Seeing ourselves and our culture represented on the big screen is something many people of colour love. Growing up with mostly white characters in films and TV shows, Hollywood’s recent diversity and inclusiveness should be considered as progress, right?
Race-swapping or racebending is when an established character’s race or ethnicity is changed in the story. Although the discourse around race-swapping has sparked many debates in recent years with demands for amplified diversity in Hollywood, race-swapping has been a practice for many years.
However, since the release of shows and movies such as ‘Velma,’ the live-action remake of ‘The Little Mermaid,’ and ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,’ there is a call to revisit the debate surrounding race-swapping.
In recent years, the lack of roles for people of colour in Hollywood has resulted in heavy criticism. In response, many studios and productions have attempted to diversify their casts through race-blind casting or by ensuring more actors from underrepresented minority groups are included. Another tactic has been race swapping, which is when an actor or actress is cast as a character originally portrayed as someone of a different ethnicity.
Whether in film, TV series, adaptations, or the source material, even minor changes to a character can be tricky. Many movie buffs claim to want studios to shake things up, but when confronted with changes that involve diversity and inclusiveness, many fans can become quite enraged.
Simply changing a character’s race is an easy way to cause countless debates among fans, considering that a majority of the time, everything else about the character, from their appearance to their personalities, remain identical.
The reasons for this can vary: sometimes fans don’t actually want real change or they might want real progress and originality, and sometimes, unfortunately, a darker reasoning is behind this outrage.
Superhero adaptations have had many notable examples of race-swapping; for example, Zendaya taking on the role of Mary Jane Watson in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) ‘Spider-Man’ series, or Keiynan Lonsdale and Candice Patton playing Wally and Iris West in the The CW’s ’The Flash’. However, Disney’s live-action remake of ‘The Little Mermaid’ drew fresh attention to these casting decisions when Halle Bailey was announced to be cast in the iconic role of Ariel.
Media outlets and viewers initially embraced the choice as a sign of progressiveness and inclusivity. Many online videos emerged of little girls being delighted by the depiction of a black Ariel, which appeared to justify the decision.
However, many arguments and concerns remained under the radar at the time. The primary debate was this: if Disney wanted to give roles to actors from minorities, why couldn’t they create original stories with new characters and storylines that accurately depicted the experiences of people from those groups?
The latter approach is not new, given that movies like ‘Pocahontas,’ ‘Moana,’ and ‘The Princess and the Frog,’ which focus on non-white characters, have already been done before. As such, a remake that simply swaps the race of its lead character feels incredibly disingenuous and even exploitative.
To add to this, there were whitewashing claims in July 2017 after a non-Arab white actress, Naomi Scott, was cast in Princess Jasmine’s role in the live-action adaptation of ‘Aladdin,’ after a reportedly extensive worldwide casting call.
Moreover, the production was accused of putting extras in brownface rather than hiring people who did not need makeup to ‘blend in’ on the streets of Agrabah. The claims were made by Kaushal Odedra, a stand-in for one of the lead actors, who claimed to have seen as many as 20 “very fair skinned” actors waiting in line outside make-up tents to have their skin darkened before filming started.
If Disney really cared about diversity, why whitewash the already diverse characters in its stories?
Look at the ‘Black Panther’ films! A comic book series adaptation of the (black) leader of the most powerful and wealthy nation in the world was brought to the big screen on two separate occasions. This was something that would have seemed like a castle in the air to black people in the ’60s. Now that was some serious progress.
Race-swapping definitely isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for members of marginalised communities. The issue of representation is not merely twofold; sometimes it’s necessary to question whether celebrating the notion of diverse representation can lead to the suppression of the voices of the people who these depictions are meant to represent.
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