The Book of Eli and the Black Male Hero

Personally, I tend to think of the 00's as being like Cylons - one dies or retires and someone of a very similar "type" replaces him or her. Each 00 is of a specific type, and is chosen depending on the mission. Rather than casting Ejifor as Bond, I would cast him as one of these other types.

There have been plenty of situations in Bond films where Bond has stuck out like a sore thumb to the detriment of the mission.

Why ? Abrams is one of Hollywood's most successful television and film producer/directors.

Right, so Smith, Winfrey, Jordan and co are super amazing talented people successful in spite of being black. Scorsese, Streep, Gates and co are only successful because once upon a time the British Empire had a better navy than everyone else put together.

 

The comments about when superheroes were created just makes the whole genre seem trite and outdated. I fail to accept that as a legitimate reason. Sounds like some kind of strange Grandfather clause.

There are only a handful of black leading men/heroes in Hollywood. Period.

Your comments seem more like attempts at ridiculing the issue, rather than expanding the conversation.

 

Nerys Myk isn't ridiculing the issue at all. The A list superhero comic book characters that are around today were written for white, male kids because that was the audience at the time.

That audience hasn't changed much, despite the constant whining of female comic book bloggers. The comic book industry could throw a million new black, female, gay, Asian or whatever characters at the audience and each and every book would end up taking up space in some comic book store's storeroom simply because 99.99999% of the black, female, gay, Asian or whatever kids they're trying to sell them to won't give a fuck because they don't read comic books.

You can't expect the comic book industry or Hollywood or anything else to change to suit you if you're not willing to be part of the solution. It's very easy to sit on the outside and whine and complain. Buy the books, enjoy them for what they are and when Marvel and DC see that there's a growing black, female, gay, Asian or whatever audience they'll try to grow it.

I do not see why Marvel, DC or anyone in Hollywood should really care what a bunch of crying so-called intellectuals on the Internet think about their product when they don't contribute anything to the industry.

You could argue that they'd spend more money if there were more characters who look like them on the page or on the screen, but I'd be willing to bet that none of Will Smith's summer blockbusters had a disproportionately black audience. If they're not making any extra effort to see films with the black lead actors they do have, why should Hollywood film studios - who are all profit making enterprises - care ?

 

Just stating the facts. Comic books are dying. The sales are diminishing and what little audience they have is growing progressively older. So the publishers stick with what works: The brand name superheroes. So we get multiple books with Superman, Batman, Spider-man and Wolverine. Flash and Green Lantern returning to their Silver Age incarnations. All but Wolverine were created in the timeframe I mentioned. New heroes are a hard sale. A new non-white hero even harder. I long for the days when the Falcon was costarring with Captain America ( his name right on the masthead) and books starring Black Lightning, Black Panther and John Stewart were given a chance.

I sad I've no problem with fictional characters being cast with black actors. How is that ridiculing the issue?

I mentioned Snipes as an example of a black actor playing a part usually reserved for white actors. Supporting the notion that a spy thriller with Chiwetel Ejiofor or Adewale Akinnyoye-Agbaje would work.

BTW: Thanks Hermiod

 

ah, yes, but Connery came back and was out for vengeance for Tracy's death. Roger visited Tracy's grave in a pre-credits sequence and Tim Dalton was said to have been married once.

clearly, they're the same guy. ergo, 007 should be white.

 

While I agree that Bond should probably continue to be played by a white actor, those facts above can be explained by his employers seeking to keep up the pretense.

 

I thought the important thing about Scorsese (and Coppola) was that they were Italian? Can't recall many notable Italian-American directors prior to those guys.

Also they should age, have a Glaswegian accent, black hair, and so on.

Or... not. Bond does loosely reboot himself because the whole franchise has always had a very thin interest in anything approaching continuity, so roll with it. A black Bond wouldn't be anywhere near as egregrious as some of the stuff we've seen before.

(Besides, Batman Forever was loosely in the same continuity as the Tim Burton films, and it made Harvey Dent white, as opposed to the black Harvey of the first movie, so, er...)

 

Frank Capra

 

I think the question we have to ask ourselves is why aren't more blacks, non-whites, or females reading comics? (Let me caveat this by pointing out that comic books IMO are a withering artform and there are many whites/white males who are not reading comics anymore either). Back to my point, there are some blacks who do, I'm one of them, and just about every black male of my generation I know has some familiarity with comic book characters, whether they read comics in the past, watched the cartoons, played the video games, or saw the movies. I reject the idea that there is a general lack of interest on the part of non-whites for comics. But what I think is the issue is that some non-whites don't become diehard comics fans because they don't feel that the companies, with their predominately white male superhero rosters, are making efforts to make them feel included. Some of the black characters that were created in the 60s and beyond usually were a white person's idea of what a black person was, which meant some where stereotypical and demeaning, or they were marginalized characters that weren't really integral to what was happening in the book. Or some were created to highlight a racial or social issue and then put in the background or forgotten altogether (ex. Muhammad X from Superman). Everyone wants to feel like a hero, not just white males, but the comic industry, when it had the chance, didn't do a good job of reaching out into underserved communities, so why should those communities feel any loyalty or affinity for comics when they aren't showing love for those communities?

