a non-Indian guy. Essentially, the Indian community gets burdened with all of the negative consequences, but not a single member of the community gets to benefit from it. On the other hand, it's not like people are happy to see a "one of their own" benefit by perpetuating stereotypes. If for some reason Sixteen Candles were remade and they made no updates to Long Duk Dong, I don't think people who hate the character are going to take any solace in the fact that Gedde Watanabe's successor (or Watanabe himself) got exposure and money for doing it. He'd be called a sellout by many. Still, as offensive as they found Long Duk Dong, that's nothing compared to Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's. So in short, I'd say casting the person of the right race to play a bad character doesn't absolve all the sins, but it's still not as bad as getting someone of another race to black-/yellow-/brown-/redface.

If Apu were played by an Indian actor, and the character was a second-generation Indian-American with a midwestern accent and happened to run a Kwik-E-Mart, I think the backlash for the character would be limited to why does he stereotypically work at a convenience store, and little else, nothing like what happened in recent years.

I know demographics of Kansas are changing, with the direction headed toward more diversity, but rural Kansas is approximately 90% white, and was even more so back when Superman was initially given his Kansas/middle America upbringing. I think that's about as white (American) as you can get, and that's before you consider whatever perspective as poor, Jewish immigrants Siegel and Shuster wanted to inject in their early stories. The only way you can make him whiter would be if you had him crash land in Scandanavia or some region of the world that's nearly homogenously white. If you cast him with someone like Denzel, maybe I'd have him crash in a rural place that had a different demographic profile. In general, though, I'm not comfortable about how the argument for racebending white characters often revolves around how the character's whiteness isn't (allegedly) essential to the story. I find those arguments often end up resorting to cherrypicking arguments.

As far as diversity and inclusion in media are concerned, there are real problems in Hollywood. Sometimes, it's effin' overt, like casting Jim Sturgess as the lead for 21. There's no good excuse for s**t like that, and trying to appease the critics by casting Aaron Yoo and Liza Lapira after initially announcing that they were going to cast a white blackjack team, with maybe an Asian woman (more racism, but a topic for another day) was really weak. I even think the casting of Jon Foo in Tekken, and possibly even Henry Golding in Crazy Rich Asians was influenced by Hollywood's bias/racism. I'm just not on the side of racebending characters like Superman.

I know my examples are strictly limited to Asian representation, but I just don't feel like speaking on other someone's behalf other than my own.

[Ascended]

I really doubt that. Pretty sure we have seen all his regenerations and he was never a female before. I'm not Who lore expert, but I hate the female Doctor idea. To me it's a whole different character and purely stunt casting to get bigger ratings.

I'm not an expert on classic Who either, but my wife is a big fan (the 4th is her favorite), and apparently it's been said in a couple lines of dialogue. Just in passing; it's not a big thing. I could be wrong but I've also heard a few other classic fans say the same thing.

Even if this isn't true, I fail to see how the Doctor regenerating into a woman is a big deal. Actors have changed age by decades, even become Scottish, to say nothing of changes in behavior and personality. If the Doctor is a woman now, who gives a damn? It's a new Doctor. New Doctors are always different.

EDIT: sorry for adding to a long post, but I just remembered a detail. In classic Who, they handled the Regeneration a little differently; there was no limit on the number you got, they weren't kept track of by the characters themselves (not to the degree they are now). So according to new Who, we've seen all his regenerations, but according to classic Who, we haven't.

I have to disagree.

That implies that in order for POC/LGBT characters to have an audience, they need to 'steal', for a lack of a better term, the white, straight character's identity.

Not sure how you got this from what I said at all.

New characters usually *dont* do well. C-listers usually *don't* do well. It doesn't matter what they look like or who they sleep with or what church they go to. That's about as objective as it gets in comics since we have sales data and cancellation announcements to prove it. And yes, obviously exceptions exist, and thank the gods for them. Hell, most of them are on my pull list. But they are exceptions, not the rule. So if solo books with new characters and C-listers usually don't do well, you're only options (that I can think of anyway) are team books, supporting characters and legacies, and race bending.

