"Why Batman Can't Be Black"

[robkelk]

I discovered this from it being mentioned in the blog associated with Dresden Codak:

http://www.portlandmercury.com/Blogtown ... t-be-black]Why Batman Can't Be Black
Posted by Bobby Roberts on Mon, Aug 5, 2013 at 12:54 PM

The article makes some good points about just how ... shall we say "conservative" ... fandom can be in our assumptions. Objections and rebuttals:

• "You can't just change somebody's skin color willy-nilly!" If Batman was a real person, that would have merit - but Batman is fictional. You can re-imagine him with the stroke of a pen, and many writers have re-imagined Batman.
  
• "Bruce Wayne has too much back-story - you can't make him black." DC reboots every decade or so - what back-story?
  
• "Why can’t you just create a new character?" Because most readers know new heroes usually don’t gain much traction - so this is actually saying "just create a completely separate black superhero, and put them in their own book, because that way I can easily ignore them."
  

And it isn't just Batman. Remember the hue-and-cry when a blond man was cast as James Bond - this is also why Bond can't be black. Or why The Doctor can't be female.

So, yeah - fandom isn't as open-minded as we like to think we are. Considering how many of us here write for fun or profit, what can we do to help change this?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Matrix Dragon]

Batman can't be black because DC has all the political subtlety of a drunk idiot, and it'd be depressingly clear that the only reason they'd done it was so they could claim how 'politically diverse' they are. It's the modern version of how, back in the 70s, the black heroes being introduced always had Black in their names and were pretty much written as 'LOOK! BLACK HERO!'

So there's my reason. It'd be written by an idiot

[Norgarth]

Of course, Marvel pulled off changing Nick Fury from white to black, so it's at least possible.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Matrix Dragon]

Yes, but they did it in the comics as the original Nick Furys son, making it a separate character. Now, if Black Batman (Christ, that sounds exactly like the 70s problem I just mocked, doesn't it?) was someone other then Bruce Wayne, I could see it.

As for the movies, Samuel L. Jackson is the general publics first look at Nick Fury. Really, before this he was mostly known to comic fans, and people who saw the 90s movie with David Hasselhoff (To people who saw that and managed to repress it, I regret nothing. I WILL NOT SUFFER ALONE). Batman, meanwhile, has constant media saturation going back to the 60s and the Adam West series. Most people already have a mental image of Batman, and that's enough to cause a bit of disconnect.

Personally, I think the stories are better when the character is black, white, asian, indian, male, female, gay, straight, bi, catholic, muslim, Buddhist, Athiest, Communist, Republican, etc and so on, not because 'we'll fill a demographic or cater to a minority' but because that's who the character is. Despite my sarcasm about how poorly comics tend to manage that, there have managed this. The Post Infinite Crisis Blue Beetle comic, the Cassandra Cain Batgirl run, Faiza Hussain from the MI-13 series, and right now there's the new Ms. Marvel comic, which has a legacy character in the form of a Pakistani-American teenager who, in a single issue, provided a better look at muslim characters then comics have managed in years, and something several other forms of media could learn from.

Forget altering existing characters to fit the role you want. Make someone new who's meant to be there.

[Labster]

Batman can't be a black person, because the idea of a vigilante black man would scare the shit out of white Americans. Just because Batman doesn't use guns wouldn't stop every everyone from seeing an imaginary gun in his hand. I might logically know it's Bat-shark-repellent spray, but it sure looks like a gun in a black man's hands. Especially if you happen to be George Zimmerman.

Batman being rich just makes it worse. Fuck, Barack Obama tries to make people buy subsidized health insurance, and all of a sudden it's death panels everywhere. That's how scary black men are: they turn formularies and pre-natal care into a thumbs down in the Roman colluseum.

Sorry, Black Batman would a vigilante menace to society that must be stopped. And locked away in prison with all of the other young black men; who are three times more likely to be incarcerated than white men are.

I realize that these are comic books, but some ideas are just too ridiculous for our society.
-- ∇×V

[robkelk]

Now, if Black Batman (Christ, that sounds exactly like the 70s problem I just mocked, doesn't it?) was someone other then Bruce Wayne, I could see it.

See my earlier post - specifically, the bullet starting with "Why can’t you just create a new character?"

I realize that these are comic books, but some ideas are just too ridiculous for our society.

The same used to be said about integrating schools ... until it was actually done. If a concept continues to be dismissed out-of-hand, it'll never be accepted as valid (or analyzed and found wanting - but the "analyzed" part is the important part).
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

[Bluemage]

Batman can't be a black person, because the idea of a vigilante black
man would scare the shit out of white Americans. Just because Batman
doesn't use guns wouldn't stop every everyone from seeing an imaginary
gun in his hand. I might logically know it's Bat-shark-repellent spray,
but it sure looks like a gun in a black man's hands. Especially if you
happen to be George Zimmerman.

Batman being rich just makes it worse. Fuck, Barack Obama tries to make
people buy subsidized health insurance, and all of a sudden it's death
panels everywhere. That's how scary black men are: they turn
formularies and pre-natal care into a thumbs down in the Roman
colluseum.

Sorry, Black Batman would a vigilante menace to society that must be
stopped. And locked away in prison with all of the other young black
men; who are three times more likely to be incarcerated than white men
are.

