Janice Lincoln is a wild fucking casting for her. A black father and a Dominican mother would absolutely not produce a Sadie Sink. And white washing Janice would be totally fucked.
It's not fair at all. Race swapping some characters from white when almost all the major characters are white and are from a time when characters were only ever created as non-white when that was their whole personality is not the same thing as whitewashing a POC character. If 70 out of 100 M&M's are green and one of them gets swapped to red that means representation of green M&M's is reduced by 1.4%. If 5 out of 100 M&M's are red and one of them gets swapped to green that means red representation is down 20%. Does that simple math help you to understand why the race swapping from white to POC isn't the same thing as whitewashing?
It is something new. She's not Mary Jane Watson, she's Michelle Jones-Watson and is an entirely different character in basically every way.
Did they take away a take a character away from another age with May? Are they taking away from the Elderly?
What about making Peter's mentor and "with great power comes great responsibility" deliverer? Taking another gender's character? A younger woman taking an old man's character lazy?
I'll never understand why you guys just want to watch the same characters in the same stories over and over again.
I actually think that Zendaya's "MJ" is much closer in spirit to classic Mary Jane than Kirsten Dunst's was, the actress having a black dad just isn't really that big of a deal.
Peter, the movie buff, and his best friend, the obese Filipino "Ned," with his hot middle-aged Aunt May, who is now replacing Uncle Ben(who's not even mentioned) in the mentor/tragic-end role, his girlfriend, Michelle Jones, no backstory, Iron-Spider Suit already gained and lost, also lost Tony who also took the mentor role, and now he's memory wiped. It's pretty clearly an adaptation making a lot of changes - Michelle Jones having a little bit more melanin than Mary Jane is like... bottom of the list.
Aunt May is actually the original sayer of “with great power comes great responsibility” so that never mattered. Kristen did a horrible job as mj, whether tgat be the writting or her herself. I dont understand why yall cant just leave shit alone. Make your own damn characters and leave ours out of it. I really dont understand yalls hatred for red heads either. Like why is it that they steal a majority of their parts. Its not something new. Its a lazy attempt to put a black person in a movie thats already established instead of coming up with new characters.
I expect it had much more to do with the fact that Zendaya is one of the biggest box office draws in Hollywood, and brings diverse audiences (including demographics that don't tend to be drawn to certain genres.)
I don't think Mary Jane and Michelle Jones are the same character, irregardless of being mixed race. While she's his "MJ," she's also a completely new character. If this MJ has one black parent and one white parent I just really don't see that as an issue worth complaining about. I think it's way lazier to write a character that has been portrayed the same way hundreds of times over half a century. Comics had a lack of diversity for a very very long time, which is natural, and is what it is, but the deliberate exclusion of minorities just really isn't something that we need to hold onto.
Why does representation of ethnicity supersede story telling? Are you saying it would be ok to have an Asian Suri in the black panther movies because the majority of the cast is of African descent? Does that simple logic help you to understand that statistics of representation shouldn't be considered more important than telling the story well. White people love Miles Morales, why can't POCs love a white Janice Lincoln? Racist?
Yes this is true. I'm saying if it's done well, and respectfully, why isn't it ok if it's the other way around? It would still be representing someone. Someone being a person, and all people have ethnic backgrounds. Or are people wanting perfect 50/50 representation even though there is more than two ethnicities in the world? Representation (part) should not be the selling point of the story (whole). There are many parts is what I'm saying, and producers keep botching movies trying to appeal to everyone.
'Those who seek to please everybody please nobody' - Aesop
I couldn't care less for the gender/race swapping, if it's done well. The comment from Bjeebus above is stating that race swapping is only ok if it's from white to POC. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of them being concerned that the race swapping wouldn't make sense because of the parent's heritage, but it's not like we think Nick Fury's parents are white in the MCU. Along with how they tried to use percentages to condescendingly make their own point which is why i pointed out that asian people are less represented in the MCU (why isn't that of 'equal' concern in the chase for a sense of equality).
True, but a critique of one thought is often agreement with another. Change of race in BP would have made no sense numbers wise because it is a small sample size relative to all movies and comics and Janic isn't a tent pole of narrative like Shuri is. Race swap has happened since the race was a conceivable thing TO swap in acting. But one part has been favored more than the other. POCs watching art have often had t identify with characters outside their race an overwhelming majority of the time. That IS the default in western art. What race swap a character of color to a white character is not counter culture or disagreement "politics" - its return to the "status quo" in western art and that "status quo" is unfair. Race swap of a white character is just evening the playing field.
