Noah Berlatsky explores the controversy over the selection of Michael B. Jordan to play Johnny Storm in the new Fantastic Four movie, asking why this deviation from comic book canon – a black actor playing an originally white character – is such a problem when others are overlooked:
American racism holds that only certain racial differences matter. Jews, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Irish—all those people are white and can play one another with nary an eyebrow raised. Nobody is worried about whether Sue Storm has exactly the mix of Irish, German, and French-Canadian ancestry as Kate Mara, who has been cast to play her. For that matter, no one would say a thing if the actors cast to play Sue and Johnny, sister and brother, came from different ethnic backgrounds and didn’t look much alike. It’s only when one is black and one is white that you need to start worrying about family logistics. (And yes, you can find folks doing that on Twitter as well—because getting turned into living fire by cosmic rays is an everyday thing, but adoption is weird.)
“Fans often seem to believe that if a character is changed from white to black, they will no longer be able to identify with that superhero” Aaron Kashtan, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgia Tech who teaches a course on transmedia storytelling, wrote in an email to me. Kashtan adds that this is an example of “unconscious or overt racism”—a point underlined by the fact that the barriers to identification are so clearly arbitrary. Certain different people—Jews, or Irish, or folks with a hide made of orange rock—can be points of identification. Others, especially African-Americans or anyone with dark skin, can’t. The issue here isn’t staying true to the original. The issue is racism.
Daniel D’Addario adds:
The sort of franchise fans whose tweets get quoted in industry stories after big casting decisions see themselves as incapable, apparently, of empathizing with anyone not of their race; in order for a character to be understandable on-screen, that character must be white. But fans will, of course, end up going to see the movie — if you like the “Fantastic Four” characters, you’re simply not going to skip it because you disagree with a casting choice — and will discover what nonwhite movie fans have known for years: There’s no impediment to understanding a character’s motivations and actions simply because he’s of a different race than yours.
Update from a reader:
An even more egregious example happened just a few years ago. When the live-action version of Marvel’s Thor was put into production, there was an enormous uproar in the comics community among people who simply could not accept that Idris Elba, a black man, had been chosen to play Heimdall.
It’s important to note that Heimdall is a god, and his job is to stand guard on the Rainbow Bridge and watch for attacks on Asgard. I guess you could sort of make a case (clearly a racist case) for the notion that changing Johnny Storm from white to black in the new Fantastic Four movie would limit some people’s ability to “identify” with him. But Elba was to play a god. A fictional god. Who does nothing but stand on a mythical bridge, listening intently for invasions by other gods. Who could “identify” with that?
But I’m not totally sure it’s some kind of deeply-held traditional racism at work. Interestingly I think with the Elba casting with Thor, an enormous amount of the fanboys who complained actually were just sharing their initial gut feelings; and I would say the vast majority became completely comfortable with the casting of Elba soon thereafter. I don’t think they were particularly racist; it was just that Elba appeared so visibly “different” than what they had grown up on. It reminded me of many people who, 5-10 year ago opposed gay marriage; not out of any particular anti-gay animus – more from a “Wait, what? That’s for men and women” kind of thinking. But that opposition was a millimeter thick.
I’m embarrassed to admit I wasn’t a lot different 10 years ago; the idea of gay marriage just seemed totally from Mars; and I was a VERY progressive person. Now that it’s “traditional” marriage is thankfully going the way of the Dodo I am constantly asking myself, why didn’t I spend two seconds really thinking this through earlier? I suspect any opposition to Michael B. Jordan’s casting will have a similar arc.
The Dish 