Krai said:
Smilomaniac said:
"You talk about racial equality, how we're making progress. The problem with that progress is it's always a day away. Tomorrow, tomorrow-you love that!-because it's always a day away. I'm here to stick out my chin today! Today! Give us an African-American Spider Man! Give us a black that can run faster than a speeding bullet and leap over tall buildings in a single bound! Not tomorrow-today! Today! The sun needs to come out today! Not tomorrow, your Honor! God Almighty! Give the American people a black Orphan Annie. It's just not good enough to say she doesn't look the part."
I can't believe no one has mentioned this from Boston Legal.
Boston Legal predicting controversies a full 10 years before they happen.
I would Love it if Al Sharpton just gave that speech again regarding this issue.
My basic argument is simply why do they need to make Annie black. Why not simply create a black child-hero and try and see if it can succeed on it's own. My basic attitude is that this kind of thing, whether it's Heimdall or Annie is just a political statement for the sake of causing controversy and getting attention.
See, if someone wanted to do a black child hero, my recommendation would be for Disney to actually use the "Abadazad" license they have apparently been sitting on for ages and has pretty much killed anything being done with it. Part of the premise of "Abadazad" which is a darker take on the whole fantastic child adventures thing, is that Dorothy was black, and Oz was actually a biography, but she was whitewashed by the publishers. She acts as a sort of mentor to another (white) child hero, but Dorothy's own adventures figure prominently into the story, and one could always do an entire series based off of that under the "Abadazad" name where things are substantially different from Oz (in a rather twisted fashion at times) without arguably invoking a lot of the same problems, since it wouldn't actually be "Oz" per se but a different world loosely based off of it. Albeit it would properly be a prequel series, or the first couple of seasons of a show intended to go multi-generational from the beginning. There are of course other examples beyond this one.
Also in response to say "Boston Legal", my basic attitude is why you'd want a "Black Spider Man" as a sign of progress other than to annoy people like they did with Miles Morales. After all there are already a number of perfectly good black super heroes out there, that simply need to be promoted (which also applies to the other comments about black super heroes in a general sense). Not to mention if more blacks go into comic writing and artwork (given enough interest more will succeed over time) you'll see more such characters "earned" and "created" through contribution rather than just given as a political statement, and really that's half the issue I think, this kind of political stuff might earn some short term kudos, but a real victory needs to be earned with characters and success happening on their own in a genuine sense. The very fact that it's noteworthy that they are making the new Annie black, or turned Heimdall black, and becomes a promotional message is exactly why it's fairly pointless, and in 5-10 years people will still be trying to make the same statement as "Boston Legal" because most who care won't think that these previous things really mattered much (and really, beyond being an affront to canon, and getting some political attention they really don't).
I'm not going to argue the point at the moment, just giving my opinion on the matter. I imagine this will get 15 minutes of fame and within a few years it will be like it never happened. Sort of like when they did "The Wiz" and "Motown Fairy Tales" (I think it was).