Anna
Diop has been cast as Starfire in the Titans TV show. Anna Diop is a
Senegalese naturalised US citizen. Starfire is a bright orange alien
so, honestly, the only people who could authentically be cast in this
role are busy hosting BBC antique shows or pretending to run the
United States.
What
I guess I'm asking is this: can fandom, just this once, not be
annoying about a black actress being cast in a non-black role?
The
nerd rage would be more than usually ludricrous in this case. And,
make no mistake, it is usually ludricrous. There are very few
characters in comics who “have to” be white. There are a few:
Steve Rogers has to be white because of how the armed services were
segregated back then, Batman pretty much has to be because the sort
of old money wealth both his parents come from isn't often found in
African-American hands; Professor Xavier for similar reasons.
Nick
Fury, though? Absent his WWII origins, not necessary. Mary Jane
Watson? Not a character with much real background, let alone
background that needs her to be white (or even ginger). Aquaman is
effectively a character of mixed heritage already, it just happens
that one of those ethnicities is fictional so you can have the fact
that Jason Momoa is of Native Hawaiian, Native American, German and
Irish descent come from any angle (either Aquaman's father was all
those things or Atlantians share characteristics with one or more of
those ethnicities).
Simply
put: few characters even now (let alone decades ago when these
characters were created) are designed to be white. Starfire is an
alien princess who is bright orange. Requirements for the role, much
like the requirements for Batman being a white guy with a strong
chin, are basically that she be hot. To each their own but I think
she qualifies.
You
just know I'm yelling into the wind, though, don't you? That's just
the world we live in. There will be scores of badly worded arguments
trying to disguise racism beneath head canon.
It
will be incredibly tiresome.
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