Thoughts on Black Characters in Fiction

July 22, 2021

Thoughts on Black Characters in Fiction

I'm going to start off by saying I have nothing against black people and I actually have a point. Just keep reading and you'll see that. Thank you.

There's been a recent trend lately in movies, especially re-makes. Taking white characters and making them into POC (people of color). Ariel in the Little Mermaid. Johnny Storm in the 2015 Fantastic Four. Snow flippin' White in the upcoming Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Again, I have nothing against people of different ethnicities than me. God made all of us and we all should have the opportunities to see ourselves onscreen. But I don't think turning white characters black is the way to go.

For one thing, many of these characters are traditionally white, like Snow White. What if if someone where to take a character like Tiana and turn her white? There would be outrage, and for a good reason.

For another thing, I think we just need to come up with more original stories and characters that are already black or other ethnicities. Like Black Panther or Princess Jasmine. Characters that people can see themselves in, that face the same sorts of problems that they do, or that show them as heroes or royals or whatever.

That's one thing I appreciate so much about Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's worked hard to make every music he writes feature people like him, because that's what he always wanted to see. Now people of all kinds can watch things like Hamilton or In the Heights and see themselves portrayed.

There are a lot of great traditional folk stories and fairytales from all parts of the world, not just the European ones. Why don't we some of these stories come to the screen? I would love to see more interesting and diverse tales brought to life with actors from all over the world.

It's great the Hollywood is trying to be more diverse. (Although we could go into a whole debate on the pros and cons of trying to be diverse, to which there is no right answer.) But they need to go beyond having the Black Best Friend or turning a traditional white character black.

Some movies that have done this well are ones like Coco, Soul, and Black Panther. They show you can write an original story with a cast of color and have it work just fine. They don't feel like movies about black people, they feel like movies about people.

This is just something I've been thinking about lately and wanted to share. I'm kind of nervous to even post this because of how messed up our world is these days, with everyone taking offense at everything. But my only point is that I want to see more stories written for black leads.