Lightskinned! Camera! Action!
LIGHTSKINNED,CAMERA,ACTION!
Recently it was announced that the character of Jason Rauch (one half of the superhero Firestorm) would be appearing on The CW superhero show the Flash. He will be played by actor Luc Rodriguez Now up until this announcement I had never even heard of Luc Rodriguez but the minute I saw his picture I had that sick feeling in my stomach.
Yes he is a nice looking guy. Maybe even a good actor but he has been hired specifically playing a character from DC comics Firestorm who is a superhero made up of 2 people. The current version if Ronnie Raymond and Jason. Below is a picture of Jason from the comic’s:
As you can see Jason is a breath of DC comics fresh air. A dark brown skinned man of color who pretty much looks like that pic in the majority of his comic book appearances. The actor hired to play Jason is lighter than I am (and I’m mixed). Half Canadian half Trinidadian. I don’t have a problem with Jason being a person of mixed race..I have a problem with him not being brown skinned. And while I’m happy this dude is getting work I’m also wondering when if ever this idea that beauty means lightness of skin will ever be expelled from Hollywood Casting decisions.
It’s one thing to hire attractive actors to play characters from comic book and cartoons. That’s what Hollywood does. It makes everyone pretty. However we are talking about characters of color. Characters who creators at times have went out of their way to make dark skinned or brown skin because a lot of us believe that is as beautiful (if not more so) than what we have always seen in comics. Bunch of white guys. Some of these characters (like Jason) were purposely created as minorities to diversify a woefully white comic book universe.
(Don't get me wrong I love white heroes! And it's a good thing because that's a LOT of white heroes!)
If Firestorm can be any 2 people..cool lets make one half a regular looking brown skinned guy.
Yet here comes Hollywood.Television and films once again undoing progress by casting actors that are so light skinned some of them could feel right at home at Paris Hiltons family reunion.
Seriously this happens again again and again and doesn’t’ seem to be getting any better. As my brilliant friend Nikki pointed out Hollywood seems to want to pander to everyone. Take a black character and make them as white as possible just short of making them actually Caucasian. That way more white people will accept them yet they can still claim the character is a minority. Instead of embracing the progress comic book creators had made in creating a more diverse universe superhero television shows and films continue to reinforce the European standard of beauty. Light skinned with straight hair (I refuse to call it good hair). Equals beauty!
STORM
Storm in the comic book is from Africa where she was worshipped as a goddess. Tall brown beautiful regal this is how she has consistently appeared in the comics
In the X-Men movie she is played by Halle Berry who beyond looking and acting nothing like the character couldn’t even manage a Kenyan accent for more than 2 scenes in the first X-Men film.
In the X-Men movie she is played by Halle Berry who beyond looking and acting nothing like the character couldn’t even manage a Kenyan accent for more than 2 scenes in the first X-Men film.
Angel Salvadore
Angel Salvadore. A student at Xavier academy in the early 200’s created by Grant Morrison. She was drawn to look like a bunch of black women I know. She was a student and was sassy. I loved her
In X-Men First class she was played by Zoe Kravitz and her character was turned into a stripper.
(Why am I playing this charcter that I look nothing like? My mother was a Huxtable!)
SUNSPOT
Sunspot a dark skinned Brazilian dude created in the mid 80’s by Chris Claremont as one of The New Mutants.
He later became a member of X-Force and is currently and Avenger
In X-Men Days Of Future Past he was given 2 lines and lightened up several hues. I mean his case was egregious in the sense that if the chartacer was going to only say 2 words and die why not cast an actor that at least slightly resembled Roberto's skin color? All he ended up being was cannon fodder anyway so..
(I mean come on! Sunspot obviously needs to stay out in the sun a little more often)
SHANA
Jem and The Holograms was a 80’s cartoon a lot of kids watched after school in the 80’s. My favorite Hologram was Shauna. In her Wikipedia entry she is described like this: “ Shana is an African American foster girl who grew up with Kimber, Jerrica and Aja at Starlight House and was the second child to be adopted by the Bentons."
Not only did they go out of their way to call her African American in her bio they even cast a black voice actor to record her voice in the 80's cartoon! Refreshing! She even has curly hair!
So of course when the Jem movie was announced they cast this chic as the formely brownskinned Shana:
It’s interesting that years ago when Ben Grim’s girlfriend Alicia Masters was being played by black actress Kerry Washington in the Fantastic Four film many fan boys flipped their lid. Even more recently when Nick Fury (in the Ultimate comics) became black or even Larry Fishburne playing Perry White in the Man of Steele again a certain segment of fan boys freaked out. Like “Im never reading another Marvel Comic again” type of freak out. I saved some of the rants. Perry White Can’t be black!!!
(There is no good reason I placed a picture of my cat's right in middle of this article but I needed the levity!)
They failed to realize that changing a barely supporting character like Perry or Alicia with a person of color did not damage said character in the least. Their skin color never was a factor in their characters history because when you are white it rarely is.
There are thousands of old white guys/ young brown haired people in comics. On Television, in the movies being the central character, the one who saves the day, the one doing all the cool shit. Not simply a sassy sidekick or wise sage (magical negro) Yet when someone creates a superhero of color and goes out of their way to make said chartacer a darker browner hue in a comic universe a universe that because of racism and fear was painfully short on black Hispanic or even women super- characters in means a lot. It shows that people of all colors and cultures (and shades) can be heroes. That American superheroes are not only white alpha men. Dark and brown skinned individuals can be heroic and awesome. Comic books started to slowly learn this in the early 90’s. It has gotten much better. Much more diverse.Yet Hollywood is here to set back the clock by lightening up the brothers and sisters, changing dreads and natural curly hair to weave and reinforcing the eurocentric standard of beauty (light and pole thin) and altering perfectly realized beautiful brown and dark skinned heroes and heroines for the masses to safely consume. Lightskinned, Camera, Action!
