A Second Chance for Diversity

Back in 2010 a social media grassroots campaign formed around the fact that Sony was rebooting the Spider-Man franchise. The idea: why not cast Donald Glover as Peter Parker? After all, the defining features of Peter are that he's smart, a bit of a nerd, but wise-cracking and fun. He grew up in a working class neighborhood in New York City, an orphan raised by his aunt and uncle. Also, he got bit by a scientifically improbable spider. Nothing about the character was defined by his skin color- he was white because he was created by white dudes in the early 60s, but that description could easily fit someone of pretty much any race- after all, it's NYC.

In fact, that issue is something that has plagued comics. It was 40 years before Batman had a recurring black supporting character. Shakespeare's works have more prominent people of color than the original Justice League (or, for that matter, the current Justice League too.) The origins of nearly all popular comics come from a time where it was literally unthinkable to make a main character anything but white- simply put no one thought of it. Yet those characters and stories have endured for nearly 80 years in some cases and, while we live in an era where it's okay to reimagine Hamlet as a lion, it's not okay to reimagine Peter Parker as black.

Except while the Peter Parker campaign failed, not everyone in Hollywood is pushing against it. On The Flash, Iris West (pretty much originally conceived as "Hey, The Flash needs a Lois Lane") is played by Candice Patton. On the upcoming Supergirl show, Jimmy Olson is going to be played by Mehcad Brooks. We've seen our first glimpse of the new Hawkgirl in the season finale of the Flash- the Earth 2 version of Kendra Saunders, now represented by Ciara Renee. The (awesome) DC TV universe isn't the only place this is happening, either. Ben Urich in Daredevil was played by Vondie Curtis-Hall (brilliantly). Ultimate Nick Fury has been the MCU's most constant companion, and they very pointedly chose to pretty much make the Sam Jackson version the canon Nick Fury across all of their properties.

Meanwhile, canon characters of color are being raised to greater prominence. Age of Ultron ended with Falcon and War Machine being part of the New Avengers. On Flash, Cisco Ramon (who was considered so offensively stereotypical in his original comic incarnation that artist George Perez refused to draw him) is a main character and extremely well liked by fans. Agents of SHIELD brought Daisy Johnson front and center.

It represents an attempt to say "Hey, for whatever reason (racism) these stories were completely white the first time they were told. Let's try again." And while it's far from perfect (notice how no one mentioned is the main character), it's better. It's an admission that the original stories came from a worse time for a lot of people- and that adapting them to a new medium means we can do better this time around.

And, in turn, comics have started to try- at least Marvel has. The current comic Avengers include Ms. Marvel (aka Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American from New Jersey), Nova (aka Sam Alexander, a Latino teenager from Arizona), and Miles Morales- the Ultimate Spider-Man inspired by the campaign to make Donald Glover Spider-Man.