La Ron S. Readus
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The Hit and Miss of Race-Swapped and Original Characters (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2023-02-16 00:05:01 +0000 UTCThis video is sponsored by Babbel. Save 60% on your subscription when you click on the link in the description box below to download the app and sign up.
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I wanna talk about race-swapping in movies and TV shows.
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When it comes to the topic of minority representation on film and television, one of the biggest discussion points regarding it that has succeeded in being both important and unnecessary has been the concept of race swapping characters; changing the race/ethnicity of one character from film, television or written word to a completely different one in revamps, reboots or remakes.
Before the likes of modern day, race swapping had its beginnings in the racist practice of minstrelsy. Then came its stage 2 evolution form whitewashing, in which took the practices of blackface and yellowface in order to allow white performers to respectively play black and asian roles in film and television well into the late 20th Century.
Once it has been made aware that there has been a HUGE lack of minority representation thanks to a slew of white stories and characters, while the characters that were minorities not being allowed to be portrayed by them, things began to slowly shift.
Nowadays, what we all commonly know as race-swapping comes in the form of pop culture figures. DC and Marvel superheroes and supervillains that were conceived as white, regardless of the creators original intention, are considering casting black performers and other people of color for film and television. The same goes with live-action versions of already popular animated Disney characters, themselves adapted from popular stories and fairytales in the public domain.
New takes of popular television shows from the 70s onward that once focused on a white character or family are being remade to supply that representation for black, asian and other communities of color in America.
What started off with roots in racism has since been retrofitted to allow representation, and in doing so has made a good amount of individuals of different walks of life not sure how to feel.
Because yes; on one hand, white folk have been the focus of a lot of pop culture media over the course of motion pictures since the medium was properly monetized, and there are plenty of characters that can be looked at with fresh eyes and new perspectives if this umpteeenth white character in this catalog of white characters were made black, asian, hindu, or indigenous. And this also counts in regards to queerness as well.
On the other hand, some would argue that doing so takes away from the ethnic minority characters that were created BECAUSE of the sea of whiteness that is modern-day pop culture.
Characters like The Falcon, who was created by white men. John Stewart, who was created by white men. Black Panther, who was created by white men, um...Miles Morales and Riri Williams! Both...created by the same white man.
I mean, he’s married to a black woman, though; that counts, right?
It’s worth keeping in mind that the intentions of a lot of these white creatives in their creation of these characters were good.
/As my fellow YouTuber Princess Weekes pointed out in her video on Falcon and the Winter Soldier when she discussed the Green Lantern/Green Arrow run by John Stewart creators Neal Adams and Dennis O’Neil, attempts to show minorities are constantly left out in both the superheroics and in lending their aid were constantly made. Even if they were pretty cringe./
It wasn’t until actual minorities began to write for the respective characters that were made by these white creatives in order to bring in proper senses of culture, community and personality that they truly began to pop in their own unique way and become just as beloved as long-form white characters; even moreso, depending on the character.
This is why I have felt so inclined to make this video, because while I’m fully aware of this being what it takes to make a POC iteration of a white character so unique and beloved...
I began to notice that as the practice has begun to be more commonplace in certain film and tv shows, it is beginning to become just as hit or miss.
While there are great examples of race swapped characters and some who missed the mark, there are some that are completely original that have crossed my path and I wonder how it even made it out of the editing room.
But in order to show what works, what doesn’t, and what is needed in order to make representation as a whole better -- y’know, if white folk truly wanna show that they can do this shit right...
We have to evaluate what we as minorities have to do in order to provide true representation regardless of where one stands on the race-swapped versus original character debate, and see if our white counterparts have what it takes to match it (huffs). I hope you’re ready for some mediocrity.
What Does It Take?
When it comes to playing around with the race of certain characters in movies and television, I have one rule that’s pretty common among others who have similar opinions. If the character’s ethnicity isn’t a pivotal part of both their character and development, then traditionally no harm would come from an actor of color taking on a role that’s typically portrayed by a white performer.
As you can imagine, before this logic was given and applied in how modern-day media is made, a lot of trolls and racists would look at the idea of what they deemed “black-washing” and give incredibly unlikely race-swapped hypotheticals to try and prove their points. Most of the time using the blackest characters in existence as examples.
Characters like Marvel Comics’ Storm and Black Panther, whose blackness is both embedded and absolutely essential to their character, were common victims for these bad faith arguments.
/And, as you can imagine, we promptly made fun of them for it./ (What if a White Guy played Shaft?)
Meanwhile, actual GOOD faith discussions regarding this more thoughtful use of race-swapping were actually happening among members of fandoms.
