Earlier this week Marvel Studios announced the highly anticipated and long awaited Black Panther movie set for a 11/3/2017 release. While I, as a fan of Marvel Comics and the character of Black Panther in particular, am very excited by this development, it in no way equates a victory for black characters being recognized in general. There are plenty of independent, black created and owned properties out there to be had and will be largely overlooked for numerous reasons. Among those reasons are: 1) They are independent properties not owned by the BIG two, DC and Marvel. 2) They are properties which prominently feature black characters as leads or largely comprising the main cast as a majority. 3) They don’t have the deep advertising pockets of DC and Marvel. As a black creator of speculative fiction and comic book inspired characters, I am hoping that the movie is good not only from a fan’s perspective, but also as a means of exploiting that recognition to give attention to other black characters and properties of black indie creators. The reason I bring this up is that many mainstream audience members, no matter how inclusive minded they may think of themselves, tend to shy away from stories featuring black protagonists or mostly black characters in general. While mainstream media, for the most part, is focused on almost exclusively, white characters. The late Black creator Dwayne McDuffie said it best: “The Rule of Three…in the eyes of the mainstream regarding popular entertainment, if there are three black characters in it, it is considered by the mainstream to be a black product.” This is something which I have noticed as a fan of fiction in various media forms and as a black creator. Many white fans of genre fiction, males in particular, tend to feel threatened by media featuring a black protagonist and/or a predominately black cast. I have heard things such as, “I don’t like that you’re shoving your agenda down my throat” or “I can’t relate to an all-black cast very well because they’re too different.” This disturbs me in that in most media, we find the opposite situation where stories feature white protagonists and/or predominately white casts. Yet, we find that many black fans eagerly accept them and don’t make up lame excuses for shunning them like their white counterparts. As a teen, I grew up with The Breakfast Club, a film with an all-white cast, and related to those characters just fine. So, as a black viewer how is it that I can relate to an all-white cast, while some white viewers can’t relate to an all-black cast? This is certainly something to chew on going into the future and beyond!
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 14:23:14 +0000
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