I dislike race bending. It stinks of tokenism and stunt gimmicks. It's problematic at best. And I'd rather see alternatives to it. But looking at the business realities where alternatives are few, I can't write it off completely. I don't like it, but I can recognize that there might be times when it's the lesser evil.

Is it a shortcut? Yes. But "make good characters!" isn't a strategy that actually works most of the time. For every Ms. Marvel (legacy!) there's a hundred different New Age heroes who never caught on despite being well crafted.

[Killerbee911]

New characters usually *dont* do well. C-listers usually *don't* do well. It doesn't matter what they look like or who they sleep with or what church they go to. That's about as objective as it gets in comics since we have sales data and cancellation announcements to prove it. And yes, obviously exceptions exist, and thank the gods for them. Hell, most of them are on my pull list. But they are exceptions, not the rule. So if solo books with new characters and C-listers usually don't do well, you're only options (that I can think of anyway) are team books, supporting characters and legacies, and race bending.

I dislike race bending. It stinks of tokenism and stunt gimmicks. It's problematic at best. And I'd rather see alternatives to it. But looking at the business realities where alternatives are few, I can't write it off completely. I don't like it, but I can recognize that there might be times when it's the lesser evil.

Is it a shortcut? Yes. But "make good characters!" isn't a strategy that actually works most of the time. For every Ms. Marvel (legacy!) there's a hundred different New Age heroes who never caught on despite being well crafted.

You hit on the biggest point and this why people why people suggest racebending at times. Comics are actually very diverse you can find characters of all races and types but if comics is so diverse why do people suggest racebending major characters because of IMPACT just having a character isn't enough they have to impact they are basically invisible. Over the years many of us have learned just creating new character isn't enough and simple put the comic industry is design to push you back to old characters. The simplest way of looking at Superman has thousands of books, Icon has maybe couple hundred who does DC make more money on if both at are same level popularity. Superman of course people can buy old books,merch, games, etc. American Superhero comics will always favor the old characters.

Which bring us to most important thing imo you want minority character to have impact is BRUTE FORCE PROCESS. Grinding or slow bring character along over years doesn't work. To make any new characters successful you have to things that will make some fans upset and annoyed because it will displace characters that fans are trained to love first. Stuff like Miles Morales,Cyborg,Jamie Reye, X-23, Ms Marvel,Ghost Spider are multiple year push,Force them in spotlight, Forcing to stick around even if the book does not do good,Putting star creative teams, Giving them major roles in crossover and iconic team, and lastly even for while taking away the spot of Major of hero some like Icon replacing Superman on the Justice League and for while DC using Icon in the same manner that it used Superman. That is not a comfortable process for fans it does feel forced(because they been forcing old heroes as important forever) and fans will complain about it just like the racebending.

Either way(racebending or new character) pushing a character until they are stable/popular is brute force push, Most comics fans prefer obviously New character process but everytime comics goes back to its core,we all know what happens and that is how racebending becomes an option. If you want to see a clinic on pushing a character just watch what Marvel is doing with Captain Marvel in which they took a C level character and have pushed her to their A-list top level female character. Has the results been pleasant? No pretty much hardcore fan base can see they are pushing for this character to be important and there is a backlash causing the character be somewhat unlikable because the corporate machine is telling you to like it. Regardless of that they have keep her ongoing around for years, push her to front in event Civil War 2, She is a part of the biggest superhero group Avengers in comic even being leader there, She has her own movie and has been a part of several cartoons. If you read the forums you will see people suggesting that Marvel's push of Cap Marvel is failure but that is being short sighted. They have move C level character into one of marvel regulars and character who will stay around as marvel regular after the push is ended. That is end result people are looking for with Racebending a character who will stick around.