Such as, using the X-Men for example, whether they should keep Magneto white when he’s eventually introduced in the MCU because he’s a Jewish holocaust survivor...
/Despite the time-skip from Avengers Endgame causing him to be pretty old upon said modern-day introduction for him to be formidable./
Or taking Charles Xavier’s constant displays of privilege, instances of manipulation, and his overall status and upbringing in the past and current comics into consideration...
/As far as why it makes sense his portrayal also continues to be a white individual in his eventual MCU introduction./
Considering so much time and thoughtfulness was being applied regarding taking the likes of experiences, upbringings, culture and overall beliefs into consideration during these race-swapped discussions, one would imagine that seeing them actually be put into practice on screen when said swap happened would be commonplace.
That if a black actor or an actor of color took over a role that’s traditionally seen as white and was easy to do so because there’s no social or cultural ties to that character having to be white...
Then there’s a chance for the portrayal by said performer of color to actually give the character in question more roundness and development via culture, social background and worldview than previously delivered in the white portrayals.
/Marvel Studios’ version of Namor as depicted by Tenoch Huerta is a perfect example of this./
The majority of the reasons I hate Namor in the comics -- yes, ESPECIALLY his overall Vegeta vibes -- are kinda given more nuance and justification now that in the MCU he and his people are the supernatural descendants of a South American civilization that survived Spanish colonization and are jaded with the surface world as a result.
/Even the early centrist roots of his sometimes villain sometimes anti-hero depiction in the comics are more justifiable to watch on screen thanks to no longer being half Caucasian and half Atlantean, and now being the Mesoamerican mutant king of Talokan./
Now considering that this interpretation of Namor is thanks to Ryan Coogler -- the black writer and director of Marvel Studios’ Black Panther: Wakanda Forever -- it not only proves that this level and amount of thought can and should be taken into consideration when putting a performer of color in a role traditionally played by or originally meant to be a white person...
But that the distribution of said care and consideration is a priority among black and other POC creatives when we’re the ones tasked with bringing these interpretations on screen thanks to decisions that take place behind the camera.
The question however, is that when white creatives have an opportunity to put in the same amount of care, consideration and thought when THEY rewrite a traditionally white character for a black or POC performer, is the effort reciprocated?
A Case of Cops & Robbers
When it comes to white writers and creatives being the reason behind a traditionally white character being portrayed by a person of color, especially in settings that have a base in reality, it’s a constant game of “Hit or Miss” regarding what we get regarding how their background is incorporated into the interpretation, if at all.
White writers of “Hit” race-swapped characters usually have done their homework in order to produce them, finding ways to incorporate the blackness or the ethnic background of the performer into the usually white character in question, in order to make it feel natural and melding into what already makes said character significant.
These can range from anything to personal idiosyncrasies, mannerisms and upbringings to how one internalizes systemic social problems one would experience because of their race thanks to how much the current time and setting of the story matters.
/The character may no longer be white, but their blackness in one way or another is so perfectly interwoven into the character that it feels like it’s always been part of them./
“Miss” characters on the other hand can be crafted as a result of MANY things, but these two are the most popular.
Thanks to the fear of not wanting to accidentally perpetuate harmful stereotypes or be perceived as the gender-neutral version of “that guy,” nothing close to the actor’s ethnic background is incorporated into the character, and very little of what the actor personally contributes to the character in order to do so makes it to the final cut.
This is basically the equivalent of being a male writer who won’t even do the research to learn how to properly write women characters, under the fear of being the next individual to produce a banger similar to “She boobily breasted her way down the hall.”
Another aspect is a case of white writers and creatives utilizing the “I Don’t See Color” clause, in which thanks to the writer viewing everyone as equal under their current level of privileged understanding of the world for one reason or another, feel that nothing fundamental needs to change about or that any lenses need shifting or replacing on the perspective of the traditionally white character if a black or POC performer is dragged and dropped into the role.
/The character may now be black, but the perspective, background, ideologies and thought processes remain white. And while sometimes the transition can be made that smoothly depending on how much agency they have in the story, others have definitely suffered for it./
Now while there are PLENTY of examples for both Hits and Misses regarding black actors in traditionally white roles, there’s one that I enjoy a lot that features examples of both in my opinion, and that’s Matt Reeves “The Batman.”
/The hit being the adaptation of Selina Kyle/Catwoman, and the Miss being James Gordon./
It’s rather easy to see why Zoey Kravitz’s depiction of Selina in The Batman can be declared a hit according to this scale.
