Why Race Should Not Make The Man Behind Spider-Man

As soon as Sony Pictures announced its landmark deal with Marvel Studios to recast Spider-man in Walt Disney’s superhero cinematic universe, the Internet lit up with rumors and speculation about just who could play Marvel Comics’ beloved wall-crawler.

That Spider-man need be a masculine young adult has never been in question these past fifty years (there’s Spider-Woman for the ladies), but what race Spider-man’s belonged to over suddenly became a much realer question than ever. Could Spider-man be black? Could Spider-man be Hispanic?

Among the most popular suggestions has been to make him both – namely as Miles Morales, the Afro-Hispanic Spider-man of writer Brian Michael Bendis’ 2011 story-arc. As Ora C. McWilliams of the University of Kansas points out, race itself could be more than skin deep for the character. “Morales speaks to a different audience and can say different things than Parker can,” she writes.“Spider-Man has universal appeal, but the race of his secret identity changes the dynamic of the character, leading to new modes of representation and fan consumption.” Morales is, in short, part of the new norm.

For decades, Spider-man’s embodied a singular image – that of a troubled teenage high-school student named Peter Parker struggling with the responsibilities that came with his secret identity. When Parker was created, he may have been just another caucasian male, but he was a younger, realer one than his square-jawed peers to so many younger eyes. The Spider-man of 1964 was simply a character of this time – one in which 85 percent of the babies born in the US were caucasian. Now, when caucasian Americans make up just 43 percent of US citizens, that time has changed and so has his fans.

Superheroes, of course, have been nothing if not forces for change. It was only last year that audiences were introduced to Anthony Mackie’s Falcon in Captain America: The Winter Soldier – a movie that also saw Marvel’s classically caucasian World War II veteran, Nick Fury, played by African-American actor Samuel L. Jackson. That is not to discount the growing prospect of seeing DC Comics’ African-American Green Lantern, John Stewart, and Marvel’s self-explanatory Black Panther on the big screen next year.

That superheroes are adapting to the changing sea of the mainstream has always been their appeal, but tradition is a hard tide to tame. Miles Morales should be a compromise everyone can get behind. Older fans can have their Peter Parker while Sony and Marvel’s new film can meanwhile spotlight someone new – something Hollywood’s sequel machine is not well adept at. If history has told us anything, there is only one Peter Parker,   but any man can put on Spider-man’s mask, now can’t they?

Disney: Another Outlet For Racism

Most of us at some point have seen a Disney movie. They are the classic movies that most children watch. I personally have seen just about all of them. When I was a child, the idea or racial stereotyping never occurred to me. Now that I am more educated, I see the subtle amounts of racial discrimination that were added throughout the movies.

I am not the only one who identifies the hints that Disney stuck into its movies. In an article published by Entertainment Weekly, they note 14 specific instances of racism in classic children movies.  In a Startribune article, author Steve Persall mentions 8 specific instances where discrimination occurs in Disney movies. Both of these articles mention “Fantasia”, “Dumbo”, and “Lady and the Tramp.”

Lets examine these racist acts then shall we?
“Fantasia”- Originally released in 1940, a centaur named Sunflower who was dark skinned half-human and half-donkey appeared in the original release. Sunflower had one role and that was to be the servant of the bigger paler skinned centaurs that were half-human and half-horse. What happened to Sunflower after 1969? Disney removed the scene entirely and just left the paler skin centaurs in the movie.

“Dumbo”-Just about an elephant learning to fly? There is 2 main examples in this film that I should address. One is the lazy, black crow who speaks with broken English, in the stereotypical black southern way. If that isn’t bad enough, the leader of the crows name is Jim Crow. (Don’t know what Jim Crow is? Google it). The second racist feature presented in Dumbo is when the black faceless circus characters when working were singing the “Song of the Roustabouts.” Some of the lyrics include “We slave until we’re almost dead” and “Pull that rope, you hairy ape.” Just a coincidence that they made black workers slave while comparing them to apes? Not likely.

“Lady and the Tramp”- This movie goes to show you that it is not just black stereotypes that Disney played to. The Siamese cats in “Lady and the Tramp” Si and Am are drawn with slanted eyes and introduced by the sound of a gong. They play the role of slinky thieves meant to portray Asian stereotypes from the WWII era.

Those are just a few examples they are many others throughout Disney’s history. As much as I loved these movies as a child, I have to think about with the amount of discrimination they contain if I’m willing to show them to my kids someday.

The Oscars: Whose Hollywood is it again?

When Hollywood’s best and brightest convene this weekend for the 87th Academy Awards, it will be with the usual fanfare. The winning smiles, the fashion faux pas, the teary-eyed speeches – that is just the melodrama of the red carpet for you. What will not be so typical this Oscar night is who will ascend the stage for that coveted statuette.

For the first time since 2011 and the second since 1998, every acting nominee is Caucasian – most notably without David Oyelowo among their ranks, whose acclaimed performance as the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. turned heads. Such a homogenized image of “the world’s preeminent movie-related organization” is hard to ignore in a show that saw the African-American led Twelve Years a Slave walk away with Best Picture only two Oscars ago.

For a long time now, Hollywood’s struggled to catch up with the very demographics it has sought to convert in recent years. Of the 3,932 speaking characters depicted in America’s biggest box office hits between 2007 and 2013, 74 percent were Caucasian. Latinos, by contrast, made up less than 5 percent despite comprising 16.3 percent of the US population and buying nearly a quarter of US movie tickets on average. Likewise, nearly 17 percent of the films studied had no speaking African-American characters, despite African-Americans making up over 12 percent of US citizens.