People are asking for characters who will stick around and have importance in stories. That is what people should take away when they read threads like this if you aren't making the Latino, Black, Asian, Indian characters with the impact of Superman or Batman then Batman and Superman as minority concepts look tempting. I would love to see John Stewart, Jamie Reyes,Jackson Hyde and Ryan Choi get big pushes but DC like pushing Superman,Batman ,Wonder Woman and the regulars.

[The_Lurk]

Pretty sure one of the modern (Tennant?; Smith?) said they never regenerated into one which kind of fits since AFAIK all the Doctors we have seen so far are all the Doctors that exist with the first one being in his body as he was born into. It might be a retcon though. Not that it matters; it had been established and shown (maybe even in classic?) that Timelords can shift gender during regeneration. The big problem IMO is not that shes now a Woman its that the whole show spends more effort riding on social efforts in a very, very blunt way instead of focusing on great scifi stories with social issues subtly woven into them as before. I bet when the Master turned into Missy it raised quite a few concerned eyebrows. But her Marry Poppins from Hell performance was terrifying superb and applauded.

Opposed to ethnic swapping KalEl though the genderswap is Timelord/Dr. Who lore.

[Stardust]

Opposed to ethnic swapping KalEl though the genderswap is Timelord/Dr. Who lore.

Technicly Kal El is a white passing Kryptonian, who was invented by two second generation Jewish immigrants, who probably hoped they would be white passing themselves, in the thirties.

I would say there is already a big leeway for playing with people 's perceptions built into the character from the beginning

[marhawkman]

My point is more of the opposite approach. Would having an Indian actor voicing Apu be better received with a natural Indian accent or with the "bland accent" they would use for another ethnicity?

Given how much I've seen people complain about the accents of the characters in Overwatch? I'm pretty sure it wouldn't matter. People have this thing in their heads they imagine to be right, and will complain about things that don't match their imagination.

[Osiris-Rex]

People want to live vicariously through the characters. So the more the character resembles them ethnically or sexual orientation, the better that fantasy is fulfilled. When comic books first started Western society in general
was dominated by straight white males. So the vast majority of comic books characters were straight white male. As other groups, blacks, women, gay people, fought for their rights in society, they too wanted to see themselves
represented. The result is now the straight white males sees his dominance slipping away and there is the inevitable backlash. "Make America Great Again". Hence the conflict that being woke causes. One group wants more of the
pie, and using established characters that are altered to represent them gets more attention than creating some random character and trying to make that character have wide appeal. The other group see themselves slowly
losing the America that was once theirs, and losing their beloved comic book characters to some other group is just one more insult. As Superman is the ultimate and very first superhero, losing him to some other group is
especially painful. While hardly anyone really cared that Martian Manhunter's ethnicity changed from white to black because he were never that big a deal anyway to most people. Even though they are both aliens and there
is no reason they would need to be black or white or any other skin color. A black Superman isn't an African Superman any more than a white Superman is a Northern European Superman. So the only objection to a black
Superman is that he no longer resembles a certain group of humans and now instead resembles some other group of humans.

[HeroVladimir93]

People want to live vicariously through the characters. So the more the character resembles them ethnically or sexual orientation, the better that fantasy is fulfilled. When comic books first started Western society in general
was dominated by straight white males. So the vast majority of comic books characters were straight white male. As other groups, blacks, women, gay people, fought for their rights in society, they too wanted to see themselves
represented. The result is now the straight white males sees his dominance slipping away and there is the inevitable backlash. "Make America Great Again". Hence the conflict that being woke causes. One group wants more of the
pie, and using established characters that are altered to represent them gets more attention than creating some random character and trying to make that character have wide appeal. The other group see themselves slowly
losing the America that was once theirs, and losing their beloved comic book characters to some other group is just one more insult. As Superman is the ultimate and very first superhero, losing him to some other group is
especially painful. While hardly anyone really cared that Martian Manhunter's ethnicity changed from white to black because he were never that big a deal anyway to most people. Even though they are both aliens and there
is no reason they would need to be black or white or any other skin color. A black Superman isn't an African Superman any more than a white Superman is a Northern European Superman. So the only objection to a black
Superman is that he no longer resembles a certain group of humans and now instead resembles some other group of humans.