/Her being the biracial love child of an Italian mob boss and a black sex worker causes her to see the world differently. Not just because of her race, but also because of her social class in comparison to everyone else featured in the movie./
Her relationship with the ill-fated Annika not only brings her bisexuality from the comics to the screen for the first time since it was acknowledged in the comics...
/But also highlights how much she empathizes with those who do it because it was her mother’s profession and knows first-hand how both the mafia AND the police look at them as lesser because of it. She even checks Batman when he tries to get ethical about Annika’s profession./ (What the hell is that supposed to mean?)
/Amplify this with what Selina saw her mother go through at a young age being both a sex worker and a black woman from both parties, and you can see why the empathy is present./ (You have a lot of cats. I have a thing for strays)
Selina Kyle being biracial in The Batman allows the commonalities that ethnic minorities share with those in the working class and under the poverty line to be represented in a socio-economic package with an anarcho-socialist bow on top.
/And while a lot of what was listed about Selina is true about her nature even if she wasn’t race-swapped to the point where nothing different would be taken from this display if she remained white, there’s one line in the movie that does a great job linking her portrayers racial background to her character that allows how this new depiction of her to amplify what she already represents because of how close to home said representation is to the ethnicity she now represents:/ (All anyone cares about in this place are these white privileged assholes)
Unfortunately, as much as it’s a hit, I don’t think that this characterization of Selina Kyle was intentional on Matt Reeves and Peter Craig’s part.
/Because if it were, Jeffrey Wright’s James Gordon wouldn’t have felt like such a miss./
While Selina’s end of the spectrum seems more coincidental in retrospect -- with everything she represents naturally linking up with that of the struggles people of color already go through in order for that intersectionality to stick -- James Gordon doesn’t have that same luxury, because he’s a cop.
The very root of Gordon’s character is that outside of being willing to work with Batman, he’s the one spark of hope within the Gotham Police Department that’s free of corruption, and would eventually plant the seeds of better representation on the force that would introduce us to the likes of Renee Montoya and pull Harvey Bullock out of the muck.
Now I’ve already talked about the problems with policing, not even related to the more recent instances of racially motivated police brutality, and how the latest Batman films have pretty much promoted the “importance” of law enforcement in order to keep the status quo’s cage as stable as possible so it can get its 8 hours in when someone shakes it, even in The Batman.
But we have it on record that the ACAB movement is nothing that’s relatively new to society, especially in regards to how black officers and detectives are rightfully criticized by black civilians.
Thanks to recent events, a lot of us black folk who initially sought change and were told that the only way it can be done was from the inside out, realized that if you’re black and the police are black, it doesn’t mean that you’re safe. Meanwhile, a good amount of us BEEN knew that about police corruption and brutality, because its one of the easiest ways for one to give in to the temptation of knowing what it feels like to have the power of white supremacy at your disposal for as long as its true owners allow it.
/As a matter of fact, the fear of the black policemen goes all the way back to James Baldwin for that exact same reasoning, saying “In Harlem, Negro policemen are feared more than whites, for they have more to prove and fewer ways to prove it.”/
On the other hand, none of this criticism or fictional depictions of the moral struggles one faces as a black cop seem to be allowed to be shown on the big screen lately, unless the races being controlled and persecuted by said law enforcement end up being fictional. Then it’s more a case of humans versus fantasy race than anything else. And trust me when I say that this is by design.
/You can show a black man deal with the moralistic struggles of being a police officer, show him be tempted with Sith-like absolutes regarding being loyal to other cops that are corrupt, racist and bigoted in order to show how easy one can be seduced by the white supremacy policing enforces as long as he’s compliant. But only if the race that said black man is filed under is the HUMAN race, and the one that white supremacy is aiming to oppress are another race altogether. Orcs, for example./
No, this doesn’t mean that Bright is a good movie. It just serves a purpose. Dial it back.
As you can imagine, Jeffrey Wright’s portrayal of James Gordon, despite being an excellent performance, falls under this lack of dissection.
/This is mostly because if Wright’s blackness was placed into the character of Jim Gordon in addition to everything that already comes with him, that would mean the aforementioned points regarding law enforcement’s ties with white supremacy and how black folk who seek a career in it eventually either fall to or become seduced by it in one way or another would have to be explored. Even if it meant that, thanks to his overall character, Gordon would still come out of the temptation unscathed, yet weathered, stressed and untrusting./
Which wouldn’t be an off depiction of Gordon, by the way; look at how he is in the Harley Quinn animated series.
And while it’s absolutely possible for Matt Reeves and Peter Craig to have done the “drag & drop” of Gordon’s character without fully taking into consideration Wright’s blackness because of the well-intended variant of the “I Don’t See Color” clause...
