So there were some new updates on the birds of Prey Casting recently. Jurnee Smollet-Bell has been cast in the role of Black Canary, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead has been cast to play Huntress.
All exciting news…but also has me wondering about the casting as well. And I’m sure u all know which one I am talking about .
Now I myself have not seen much from Ms jurnee myself, so I cannot speak on her acting chops (hope she is good) but after reading about her playing the role of Dinah, I had to ask myself…was that really necessary.
I’m all for being inclusive, but is the only answer that Hollywood has to that is to cast people of race and color in Caucasian roles made for Caucasian characters? If you asked my opinion, that seems like sloppy seconds to me. Why go through all the trouble of casting someone who looks nothing like her source material, and say it’s ok because we r being inclusive. And before anyone says she’s not that big a character, I’ll tell u ur wrong, and she is. Especially in the last few decades.
Say what u will about me, but think on this, if things were reversed, how much of an uproar would social media, the news, and entertainment be if a Caucasian actress was cast in a role written for a black or Hispanic woman. Just my thoughts on the matter.
Wow, touchy subject. I like it haha. Uuuumm to be honest after the shit show of the 2002 show how much worse could it get? I thought all those actors were cool, but only Oracle had a legit character. Why tf was huntress Batman’s daughter haha. And also wtf is up with Black Canary being psychic?! I thought it was just awful what a laugh. That being said… I think Black Canary is such a big character that to just change her race for the sake of being PC is a little uncalled for. I myself am half black and half Mexican and I’m not sure how I would feel if she was black or Mexican. But also, that role has already been portrayed by 3 different white women in Arrowverse. Why not make the 4th one black? I still think they shouldn’t. But i do think that people would be upset at the show being about three white girls. It’s hard for anyone to win here. I think if they truly feel the need to have a colored actor make it huntress, she’s less iconic
It’s about representation. For the longest time minorities and women were not even considered full persons. For some that’s still a reality today, sadly. If we were all created equal but some are more equal than others, we need to make concerted efforts to fix that. You can probably count black superheroes on screen on the fingers if one hand. There are pretty much no LGBTQ superheroes on screen. Again, representing all types of people is key for a society to be truly equal where everyone has the same rights and status as a human as everyone else.
These politically correct arguments get tiring. It’s only a movie and if it’s too far from the source material, and it bothers you, don’t patronize the film. Frankly, with all the tumult surrounding the DCEU I have just about lost all interest–so I really don’t care.