In case you haven’t heard by now, the “Fantastic Four” reboot that came out in August was a complete disaster. From what I’ve read, most fans and professional critics agree that the poor writing and direction were the icebergs behind its titanic failure.
I don’t know about you, but those sound like fairly straightforward attributes of a bad movie to me (example: “Pearl Harbor”). However, as with any general consensus, there are always a few outliers. One particular dissenter, username “Pr0gram,” claims that the blame for the fantastic flop of “Fantastic Four” lies squarely on the shoulders of Michael B. Jordan, who portrayed the Human Torch.
“The film failed because [20th Century Fox] thought they were too cool for the room and needed to add PC casting and having a black Human Torch,” Pr0gram said in the comment section of a Cinema Blend article concerning the movie. “Well, where are all those black people that you pandered to by casting Mikey B. Jordan? They sure didn’t go see your movie, now did they?”
That’s right, folks. Pr0gram, the smartest guy in the forum, says the reason the movie failed is because Jordan is black. I can honestly tell you that after reading that comment, my brain felt like a fried egg due to the amount of stupidity I was unable to process.
How does casting a black man in the role of a white superhero equate to political correctness? To be PC, one must put forth a strong effort to avoid offending or marginalizing certain groups of people within our society.
Is Pr0gram trying to say that hiring Jordan was a move motivated by fear of offending black people? Well, I’m black, and if anything is offensive to me about this whole situation, it’s how narrow-minded this particular user (and many others) can be about diversity in the world of fandoms.
News flash, our society is not just one big episode of “Leave it to Beaver.” We live in a country that allows us to interact with all kinds of people from various races, religions and walks of life. Despite this common fact, people still have the nerve to act like it’s a cardinal sin to portray what life looks like in modern-day America.
Some fans need to understand that other people besides white males like to read comic books and watch movies that are based off of them. If anything, casting Jordan was an attempt to reach out to a demographic that rarely gets any love when it comes to big budget films like this. Granted, it didn’t work out the way anyone had planned, but it was a noble attempt nonetheless.
I hope to one day live in a world where people don’t dismiss the possibility of a black James Bond, or make nasty comments about a group of funny female Ghostbusters, or even decry the attempts of many writers and artists to make comics appealing for both boys and girls.
The faster that day comes, the better. But until then, we should support the media for wanting to represent those outside of the majority. After all, is it really worth it to live in a world with no diversity? We’d probably be better off as a society of gray blobs like that episode of “The Fairly OddParents,” which truthfully didn’t look like a whole lot of fun, either.