I think the mainstream companies in particular have come a long way, but I would like to see more promotion of non-white heroes, I want to see them continuing to push boundaries in this direction. Its great that Black Panther for example has a book, but if he's not getting the promotion, the big events, or the marque writers and artists, it amounts to tokenism. Of course this is a more advanced form of tokenism than in the 60s, 70s, and to some extent the 80s when just placing a black person or non-white in a book was big. With the black heroes that the companies have right now, I think they need to continue doing a better job fleshing these characters out, making them more central to whatever books they play a role in, give them better villains, and perhaps sometimes better costumes for some. (Regarding Black Panther, he is getting an event, "DoomWar" which Marvel is poorly promoting and tossed into the mix while "Siege" and "Fall of the Hulks" is going on. Plus, they are putting BP's book on hold while they are doing DW.)

About Will Smith, I think Hermiod is wrong to suggest that he doesn't have a strong following in the black community. Many blacks have been fans and supporters since his Fresh Prince days and I would argue that though they might not be in the majority for box office at his films, that's because they are numerically a minority. Some always like to throw up Smith, but he's an anomaly, for lack of a better term, and not the norm. As if having a handful of black stars is equal to the galaxy of white stars surrounding them. Plus, I am critical of the roles Smith and other major black actors have to take as opposed to white actors. Black heroes are more prone to be the comic relief (Ripcord, GI Joe), less intelligent (Ripcord; in the movie they specifically pointed out that Duke's test scores were higher, why I don't know), sacrificial lamb (John Wraith, Eli, Robert Neville, Tyrese and Charles S. Dutton in Legion), hip or slick fast talkers (Eddie Murphy and Chris Tucker), or eunuchs (Most Denzel, Will Smith, Sam Jackson, and Morgan Freeman roles) as opposed to white heroes in major Hollywood films. Or they exist to serve the needs of the white heroes, helping them achieve their heroe's journey.

Even though the number of black stars-particularly black male stars-has seemingly exploded since even the 80s, it still doesn't scratch the surface of the number of white stars out there, nor does it take into account how Hollywood continues to generate stars-particularly white stars-like Shia LeBouf or Megan Fox-whereas black actors don't get that type of support or push. Why are Derek Luke or Meagan Good not getting the same type of push? There seems to be a new white Hollywood starlet every couple months but not the same with blacks or other non-whites. Doesn't mean that they aren't out there and I'm glad many are resilient and keep coming, but unfortunately we still haven't reached that place where blacks, or others, can be envisioned for any type of role.

About a black Bond, I would prefer that they didn't do that. For one, he's not going to be having a lot of sex because of the discomfort Hollywood seems to have for black male sexuality, and two I would rather they just create a brand new character without all the history or baggage of Bond. I'm not generally in favor of changing the race of a character unless the actor really just embodies the part. I thought Michael Clarke Duncan was a great choice for Kingpin, I just wish the movie had been as good as that casting decision.

 

^
A sexless Bond would totally defeat the point. So when advocating a black Bond, yeah, I mean a guy who sleeps around. I do understand that there'd be some barriers, but I'd like to think in this day and age that wouldn't be such a big deal (which granted is naive of me).

As far as creating new black characters rather than giving them white roles, this is simply easier said than done. So much in movies and action-adventure franchises is dependent not only on formula but brand name, films with original heroes are rare, and when they do appear, the original heroes fit the formula anyway. I mean, a black guy could be a black Bondlike character instead of Bond, the only distinction is the latter is easier to sell.

It is interesting as far as that goes that sci-fi set in South Africa lately (District 9, Charlie Jade) has given us white and in the latter case, American heroes.

Touche. I feel idiotic now.

 

The Double-O's were created by Britain.

They evolved.

They rebelled.

There are many copies.

Some of them look like the others.

Some of them are programmed to think they ARE the others.

And they have a plan.

 

Perhaps. But are you going to argue that Daniel Craig's 007, at the very least, isn't a full reboot? If his is, then so will a black Bond as well. Craig's would be no more, and no less, a reboot than that.

 

You know, we've had this same exact discussion before in the nearly identical threads that you start every time there's a major motion picture with a black actor in the lead.

Read this because it's very very important: Blacks are a minority in the United States.

The disproportional number of successful black actors has little to do with racism. Nobody is trying to say that black actors are inherently inferior. In this day and age it simply has more to do with the fact that there are few fewer black people in this country than white people. If you want a number, 13.5% of the people in America are black compared to the 74% that are white. It's as clear cut as that.

 

A black Thor would be cognitively dissonantly delicious.

 

It's interesting though. We can talk about a black Batman or a black Bond, but if they tried to cast a white actor as, say Luke Cage or Storm there would be public outcry. Why doesn't this work both ways?

 

Because black actors are already underprepresented in media? Because there are already tons of white heroes? Those two reasons make the most sense to me.

 

And the black heroes were created specifically to be black heroes? White heroes were white because that was default at the time; as I like to observe there's no good reason for Superman to be a Cary Grant-esque white guy. He could just as easily be black, green, vermillion, or what have you.

The reason people suggest casting black actors in these roles is because black superheroes are something of also-rans and bit players compared to the powerhouse characters. I'm sure comic fans will leap to their defence, but honestly guys, are they Superman, Batman and Spiderman as far as name recogniton/feature films go? Even if it had been good I suspect not many people were clamouring for a Steel movie.

 

And because one can celebrate the unique qualities of black actors and characters without being racist.

(Everyone can interpret that sentence in their own way. Assign whatever joke quotient you like to it.)

In at least one of the old DC Multiverse Earths (Earth-D, I believe), Superman *is* black.

 

Also, I was under the impression that Latin people were the largest minority in the US now.

 

This is one of the best and most truthful posts I've read so far.

Well done, Darkush.