Not necessarily. Other objections to the race swapping is that it would be seen as a story of the struggle of black people or that there was something fundamentally wrong with Superman's pre-established identity that a change was necessary. This is why pandering to the left is rarely, if ever, a good idea. We've seen it with franchises like Doctor Who, Star Wars and Ghostbusters. Those franchises got their fanbases divided for their so-called SJW agendas and politically correct messages. What makes you think Superman would be the exception? What makes you think any change to Superman's identity, the identity of a straight, white, cisgendered man who lives above the poverty line won't cause a blacklash?

[Osiris-Rex]

Not necessarily. Other objections to the race swapping is that it would be seen as a story of the struggle of black people or that there was something fundamentally wrong with Superman's pre-established identity that a change was necessary. This is why pandering to the left is rarely, if ever, a good idea. We've seen it with franchises like Doctor Who, Star Wars and Ghostbusters. Those franchises got their fanbases divided for their so-called SJW agendas and politically correct messages. What makes you think Superman would be the exception? What makes you think any change to Superman's identity, the identity of a straight, white, cisgendered man who lives above the poverty line won't cause a blacklash?

Not saying people wouldn't complain. Just saying why some people will complain while other people would think it is a good idea. You are always going to get two sides. They are going too far or they are not going far enough.
Yes, there is nothing wrong with Superman's per-established identity. But is there anything wrong with a fresh approach giving Superman a new back story? What is the real reason people would want or object to a Superman with dark skin?
The comic books have had dark skinned Kryptonians for several years and TV shows like Krypton and Supergirl have shown there are Kryptonians with dark skin. So the claim that all Kryptonians have light skin can't be used as an excuse.
Even Kansas has a few black people. So that can't be used as an excuse. And nothing requires Clark Kent to be raised in Kansas anyway. Alabama or Mississippi would be suitable home states if the idea is for Clark to blend in with the locals.

[Ascended]

Which bring us to most important thing imo you want minority character to have impact is BRUTE FORCE PROCESS. Grinding or slow bring character along over years doesn't work. To make any new characters successful you have to things that will make some fans upset and annoyed because it will displace characters that fans are trained to love first. Stuff like Miles Morales,Cyborg,Jamie Reye, X-23, Ms Marvel,Ghost Spider are multiple year push,Force them in spotlight, Forcing to stick around even if the book does not do good,Putting star creative teams, Giving them major roles in crossover and iconic team, and lastly even for while taking away the spot of Major of hero some like Icon replacing Superman on the Justice League and for while DC using Icon in the same manner that it used Superman. That is not a comfortable process for fans it does feel forced(because they been forcing old heroes as important forever) and fans will complain about it just like the racebending.

But the thing is, that doesn't have a great track record either.

I'm not against the forced push of a character. I'm all about Carol Danvers, and I wish DC had had the stones to go all-in with Vic Stone instead of half-assing it like a bunch of cowards. But how many characters are big names because the publisher decided it would happen regardless of what the fans thought? Damn few.

Most of your examples didn't get a forced push; they were successful from the start and the publisher built on that. Several of them are exceptions to the "new characters dont do well" rule, but they weren't forced by the publisher. That fact that many/most of them had some vocal detractors doesn't mean the publisher forced them into relevance. And of the couple that were forced (mainly Cyborg and Jaime) neither saw the kind of skilled, concentrated effort they should've gotten, but in any case neither has managed to be the big deal A-lister the publisher wanted fans to accept them as. And Vic and Jaime both have tons of larger media appearances, multiple solo titles and spots on team rosters, yet can't sustain themselves in the market.

