According to a couple of black guys: http://www.outrightgeekery.com/2019/02/09/batman-cant-black-video-commentary/
To be honest, I used to think like them, but now I wonder if Bruce could be mixed-race (maybe one of his rich relatives married a POC) or maybe he was adopted, and once the Waynes were milled Alfred took responsible for him instead of allowing him to go back to a children's home, or the hood, as the guys in the video joke.
It's an interesting question.
Take James Bond... in the last few decade or so there has been this call from some quarters to make Bond black, female, gay, whatever.
Purists like me think it's an awful idea. The literary character which gave birth to the cinematic version was given a pretty detailed history by Fleming... a history based on his Scottish/Swiss background which would make him pretty damn white and colour his choices in women, food, fashion, etc. Everything that makes him Bond.
(FWIW, though I think they could/should experiment with another 00 franchise... a character who would live and move around in James Bond's universe having his/her own separate adventures.)
Superheroes are different though because they wear masks. I don't mean literally, but metaphorically. When people think of Batman, they don't think of Bruce Wayne playing Batman... they think of this semi-vigilante caped character who happens to turn into Bruce Wayne on his downtime. Batman is a concept and anyone could fill that role.
Personally, I wouldn't have an issue with swapping out Bruce Wayne with someone else. I saw the recent Spider-Man cartoon and it didn't bother me at all that much that Spider-Man was a Latino kid instead of an angsty white teenager.
I think skin color is in most cases a meaningless aspect of a character. There are plenty of black people in Scotland and Switzerland, but more important to me is whether or not having Scottish and Swiss ancestry is in any way integral to the Bond character. I'd say no. I've read all of Fleming's Bond books, and my takeaway is that he needs to be male, British, handsome in a rugged way, and capable of charismatic charm and cold-blooded violence as the situation warrants. A black actor could embody those just as easily as a white actor.
Batman has a different set of defining traits. He's wealthy, damaged, haunted, in peak physical shape, and able to put up a convincing front that he's a carefree playboy millionaire. Again, race doesn't enter into it. A black Batman, or Asian, Latin, whatever-- all work equally well. An Indian-American Batman who inherited his parent's tech fortune would make perfect sense, for example, in today's America.
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Bond could easily be black. Not a woman though, that would be a totally different character.
shareYes, Batman CAN be black, or mixed-race. Interracial marriage has been legal and increasingly commonplace for generations now, and there's no reason that the old-money scion Thomas Wayne couldn't have married a woman of any whatever race is most convenient to the casting director. And it'd be so easy to establish that fact, show a picture of Bruce's parents, with a preppy white father and a Martha who resembles the leading actor, or show an interracial couple in the inevitable murder flashback. And no, changing Bruce Wayne's racial background wouldn't change his personality or background in any significant way, he'd still have grown up among the white-dominant blue-blood old-money prep-school culture of Gotham society.
Honestly, this one is a no-brainer.
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Fascinating and insightful response.
shareTo some extent I agree, but if we also accept that the US is still a racially segregated society in which the race one is born with significantly affects one's life chances, I don't think we can entirely ignore it when it comes to characters like Bruce Wayne who is meant to represent the 1% (did you listen to the video I linked?) Comic-book canon also has Wayne descending from two prominent old-money families.
That said, if the CW can make a DC character traditionally portrayed as a Nazi in the comics, a black man on one of its shows, then I guess anything is possible.
"To some extent I agree, but if we also accept that the US is still a racially segregated society in which the race one is born with significantly affects one's life chances"
You know, if one is born with Bruce Wayne's fortune and social status, I suspect it doesn't make that huge a difference.
Good point.
But I think it might be interesting, after several standard live-action iterations of Bruce Wayne, to possibly switch things up, and give him a slightly different backstory. Like I suggested, he could be a black kid who was in fact adopted by the Waynes, who were then killed, and who then chose to fight on behalf of the loving adopted parents who took him out of poverty/a children's home.
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Making Batman black would make as much sense as making Shaft a little short jewish black guy.
The character in both instances has already been set in stone to change either one just stinks of diversity shit gone bad. Reminds me of when they tried to make a black Barbie doll... Oh the need to do it for diversity... and then you would find them unsold on clearance isles until they were finally just thrown away... why? Because the character was already defined and redefining the most basic part of a character - there race - is never going to be acceptable to most people.
no. just no. let batman stay batman
shareAffleck is no more , end of the line, gone , never again , realised what a shitshow the dceu was
sharei meant a white male dummy.
shareCheck out YoungRippa59 on YouTube he too covered this topic a couple of weeks ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QA4U7483bQ
Why can't Shaft, Othello, and Black panther be white?
shareBecause there black
shareWell, Bruce Wayne and James Bond are white. So you are saying the discussion about casting Wayne and Bond with black actors is moot?
I assume you meant "because they're are black".
Definition of there
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/there
nah i just said will smith cause to piss the OP off , I couldn't give a shit if there black or white
shareThat sounds like the plot to Diff’rent Strokes.
share>>>or maybe he was adopted, and once the Waynes were milled Alfred took responsible for him instead of allowing him to go back to a children's home, or the hood, as the guys in the video joke. <<<
Haven't watched the video. Just a note, if he were adopted he most certainly would not "go back to a children's home." Adoption makes him the Wayne's son, not a foster child. He would be heir to the Wayne fortune and enterprises. The Waynes would have a guardian and system in place to care for him.
In our woke and open, liberal society ... how many black billionaires are in the US?
Not that many. And even fewer with ties to the tech industry. Of course, if we don't want to take our society as the forming factor then yeah ... can be any color.
Create a story and imagine the characters.
The original writer wanted batman as white.
Imagine someone telling you how to arrange the cha in your own story.
If this went the other way. It wouldn't fly
Imagine if he had been black!
Somebody somewhere would be complaining about the'Dark Knight' and crying racism!