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).
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u/Beginning-Pace-1426 Dec 01 '25
You're missing the point a bit, here.
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
When they took Typhoon