Bantu Thoughts- Why Spider-Man Could Be Black, but Tony Stark Could Not

Bantucinema
Bantu Thoughts- Why Spider-Man Could Be Black, but Iron-Man Could Not
By William Rivers

So this article comes to you because of the recent unsurprising outrage at the fact that Zendaya has been cast as Mary Jane Watson in the upcoming Spider-Man films. Of course we aren't going to mention the fact that Zendaya is half white and half Black and therefore by the same standards that white people have toward mixed Black people (Being that even a drop of Black blood makes you Black), Zendaya is just as white as she is Black, and could even be considered to be straight up white if she so chose to be. (Of course these dumb rules don't go both ways, but I can dream.)

The issue that I'd like to address today is the difference between white-washing a character of color and changing a typically white character into a person of color in film. In the case of white-washing, there is likely never a good reason for doing that simply because of the extended cultural status that whiteness holds in the world today. Changing any character of color into a white person for the screen, would not only be offensive to the person involved (Being the historical figure of the creator of the character in question), but would also be an offense toward the entire race. You in this case would be erasing all of the important elements of this character/person's backstory that are directly involved in their race. Furthermore, changing any character with multifaceted race related character traits to another creed would be detrimental to the character involved.

To all of you out there who seem to not understand that last sentence: There are very specific differences between people of different races both inside and outside of the United States, and those differences are not just skin deep.

For my examples I'm going to be using Spider-Man and Iron-Man; two originally white characters who are well known and from the same universe. To start out, the seminal gauge for whether or not you can change the race of the character is figuring out whether or not their character traits are directly related to their race. Peter Parker (Spider-Man) is described as a nerdy high school boy, living in New York City, who is picked on and has never felt strong. His Uncle was murdered due to his inaction, and because of this he is using his new found powers to protect the citizens of NYC. Tony Stark (Iron-Man) is described as a billionaire tech genius and weapons tycoon. He comes from a long line of rich and powerful inventors who revolutionized weapons technology. He was following in his father's footsteps until one of his own weapons was used to injure him, he was kidnapped and forced to build weapons for international criminals. Instead he used his skills to build himself a suit of robotic armor that would allow him to escape, and protect the world from the types of weapons he spent his life learning to build.

Now you will notice that neither of those characters had any parts of their story that had to do with them being racially profiled, or discriminated against. This is because race having a direct influence on a character isn't something that can be easily seen by just anybody. There are nuances to every group of people that have to do with history and culture and the problem with the majority of white writers is that when they try to write for POC, they simply write for a white character, add in a few anecdotes about having been stereotyped by white people, or having family members on drugs or in prison, and call it a day. They don't know that there non-stereotypical nuances to the speech patterns, experiences, and thoughts and actions of every different race of people. Hence why Peter would be a great Black character and Tony would not.

Brought to my attention about a year ago while watching a video by Tim E. Kish, Peter Parker's story would be greatly enhanced if he were a Black character instead of the traditional white character that he always was. See the problem with characters that were created a long time ago is that most of them were white because most writers were white and whiteness in America is a default trait. It is one that isn't even mentioned. The value in that is that Peter's character has no overt nor subtle references to his whiteness. Peter Parker being an extremely intelligent, nerdy Black high-schooler in 2016 would be a very compelling character. He would have to deal with not being looked at as cool by his fellow Black classmates who don't talk like him nor show interest in the things he likes that aren't traditionally "Black" things. He would be an outcast both in his own community and in the community of whites in his school because he would be too "Black" to fit in with them and too "White" to hang out with the Black kids. Outside of school would be even worse because while being on the up and up, hew would be constantly stereotyped and treated as a criminal by the outside world. On TV he would see images of fellow Black men and women being shot down in the street by fearful police officers. If he was trying to do some good in the world, people still wouldn't trust him simply based on what he looks like. He would truly be the outcast that 50s white Peter Parker apparently was simply being a nerd. Peter's only salvation would be from having been blessed with super-human powers, because when he puts on that mask, nobody can see what he looks like underneath. For the first time, he would be judged for his actions rather than his skin. He would be loved by all people regardless of race. The only down side would be that people would still assume he was a white guy underneath. 

I don't know about you, but that seems like a very compelling character journey that I would love to see play out. As I said the 50s nerdy white kid thing doesn't work anymore. That's why people like Toby Maguire as Spider-Man and fewer people liked Andrew Garfield. I personally like Andrew Garfield's performance more because it feels real and less like the 90s geek stereotype that Maguire was. The only way to make that believable would be to make Peter another stereotype of a fat card game playing nerd of today, which wouldn't be pleasing for today's audience to watch. Being an intelligent, non threatening Black male in America is to be an outcast. Making him Black would not only not hurt the character but would enhance the character greatly.

Tony on the other hand makes considerably less sense as a Black person. Tony Stark comes from a long line of successful business owners and inventors. He was a billionaire before he even grew up and rode on his father's success until he finally made a name for himself with his Iron-Man armor. Yes anybody can be as intelligent as he is, but it is a lot less likely that a POC, specifically a Black man, would have such a long line of American business owners. It's just not quite something that most people would be able to buy because of the nation's history so far. If it were to work out, you would need to drastically change his backstory, which wouldn't be very respectful to the creators of the character.

As you can hopefully see, if the change will aid in the character's already existing theme, then any such change should be welcome. This isn't specifically against white people nor white characters, the way that many people seem to believe as they rant about Zendaya on Twitter. Representation is a good thing in any case, and there have always been an abundance of cultures that could have been pulled from over the years. Honestly, writers in the past have caused this shift on their own. If they had written their white characters to have a deeper and more culturally involved character arch, then they wouldn't be able to be changed. It is because of them that whiteness is seen as the default trait in any character created in this country. "White" isn't a trait connected to Peter or Tony because people already expect him to be just "white". That word doesn't honestly mean much of anything, but without diving into Tony's roots, we will never know what depth could have been captured. The tragedy of this country is the Europeans come here and become just another white person, where as everyone else (who may want to just become one of the many) come here and are never allowed to forget their differences. Differences are a good thing, at least it seems that more and more filmmakers are striving to utilize this fact.