Some days, it feels like everyone in the world has a problem with Zendaya. For such a young woman – she’s just 19 years old – it seems like she can’t go one month without some stupid idiot trying to start a beef with her. Some of the crap is just flat-out racist. Some of it is strangely and offensively body-policing, as in she’s a young African-American woman doing her own thing, and everyone feels the need to tell her what she SHOULD be doing with her body/hair/clothes/life. Anyway, Zendaya was cast in the new Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming. We’ve known that for months. But last week, we learned who Zendaya would be playing: Mary Jane Watson, Peter Parker’s love interest.
Even though I saw that story last week, I literally never thought to write about it because the story seemed so boring to me. I’m just disappointed that they’re rebooting the Spider-Man franchise, so the fact that Mary Jane has always presented as a white girl in the comics, and now she would be played by a mixed-race woman, didn’t really matter to me. I met the news with a shrug. I assumed everyone else did as well. Yeah, not so much. Because so many people are dumb and racist, there was an online “backlash” to the casting news. OMG but this fictional character is white in the comic books, how dare they cast someone mixed-race in the role, I’m weeping salty-ass tears about it. You get the idea.
So the director of Guardians of the Galaxy and the GOTG sequel is James Gunn (a white guy) decided to chime in. GOTG is obviously a Marvel property, as is Spider-Man: Homecoming. Gunn is a “company man,” plus he’s obviously not a dumb racist. So he said some words on his Facebook, defending Marvel’s choice. You can read the full piece here, and this is the main gist (I made a few edits for space).
People get upset when something they consider intrinsic to a comic book character changes when adapted for a film. I get this. There are movies I dislike because I think there’s a basic misunderstanding of the story or the character when the comic is transferred to film…that said, I do not believe a character is the color of his or her skin. When Michael B Jordan was cast as Johnny Storm I didn’t understand the uproar. The primary characteristic of Johnny was not, to me, that he was white, or that he had blonde hair, but that he was a fiery, funny, big-mouthed braggart of a hero. I was happy that he was going to be played by one of the finest and most charming young actors out there.
Yesterday, a rumor broke out that the character of Mary Jane was being played by a young black woman, Zendaya, and all hell broke out on the Internet (again). I tweeted that if people find themselves complaining about Mary Jane’s ethnicity they have lives that are too good. (For those of you who think this means I’m confirming that Zendaya IS playing MJ, realize that although I’ve read the Spidey script, and I’ve met the actress in question, I have no idea what her role is.)
I got a thousand or so responses to my tweet. Most of them were positive. Some folks disagreed – they thought the character should look like what she looks like in the comics – but were thoughtful. And a handful were flat out racist.
I can’t respond to the racists – I’m not ever going to change their minds. But for the thoughtful majority of you out there: For me, if a character’s primary attribute – the thing that makes them iconic – is the color of their skin, or their hair color, frankly, that character is shallow and sucks.
For me, what makes MJ MJ is her alpha female playfulness, and if the actress captures that, then she’ll work. And, for the record, I think Zendaya even matches what I think of as MJ’s primary physical characteristics – she’s a tall, thin model – much more so than actresses have in the past.
Whatever the case, if we’re going to continue to make movies based on the almost all white heroes and supporting characters from the comics of the last century, we’re going to have to get used to them being more reflective of our diverse present world. Perhaps we can be open to the idea that, although someone may not initially match how we personally conceive a character, we can be – and often are – happily surprised.
Word. I have no idea if Marvel asked Gunn to do this or if he’s just offended by the very idea that people are offended about Zendaya’s casting. I understand that this probably doesn’t rise to the level of “woke ally,” but still… it’s good that some people in the Marvel world understand that they have huge problems with A) diversity/inclusion and B) women. Everything can’t be primarily-white sausage party all the time. Why can’t Thor date a black woman? Why couldn’t Captain America fall in love with a Latina woman? Why couldn’t Black Widow be, you know, black?
PS… I’m looking at Spider-Man: Homecoming’s IMDB and I’m stunned to realize that they’ve also cast Hannibal Buress and Bokeem Woodbine. AND Donald Glover. Wow.
Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet.
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