This exploration more than likely wouldn’t have made it past Warner Brothers execs the same way that Catwoman’s natural intersectionality with her being portrayed by Zoe Kravitz did, despite the subject matter the movie displayed even if they tried.
I, personally, over the course of the film’s livelihood, thought of one way to make said intersectionality work and bring a whole new dynamic to a James Gordon of this caliber that would allow him to also keep his character close to how it was in the comics that inspired the movie.
/Considering the renewal fund being a plot beat that explained the corruption of Gotham PD, they could use that aspect to explore the topic of how black individuals who seek to change things from the inside tend to end up becoming just as corrupt as their white counterparts, while Gordon constantly receives critique of said corruption from within and outside his community despite never being tempted./
As a result, Jim could’ve easily had a heart-to-heart with Batman during one of the signal scenes where he just feels tired...
/That he feels like he’s just allowing the system to perpetuate him into the same symbol of oppression that he initially joined Gotham PD to try and dissolve in the first place. Which, in turn, makes Batman trust Gordon even more./
With “The Batman: Part II” currently slated for a 2025 release being actively written by Reeves and Craig as of the recording of this video, it’s not too late to add this extra layer to Wright’s portrayal of Gordon to give this iteration the same amount of intersectionality that they’ve given Selina Kyle, and change this portrayal from an extremely well-performed miss to a hit when it comes to black actors portraying traditionally white characters.
However, I feel like it needs to be said, that the reason why this Hit or Miss mentality is a thing in the first place is because the problem has been shown to be WHITE writers and creatives either not having the knowledge or not putting in the work to properly take into consideration the ethnicity of the actors portraying the characters. Even if said characters aren’t already associated with an existing IP.
Do (Not) Steal
When dealing with established intellectual properties that are already incredibly popular, adapting them for the screen can be daunting, I admit.
Not everyone is going to be happy with what you deliver, and even those who are will have no problem pointing out that there’s room for improvement the next time it’s tackled.
/This was my case with the Netflix original series Wednesday, an Addams Family spinoff with Wednesday Addams as the main character./
The plot of the season has been rightfully so compared to that of a CW drama, mostly because its showrunners are Alfred Gough and Miles Millar; the ones responsible for Clark’s Creek -- I mean, Smallville.
/Wednesday goes to a school for outcasts called Nevermore Academy with the nearest town consisting of normies who tolerate yet hate them, and she has to stop the plans of the last surviving member of the town’s most prominent yet bigoted family after summoning the damned soul of the town’s founder in order to kill all the outcasts./
Now while I’ve already aired my grievances regarding how the story provided allegories of queerness with the outcasts versus the perception of them from the normal citizens in the town of Jericho, without featuring a good amount of actual queerness...
The show also came under fire from those who watched the show -- me included -- and noticed how certain original characters portrayed by African American actors were used throughout the season.
/Specifically Jericho’s mayor Noble Walker and his son Lucas Walker./
We’re introduced to Lucas before we’re introduced to Noble, and the way a lot of us black folk and people of color interpreted him upon his introduction was someone who took his internalized racism out on bullying outcasts.
The reason why is because he’s the only black “normie” kid in Jericho, we see that his friend group consists of bigoted white boys that make a habit of tormenting Nevermore Academy students who visit...
/And defends Wednesday’s criticism of the town’s tourist attraction Pilgrim World because his dad owns it./ (My dad owns Pilgrim World. You calling him stupid?)
However, it was that declaration that told a lot of us the interpretation of him dealing with internalized racism wasn’t the read that needed to be applied here. Because why would a black man own a tourist attraction for a secluded town in Vermont that glorified colonialism unless you’re Ben Carson or Clarence Thomas?
/Because Lucas’s dad is black, mind you; not the adopted black son of the white mayor of Jericho or something like that. Noble Walker is not only a long-term citizen of Jericho, but also used to be it’s sheriff before being elected mayor./
And the more we witnessed the actions and decisions both Noble and Lucas made over the course of the season, the more us minorities and select white folk began to notice that, for all intents and purposes, these two characters weren’t written to be black. Hell, they weren’t even ADJUSTED to be black once actual black actors were cast for the roles.
/Because why would Lucas -- the token black normie kid in all of Jericho -- first of all, have to LEARN that being a bigot is wrong, but also do it by having him feel guilty for performing the high school equivalent of a hate crime?/
And not to say that black sexist men don’t exist, because they TOTALLY do.
