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.