Everybody’s heroes?: Lack of Racial Diversity and Whitewashing in Superhero Films
Although I love action films and superhero films, the lack of racial diversity in action films and films in general got me thinking about why, even after Black Panther, there aren’t any new heroes of color.
My research got me to step back into the roots of our favorite superheroes — comics. I don’t read comics myself but I was reminded that comic books closely follow history and society. Since most comic books were published primarily from the 1940s to the 1970s, the world of the 20th century had deep racism as blacks were moving toward more equality and speaking their voice through the civil rights movement in the 60s (Khal, Complex 2018).
Yes, racism still exists today, but the racism during this era ranged from historical tropes like blackface through minstrelsy shows to ape-like depictions of blacks in the superhero series we all know and love like Captain Marvel and Captain America.
What’s great about comics is that the imagination and reimagination of the characters is endless from Captain Marvel being a woman to the racebending or racial reimagining of Nick Fury to a black man (Cooper Owens, AAIHS 2017), but why aren’t there more heroes of color represented? Is it really as deep as the popular Hollywood rationale of “giving ‘the people’ what they want”, preserving the “authentic” characters, or is white hegemony too great?
All of this makes us think of how we can imagine and reimagine not just white superheroes into ones of colors but the recreation of new heroes of color, not just from comic series. Although white characters in media has become normalized, we need to keep striving for new stories, new characters and representing more than just one group of society.
Having more diverse characters not only tells new stories for those of color, but it helps us all to learn new stories and come together more. What about Okoye or Shuri or any other female black character having their own series? How can we reimagine characters in film and television to be those that better reflect society? These are key questions I leave you with and let’s be more aware of this as we watch our favorite films and tv shows.
Works Cited
Cooper Owens, Bryan. “Racebending and Representation in Comic Books” AAIHS. [Accessed 24 May 2020]. Available at:
https://www.aaihs.org/racebending-and-representation-in-comic-books/
Davis, Blair (2020). “Why the first black superhero was not the one you think”. Washington Post. [Accessed 24 May 2020]. Available at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/01/27/why-first-black-superhero-was-not-one-you-think/
Khal (2018). “The 7 Most Racist Moments in Comic Book History”. Complex. [Accessed 24 May 2020]. Available at:
https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2018/04/racist-moments-in-comic-book-history/