/But why completely ignore the fact that Noble probably experienced a significant amount of discrimination and the like upon him climbing the ladder as a black man in a predominantly white neighborhood to get to where he is now, just to have Morticia harshly critique his lack of concern for her safety during his sheriff days as a previous student of Nevermore Academy in a way that labels her status as an oppressed minority more important than his own, when the two should actually be on the level?/
While they were both original characters that weren’t new takes on already established ones, both Noble and Lucas Walker in Wednesday were depicted as a Miss regarding proper black representation coming from white creatives.
And I mean that full-heartedly, because the writing team for Wednesday season 1 that consisted of Alfred Gough, Miles Millar, Kayla Alpert, April Blair and Matt Lambert are all Mayo Militants who thought that the characters as they were initially written were interchangeable enough to allow these roles to be portrayed by any and all ethnicities without any adjustments at all.
Which is even MORE confusing, when you realize that the HIT in Wednesday -- from this same team of white creatives, mind you -- is them making the executive decision to not just limit it to Gomez Addams, but to make the entire Addams Family visually, culturally and lore-wise Latino American.
/From Catherine Zeta Jones as Morticia to Luiz Guzman as Gomez, the creepy macabre of the Addams is just as present as the visual representation of the family’s overall lineage. Their culture is incorporated into the actual show, with Wednesday listening to Mexican singer Chavela Vargas’s “La Llorona” on her record player in episode 1. Even little details from Gomez using culturally significant pet names for Wednesday, and large lore drops regarding the origins of the Addams’ arrival to America via Wednesday’s ancestor Goody./
So much thought and attention to detail was placed into making sure that translating the ENTIRETY of the Addams Family as Latino American -- not just Gomez Addams -- was not only accurate for the story Wednesday was trying to tell, but actually reflected as such in the scripts, the atmosphere and the cast.
So why wasn’t the same done with the original characters that were initially intended to be white, but instead decided to cast black actors for said roles for the sake of diversity?
/It’s obvious that the writers of Wednesday see the importance of minorities seeing themselves with how well they adjusted the Addams; the “I Don’t See Color” clause clearly wasn’t used there. So why use it with the Walkers instead?/
Conclusion
Readers, I know that it FEELS like what I’m saying is that white folk need to do better regarding trying their hand at this, but... (thinks) No, wait, yeah; that’s kinda what I’m trying to say...
Because race-swapping characters in pop culture isn’t the problem. It’s creatives who don’t take into consideration what the ethnicity has dealt with, or has to deal with in reality
And history has shown that the majority of the creatives who don’t take said consideration into question are white ones who either can’t focus on worldviews outside of their own privilege, or prioritize their messages already soaked in white liberalism without taking into consideration how the intersectionality of two different walks of life can possibly meet.
Meanwhile we’ve seen black creatives take into consideration cultures, struggles and worldviews outside of their own when doing so for other iconic characters when they make the swap, and the end result is absolutely fantastic. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t white creatives that have done the exact same and produced just as pleasant results.
Sam Hamm, the writer of the two Burton Batman movies, recently wrote the six-issue follow-up to Batman Returns, Batman 89
It completely ignores the events of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, and features a lot of what the third Tim Burton-directed Batman movie was originally going to feature. Including a Marlon Wayans-inspired Robin, and Billy Dee Williams’ Harvey Dent turn into Two-Face.
And both of these black characters are depicted and handled by this white creative phenomenally.
/Robin’s distrust of police in the predominantly black working class Gotham neighborhood of Burnside while its residents protest neglect and violence is a great motivator. Not to mention Bruce’s family being responsible for buying out his family’s stake in the automotive game being a great motivator to take him under his cape./
/And then there’s Harvey Dent, where we see him play up the Two-Face angle even BEFORE the acid messes up his face. Billy Dee Williams’ blackness is incorporated into Harvey’s character regarding things like the members of his community debating whether or not he truly has their interest at heart considering he’s a District Attorney, having to constantly code-switch in order to make it into Gotham politics that also highlights systemic issues that I wish Jeffrey Wright’s Jim Gordon faced in The Batman./
Just like any other creative that brings another perspective of a traditionally white character by adjusting it to the ethnicity of the performer portraying them, everything that was added to Harvey’s character in this way only ENHANCED what he is at his core.
This is honestly my favorite iteration of Two-Face, and if James Gunn were smart, he’d greenlight an animated Elseworlds movie adaptation of this.
But that’s the key aspect about solving the problem of white creatives delivering lackluster iterations of characters portrayed by POC, whether they be original or race-swapped. They can’t just drag and drop or be selective regarding who gets full representation. They have to put in the work for everyone
Which, considering how POC creatives already go out of our way to put in that effort as a natural reflex, thanks to having it embedded in us that we have to be twice as good to get half of what they have, it’s only fair.
And you’re all about fairness, right? After all, you don’t see color.
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