Minority and sexism in comics and movies

[Silver Lantern]

There is one thing i noticed, in most superhero movies, comics and other information seen that is made and has come out including batman, superman, hulk, captain america, spiderman, avengers, kick ass, hellboy and many more there should be more things given to these characters. I am not pleased what i see now days not becuase of damn good movies and stories but the lack of two or more things:

1: Gay characters: Why is there no gay characters like a major superhero such as a gay batman or something or part of a story that is a great character who dedicates his life to helping others and standing up for right of humans to be like one. There needs to be a midnighter and Apollo movie with all that in it and the love between the two characters.

2: Minorities: Most heroes are white but not much of multi racial characters as leads in most superhero films i see now.

3: Female- We need to see a great movie like wonder woman, supergirl, batgirl or some female besides tomb raider that is awsome and could be a blockbuster with the a male in distress.

 

[dark_b]

-a known character in the new green lantern comics is now gay
-marvel is doing black panther
-not going to happen. old producers dont like women in their expensive blockbuster movies.

 

[metaphysician]

I wouldn't mind seeing a good Black Panther film, but I can understand why Marvel is leery.

 

[ShredderX]

I just want to see a good Black superhero film period. Besides Blade, all the others like Meteor Man, Blankman, Hancock, Black Dynamite, etc have all been comedies played for laughs.

 

[8wid]

Can you imagine if Batman or Superman were made into an African American or gay character the controversy that would start?

 

[Thundercrack85]

You do realize that most popular heroes are quite old, right? They came from a time when minorities were invisible, and being gay was illegal.

Batman, Superman, Captain America even Spider-man, are all from a very different era.

 

[Hobgoblin]

Why no gay superhero? Two words: public outcry. Just listen to this:



EDIT: And for the record, the new Ultimate Spider-Man, Miles Morales, isnt gay at all. That was a rumor that was quickly squashed by Marvel. Still, imagine if some parent took their kid to a superhero movie, knowing nothing about it, and then found out that the main character was gay. Remember, many people still see comics as "for kids" so they would be outraged that a gay character would be in a "kids movie."

 

[8wid]

So from that I get that making a change like that would produce an ignorance freak out from conservatives egged on by Fox News pundits and radio talk show hosts? We would see conservations about this change would be all over cable news and would destroy the idea probably. Even if it were an underground or alternative comic people would freak out just because one element of a character like that.

I would probably make the mainstream audience go insane by doing things like moving Spider-Man out of New York to swinging around the skyscrapers of Hong Kong instead or Gotham City to an older city in Europe where a billionaire lives in Wayne castle instead of manor etc.

 

[Hobgoblin]

That about sums it up.

 

[redhawk23]

I see no reason to change very significant things about 70 year old characters, like changing their race or sexual orientation.

The problem is that its been decades since any new major characters have come about. As others have said, many of these characters reflect the times in which they were written. If the film or comic industries were still in the business of creating anything new, characters could more align with modern values.

 

[metaphysician]

I think there are some cases where you could change the race and ethnicity of a character without doing them any harm, or even improving them. My go-to example is Daredevil: his backstory and characterization would work exactly the same if he were hispanic, and the only stretch if he were black is being a black Catholic ( which is not rare, just not stereotypical ).

By contrast, Spider-man is an example of a character with potential traps if you change his ethnicity. Nothing about Peter Parker's backstory requires him to be white, so on the surface, he could be flipped readily. However, if you changed Peter's ethnicity, while leaving everything else the same? Combine "minority" with "buzzard luck", and you run a strong chance of accidentally making Spider-man into a bad aesop about being oppressed by a racist society.