That the Oscars have been a rather disingenuous place for a while is nothing new to the award show’s increasing criticisms by the moviegoing mainstream. It’s not hard to imagine why if you see through the tinted looking glass, according to the LA Times. Among academy voters, 94 percent are Caucasian and 77 percent of them are male, with every other minority checking in at or less than 2 percent. That its demographics could be coincidence is unbelievable given the results in question. With competition from the Golden Globes and the BAFTAs, the Oscars has every reason to maintain its lofty pedestal, but clearly at the cost of biting the hands that feed it.

Racial representation is hardly the Oscars’ problem alone. People want to see stories about their own experiences – that is natural. Hollywood wants to tell stories about Caucasian men. Its audience is clearly ready for something different and it has been for a long time. If the customer has always right for Hollywood, than they can afford to see the Oscars as the broken byproduct it is.

What to do about racism in film…

Exodus: Gods and Kings has ignited a fire within the public’s eyes, because the public claim that the movie’s director, Ridley Scott, made a poor decision — and possible racist one — casting predominantly white actors as the leads of the movie. Exodus: Gods and Kings follows Egyptian Prince Moses and his journey through hardships. The key word in the previous sentence is Egyptian, not to be confused with white, because in the public’s eye Ridley Scott was confused. For example, the main character cast of the movie includes; Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Maria Valverde, Aaron Paul, Sigourney Weaver, and frighteningly the list could go on. The similarity between all of these actors is that they are all white, interestingly, the public is spot on with its criticism with the amount of white actors playing Egyptian roles. In lieu of this uproar, I took it upon myself to investigate other potentially racist films, and see what other writers had to say about them, and answer the question: why do we keep seeing films with racist elements in them?

Surprisingly, I found that there are many films with potential subliminal racist elements within them. Subliminal meaning: at first glance one might not see the film as racist, but it very much so could be at a second glance. I found two articles online that rated all films with potential racist grounds. The first article, from Complex Magazine, takes fifty movies and rates them in numerical order. Gremlins happens to be number fifty, while The Birth of a Nation is rated number one. The writer of this article argues that most of these movies are racist, because they pick on stereotypes, and use the stereotypes in a negative way. For example, the Gremlins may be depicting little, green skinned, monster, but the actions of the monsters, such as break dancing and looting, are based off of negative stereotypes of the poor black community. The second article by, What Culture, takes a similar approach discussing racism among films, because the article also points out stereotypes within films. Another similarity this article has with Complex Magazine’s article is that there is a cross-over between what movies were selected to make the list. For instance, there were eight total movies that were similar between the two, in fact, The Birth of a Nation made the cut as number one for both articles. So, clearly there is agreement among journalist that certain movies could be considered racist.

However, these articles both fall short for discussing why Hollywood believes it is okay to, for example, cast white actors for Egyptians, or use negative stereotypes, in their films. The truth is, the blame falls on two parties, the first being Hollywood, and the second being the customers (yes, us). Hollywood makes the films, so at the end of the day whatever comes out of their many studios is essentially their idea, their product. This is where the customer comes in, Hollywood runs their movies through “test audiences”, meaning before their movie hits theaters, a small sample size of people have already seen the movie. These “test audiences” have the power of deciding what they like or what they do not like about the movie. The unfortunate truth about the “test audience” is that they can sometimes dislike certain elements within a film. A good example of this is the movie, Romeo Must Die. The movie follows a plot similar to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet; however, this film decides to cast an Asian man (Jet Li) and a black women (Aaliyah). Apparently, Romeo and Juliet’s final kiss scene between Jet Li and Aaliyah did not test will with the “test audience”, so the producers ripped it out completely.

This relationship between Hollywood and the consumer is relatively simple: Hollywood makes movies based on what people will go and pay to see. So, if we were to find a solution to this problem with racism in film the answer is relatively simple. The public should not pay to go see these potentially racist films. One could take a step farther, and join the crowds of people who are in an uproar over the film Exodus: Gods and Kings.

AMERICAN SNIPER: Why it doesn’t matter if Chris Kyle was racist

Oscar-Nominated film American Sniper came to theaters on January 16^th, and since its release has not escaped a moment of controversy in the global media. The Clint Eastwood film follows the life of Chris Kyle, the most lethal sniper in U.S. history, on his four tours to Iraq. However, the film has faced controversy for the manner in which the Iraqis were portrayed in the film and has eventually simmered down to the debate over whether Chris Kyle himself was a racist.

A New York Post article discusses the main disagreement of the controversy; an NBC reporter allegedly described Kyle as having “racist tendencies towards Iraqis and Muslims when he was going on some of these…killing sprees in Iraq.” This led to an outrage by members of the military who were enraged that someone who nobly fought for his country could be questioned in character.

The truth of the matter is that Chris Kyle’s beliefs are irrelevant. The debate of his character is futile—it is impossible to know the inner thoughts and subtleties of this man. Conversely, this debate has acted as a scapegoat for a bigger question behind American Sniper: is this film inherently racist?

Throughout the film, the Iraqis are portrayed as brutal, dishonest people who will go to any means to eradicate the American soldiers. Some of the more poignant representations of this include an Iraqi terrorist drilling the head of a man as well as an Iraqi mother sending her young son on a suicide mission.

What American Sniper fails to achieve is a range of people and their beliefs. Where are the moderates? The film portrays the war between the two countries as a black and white matter; both sides believe that they are right without question or consideration of the other point of view. In an interview with an Iraqi interpreter for Chris Kyle during his tours, the interpreter described times that Kyle would laugh and joke with the Iraqi soldiers who helped them fight the extremist groups; yet, this aspect remained untouched in the film.

American Sniper does not fairly represent the real world, though it claims to be a biographical war film. This is not because of the “racist tendencies” of the man it was based on nor the extreme representations of the Iraqis in the film; this is because of the omission of all other groups in between which would have provided an increasingly well-rounded and complete snapshot of the entire story.