When Marvel Comics announced that Michael B. Jordan had been cast to play the role of The Human Torch in its upcoming Fantastic Four film (a character described as a white male in the original comics), the news was met with an onslaught of racist criticism, much like the response to Amandla Stenberg, a black girl, being cast to play the role of Rue in the first Hunger Games film.
Now Michael has responded to the criticism in a powerful Entertainment Weekly piece titled Why I’m Torching the Color Line written by the actor himself.
Check it out after the cut
You’re not supposed to go on the
Internet when you’re cast as a superhero. But after taking on Johnny
Storm in Fantastic Four—a character originally written with blond hair
and blue eyes—I wanted to check the pulse out there. I didn’t want to be
ignorant about what people were saying. Turns out this is what they
were saying: “A black guy? I don’t like it. They must be doing it
because Obama’s president” and “It’s not true to the comic.” Or even,
“They’ve destroyed it!”
It used to bother me, but it doesn’t
anymore. I can see everybody’s perspective, and I know I can’t ask the
audience to forget 50 years of comic books. But the world is a little
more diverse in 2015 than when the Fantastic Four comic first came out
in 1961. Plus, if Stan Lee writes an email to my director saying,
“You’re good. I’m okay with this,” who am I to go against that?
Some people may look at my casting as
political correctness or an attempt to meet a racial quota, or as part
of the year of “Black Film.” Or they could look at it as a creative
choice by the director, Josh Trank, who is in an interracial
relationship himself—a reflection of what a modern family looks like
today.
This is a family movie about four
friends—two of whom are myself and Kate Mara as my adopted sister—who
are brought together by a series of unfortunate events to create unity
and a team. That’s the message of the movie, if people can just allow
themselves to see it.
Sometimes you have to be the person
who stands up and says, “I’ll be the one to shoulder all this hate. I’ll
take the brunt for the next couple of generations.” I put that
responsibility on myself. People are always going to see each other in
terms of race, but maybe in the future we won’t talk about it as much.
Maybe, if I set an example, Hollywood will start considering more people
of color in other prominent roles, and maybe we can reach the people
who are stuck in the mindset that “it has to be true to the comic book.”
Or maybe we have to reach past them.
To the trolls on the Internet, I want
to say: Get your head out of the computer. Go outside and walk around.
Look at the people walking next to you. Look at your friends’ friends
and who they’re interacting with. And just understand this is the world
we live in. It’s okay to like it.
Well done, Michael. Well done.
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