The best example of a forced push is Carol Danvers. There was no ground swell from the fanbase concerning her. Marvel decided they wanted Carol to big a big deal and to fill a particular niche, and have pushed her in front of readers since 2012 in the hopes that the audience will get behind it. And she's had success; I think Marvel has managed to do what they wanted....but I don't think it's gone over as well as they had hoped. She can barely maintain a solo in the direct market, her digital sales haven't been the same since KSD left, and if it weren't for her movie coming up (YAAASS QUEEN!) I'm not sure what kind of position she'd be in now. She's a successful forced push, but that success feels tenuous.

My point is; a forced push and heavy long term investment isn't guaranteed to work any more than dropping a new character or legacy, pushing a C-lister, or racebending. There is no solution; comics are alchemy and you can't tell what'll work until it's done, and sometimes not for a while after that. Nothing should be taken off the table. Everything should be tried, because anything could catch on. I still dont like racebending and it doesn't have a great win ratio, but neither does anything else.

I dunno man. I want real, honest representation in my comics. I want to see all walks of life, all manner of people and individuals. How we make faster headway on that......everything they try fails more often than not, for one reason or another. I'll take whatever *real* wins we can get, however we get them. The dross will fall away.

[Killerbee911]

Most of your examples didn't get a forced push; they were successful from the start and the publisher built on that. Several of them are exceptions to the "new characters dont do well" rule, but they weren't forced by the publisher. That fact that many/most of them had some vocal detractors doesn't mean the publisher forced them into relevance. And of the couple that were forced (mainly Cyborg and Jaime) neither saw the kind of skilled, concentrated effort they should've gotten, but in any case neither has managed to be the big deal A-lister the publisher wanted fans to accept them as. And Vic and Jaime both have tons of larger media appearances, multiple solo titles and spots on team rosters, yet can't sustain themselves in the market.

We are probably going disagree on what exactly forced push is and isn't. I don't think it is super important to go case by case either so simply put companies are smart enough to push what is doing well on some level. I believe most forced push being with character who have shown some potential or popularity.

My point is; a forced push and heavy long term investment isn't guaranteed to work any more than dropping a new character or legacy, pushing a C-lister, or racebending. There is no solution; comics are alchemy and you can't tell what'll work until it's done, and sometimes not for a while after that. Nothing should be taken off the table. Everything should be tried, because anything could catch on. I still dont like racebending and it doesn't have a great win ratio, but neither does anything else.

I am full agreeing with this point, In thread like this I just think it is important for people to understand just saying we have Kong Kenan, Steel or Icon doesn't mean anything. In most cases companies like DC aren't really attempting at make a successful character they are throwing darts at a board feeling out what might have potential. And what comes after is just as disruptive as racebending to some fans. And Cyborg is famously the best example I think where they push Cyborg hard and it was just as annoying for some as racebending because they took out a classic character like Martian Manhunter to force a in spot where he didn't fit as well. I fully agree there is no magic process to make a character work and process of trying to make a character work always annoys someone .New characters take role or position of maybe a more popular like character, Racebending changes something you are use to very comfortable with, Legacy characters at some point replace the main character. No process is a comfortable one and when companies do it is Brute Force process because you need to make it work most fans like comfort and don't like change.

I dunno man. I want real, honest representation in my comics. I want to see all walks of life, all manner of people and individuals. How we make faster headway on that......everything they try fails more often than not, for one reason or another. I'll take whatever *real* wins we can get, however we get them. The dross will fall away.

Honestly you hit on the other big point with part here. I rather see diversity in creators than forced on the page and over time that will create the best change. That said is going to take time so yeah bring on the Captain Marvel style push and if people are upset oh well,Bring on Race,Sexuality and gender bending if it upset people oh well as long as you are putting out quality project. Change isn't always comfortable.