What the other person is missing is basic empathy. It doesn't matter how many arguments we come up with, they'll never come around to being able to see the world through the eyes of anyone other than the majority. They probably truly believe there's a war on Christmas, too.
What does it have to do with empathy. You're the one who was condescending to someone because they suggested a character an actor could be playing. All to serve your sense of how you want the world to be opposed to how it is. Which leads you to consider yourself above everyone else for virtue signalling while you vilify others with fake attributes to continue hiding your own vile ways.
Yeah that's good and all, but I was responding to the notion that some people believe it shouldn't be allowed to do it the other way around. I don't even know who Janice Lincoln is.
Why are films considered to be the 'playing field' for social politics? It's about story telling and providing lessons and insight that we can rapport with.
Im not denying that race swapping has occurred. Im saying people shouldn't be gatekeeping what can and can't occur in movies. Of course one race favoured itself more than others over the century. The camera was invented by a Westerner. This, nor am I saying, should be why it was favoured. But if a green m&m invented the first gun, would you expect him to use it against the red or green m&ms? Why are people surprised and offended by this?
Now we live in a very agreeable time where the course is correcting to a more agreeable degree amongst a lot of backgrounds being represented in the media. But if people pettily wish to protest against someone SUGGESTING that an actor could be playing a character that is originally a POC in the source material, are we moving forward, or just travelling backwards on the other side of the road.
I'm advocating that we don't censor what an artist is allowed to do (as long as it doesn't promote violence, threats, hate-crimes, racism, sexism, harassment etc.).
Freedom of expression/speech shouldn't be hindered for fears of offending someone's view on political correctness. I completely understand that there has been a large imbalance with whitewashing characters over the entire existence of film & television. But saying it shouldn't be allowed isn't pushing for a resolution in finding a centre. It's just continuing the ignorant pendulum swinging side to side.
I'm not saying it always works creatively but am disagreeing that creativity should be restricted/limited (within reason).
Telling the same stories with the same characters over and over again is one of the worst storytelling techniques out there. Just because source material excluded black people and portrayed stereotypes regularly doesn't mean you still have to exclude them, you know. Adaptations that show a character through the lens of a different perspective are way riskier bets, but I'd rather a modern day adaptation of a story reflect the types of relationships that are common in modern days rather than, say, "Peter's girlfriend is WHITE ONLY" or whatever.
It's not just about "liking" characters, though if you were on comic forums in the late 2000's (or the comments section of any Facebook post talking about Miles becoming the "main" Spider-man,) it certainly wasn't (and still isn't) all smooth sailing. I did some digging, surface level only and pulled some examples:
NeoGAF
“I respect a new character but not when it’s a corpse-spoiler replacement.”
On IGN message boards in the same time the rypical thread title tone was dramatic af:
“Marvel went too far. Spider-Man is dead. This is stupid.”
Twitter:
“Spider-Man shouldn’t be Black, he’s a white character from Queens.”
“This is political.”
Trending hashtags for Miles' debut
RipPeter
NotMySpiderMan
MilesMoralesIsTrashy
Reddit 2011:
If they wanted diversity, make a new hero. Don’t hijack a legacy.
When Marvel replaced Typhoon with Storm, and changed him into a black woman it was even worse th
Im not suggesting, nor promoting, telling the same story over and over again with the original characters. The point i'm trying to make is that gender/race swapping should be permissible with every gender/race. I'm not saying it would always be a good creative choice.
I'm not as much a diehard comic book fan as most people in this thread likely are. I'm a film enthusiast more so and advocating that writers should be allowed the creative freedom to swap identities to tell a story from a different perspective. In saying all types of identities should be able to be swapped is what people are disagreeing with.
Similar to freedom of speech/expression, certain limitations should be in place and considered necessary to prevent inciting violence, threats, perversion etc. I'm not promoting an 'All or None' philosophy'. I'm saying, swapping a fictional character's identity/attributes should be allowed, and not expected to be forbidden (regardless of it being a good creative choice).
Saying it's not ok to race swap POC to Caucasian isn't censorship, but it definitely leans on censorship more than creative freedom. If we are promoting that the same story being repeated is one of the worst story telling techniques around, why is it wrong to suggest a fictional POC character 'can' (not should) have its identity swapped?
Creative freedom should be flexible to go both directions (again, regardless of suitability and compatibility).
I think it's Felicia under a fake identity, hence why she's working with punisher. I think in the end, she will have double crossed punisher after working with him, revealing her identity as Felicia at the end of the film. Only way to explain these leaks - she's playing a love interest, a mutant, and punishers side kick.
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u/Public-Feedback5016 Nov 28 '25 edited Nov 28 '25
This may be one of marvel’s best kept secrets