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Why I Take Issue With Johnny Storm Being Black


Ta-metru_defender

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Essays, Not Rants! 176: Why I Take Issue With Johnny Storm Being Black

 

So y’know that new Fantastic Four movie coming out next week? It caused a bit of uproar when casting was announced since Michael B. Jordan’s playing Johnny Storm, a character who, in the comics, has been white. This is further complicated by the fact that his sister, Susan Storm, is being played by Kate Mara, who is rather obviously white.

 

This ‘race lift’ given to Johnny Storm has caused quite the hullabaloo. In an apparent case of trying provide a quick and superficial overcorrection a lack of diversity in super hero films they went and changed Johnny’s race, rather than having a different superhero join up. Making things even more convoluted is that his sister’s white, meaning either one’s adopted, their parents remarried, or are a very rare quirk of mixed-race parents.

 

Which, y’know, is fine. Representation is a big deal; it’s always great to see different sorts of people on screen. Marvel’s comics have been taking great strides to diversify their heroes, Ms. Marvel’s a Pakistani-American teenager, we’ve Spider-People of all a variety of race and genders, Sam Wilson took over as Captain America; it’s cool for the movies to follow suit (even if Fantastic Four isn’t part of the MCU).

 

The issue is that it’s just Johnny who got his race changed. And it has to be Johnny; not Reed ‘cuz he’s the main character, not Ben because he spends most of the movie rocky, and especially not Sue because she’s the love interest. Johnny being black — and only Johnny — belies a much more systemic problem in pop-culture in general. And it’s not the tendency for casts to have a token minority (though that is an issue too).

 

There are a few things central to the Fantastic Four’s mythos: they get their powers from a scientific project, Doctor Doom is their greatest foe, Ben and Jonny are somewhere between rivals and friends, and Reed and Susan are lovers.

 

And that last one is where things would get hairy if the siblings were both now black.

 

There’s going to be a romance between Reed and Sue, because of course there will be. But a mixed race couple simply isn’t something that you usually have in a movie; especially if it’s between a white man and a black woman. Fantastic Four wanted to make someone a minority but also keep the romance subplot.

 

Which really bugs me. Because the whole Johnny-is-black-but-not-his-sister-Sue thing smacks of a fear of having a mixed couple in a major movie. It’s something I find really frustrating. Look, I’m biased; I’m the son of a couple who got married when interracial marriages had less public approval than same-sex marriage did in 2011. It’s one of those things that I want to be more present in pop-culture because it’s something very present in my life. It’s 2015; c’mon, let’s get with the times already. The President of the United States is the product of a mixed-race relationship!

 

Seeing a movie bend-over-backwards narratively to ensure that the white protagonist’s love interest isn’t black is incredibly frustrating. It’s not director Josh Trank’s fault, or even that of studio Fox: it’s systemic.

 

At the end of the day, I think I’m disappointed more than anything else. There was a chance here to, even in a small way, shake things up a little bit. ‘cuz I’m cautiously eager to see this movie, and I’m glad that they’ve taken steps to make Susan Storm’s powers more practical/offensive than in the last film. I also really liked Trank’s work on Chronicle. I guess I just wish if they were gonna switch a character’s race, they took the next logical step and did the same thing for his sister.

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...I just assumed that Trank liked working with Jordan on Chronicle and thought he'd be a good fit for the character. :shrugs: Unless someone said otherwise somewhere, I don't see a reason to believe the film is bending over backwards to ensure a white-white primary relationship.

 

Mind you I don't mean to be dismissive of your concerns on this subject as a whole. This is obviously a relevant and hot button subject for a lot of people (for good reason), and personally I also believe that it would be appropriate to see more diversity in films (in relationships or otherwise). I'm just not sure what's happening here is a deliberate effort to keep the status quo. If that were the case then Jordan wouldn't have been cast at all.

That being said, if Sue Storm was being played by a non-white actress I wouldn't have any issues with it either (and one could have still been adopted). Either way it seems that there's room to explore family dynamics, which I'm led to believe is the whole point of the Fantastic Four in the first place.

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Franky, TaMetru, I think you're looking as this the wrong way. I don't really think fear of on-screen interracial relationships is really the issue here, as opposed to the fact that the comic book movie industry's general idea of diversity is "here's the token black guy," I'm not as much worried about Sue Storm being black as I am about any femaie comic book movie character being black. As far as I know, the only people in the entire history of Marvel movies who fit that description are Storm from X-men and a couple extras in the original Spiderman. Meanwhile, the Avengers Franchise has only just gotten its first ever Hispanic character in Ant Man, and the number of Asians in the entire MCU total 3. It's pretty clear that Hollywood has much bigger problems than supposedly not wanting to show comic book characters of different races kissing.

 

This is why I felt the debate about the identity of the MCU Spiderman was missing the point. Here was a real chance to finally inject some diversity into the leads of the Avengers franchise, and yet the internet seemed to be only interested in casting their favorite actor from Community in the role. Look, I like Donald Glover too, and Miles Morales on screen needs to happen eventually, but is this really the best we can do, especially when we already know Black Panther is coming, and have already had multiple African-American characters in supporting roles? What about a Hispanic/Latino Peter Parker, or an Asian Peter Parker, or even a Native American Peter Parker? I certainly don't see many upcoming comic book characters who are of those races, let alone ones who are the star of their own movie.

 

(Sorry if this isn't worded the best.)

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