Way to politicize what had been a thoughtful discussion, there.  Also, I haven't seen that big a load of strawmen in one place since that one airplane disappeared.(I would've said 'since I last turned on the news', but they've been too busy saying a whole lot of nothing about the plane to discuss politics as of late.)
My opinion is basically the same as Matrix Dragon's.  The more well-known a character (not a superhero, but the character behind the cape) is, the less you can make major alterations to them without the public calling foul... and it doesn't get much more well-known than Bruce Wayne.  The only superhero that'd be harder to race-lift would be Superman, at this point. 
Of course, all sins (against continuity, such as it is) are forgiven if they're well-enough done, but you'd have to write a darn good comic to make the public accept turning a 75-year-old character- one of the most famous and well-covered ever- into a different race.  The question is whether you have the right plot, the right writers, and enough Protection From Executives to pull it off... and considering the state of the comic book industry over the last decade, I don't think they do.  It MIGHT be doable as a movie, but it'd have to be a really good movie.  At least as good as The Avengers, I'd say, to make it work.
Obscure characters?  Easy.  Minor characters in well-known stories?  Still easy.  Major supporting characters?  Doable.  Core characters?  Good luck.
Now, making a black character who then becomes Batman... that'd
be much easier.  The trick is to keep the writing quality up well enough
for the comics to sell, make the character memorable enough to get fan
approval, and sustain that level long enough to develop exposure.  Not easy, but still doable.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Norgarth]

Technically, DC did create a 'black Batman', Batwing.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[Bob Schroeck]

Bluemage wrote:

---

Way to politicize what had been a thoughtful discussion, there.  Also, I haven't seen that big a load of strawmen in one place since that one airplane disappeared.(I would've said 'since I last turned on the news', but they've been too busy saying a whole lot of nothing about the plane to discuss politics as of late.)
My opinion is basically the same as Matrix Dragon's.  The more well-known a character (not a superhero, but the character behind the cape) is, the less you can make major alterations to them without the public calling foul... and it doesn't get much more well-known than Bruce Wayne.  The only superhero that'd be harder to race-lift would be Superman, at this point.

The thing is, it's all political regardless.  And the race-lift of Superman has already been done -- it's called Man of Steel, and it changed Superman from All-American Hero to Dangerous Alien.  Doesn't matter that he stayed white and was still raised in Kansas -- as far as the government was concerned he was the Other, and the ultimate potential terrorist nightmare in a post-9/11 world.  MoS' Superman is never going to be the Citizen of the World welcomed everywhere he goes; that Silver Age optimism is loooooong gone.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Labster]

Of course it's all political.  And of course my argument is made entirely of strawmen.  If you want to get to the tower of racial equality, you must defeat all the strawmen.  In some way, the U.S. is still fighting its Civil War 150 years later, because people are still making up lies about it and going on TV.  The strawmen are everywhere, and are only made out of straw if you're looking at them.  Don't blink.
I do get what you're saying -- that mainstream culture and politics doesn't have to apply in a fictional world.  But it does.  Kirk made out with green-skinned babes all the time, but when he kissed Uhura, it was a watershed moment for television.  And while I don't know that much about American comics, I do know that they're for-profit ventures.  And the kind of comics that will be bought depends a lot on what the characters look like.  Just as the TV and movies people watch depend on the race of the characters.  Sure, they could make a black Batman, but would people actually buy them?
The same applies to a new character made from wholecloth.  Though a new character is still a better idea.  It's hard to imagine a black man in the role of Bruce Wayne without compromising the gritty realism of the Batman setting.  Unless we're talking about Silver Age Batman, in which case I'll bite.  But the more powerful artistic statement would be new heroes overcoming new challenges.  Both in villains and the challenges that minorities face every day.
Yes, it's completely ridiculous that real world politics has to be considered in a world of supervillains and superheroes.  Completely ridiculous that it does.
-- ∇×V

[Foxboy]

DC *has* done attempts at "race-lifting" a major character into a black hero, without calling him "Black *other word here*" ... He was just a character they owned but really didn't want to do anything with: The "I am not Shazam... okay, dammit, you're gonna call me that, anyway" Captain Marvel.

Essentially, before they went ahead and dragged CC Beck out of retirement for a run of "The Power of Shazam," they tried reviving the big red Cheese as a black kid, and because the name "Captain Marvel" had been used in the intervening years by Quality and Marvel, they had to call him Captain Thunder.

This was ALMOST what made it into the comics:


''We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat
them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.''

-- James Nicoll

[Bluemage]

vorticity wrote:

---

Of course it's all political.  And of course my argument is made entirely of strawmen.  If you want to get to the tower of racial equality, you must defeat all the strawmen.  In some way, the U.S. is still fighting its Civil War 150 years later, because people are still making up lies about it and going on TV.  The strawmen are everywhere, and are only made out of straw if you're looking at them.  Don't blink.
I do get what you're saying -- that mainstream culture and politics doesn't have to apply in a fictional world.  But it does.  Kirk made out with green-skinned babes all the time, but when he kissed Uhura, it was a watershed moment for television.  And while I don't know that much about American comics, I do know that they're for-profit ventures.  And the kind of comics that will be bought depends a lot on what the characters look like.  Just as the TV and movies people watch depend on the race of the characters.  Sure, they could make a black Batman, but would people actually buy them?
The same applies to a new character made from wholecloth.  Though a new character is still a better idea.  It's hard to imagine a black man in the role of Bruce Wayne without compromising the gritty realism of the Batman setting.  Unless we're talking about Silver Age Batman, in which case I'll bite.  But the more powerful artistic statement would be new heroes overcoming new challenges.  Both in villains and the challenges that minorities face every day.
Yes, it's completely ridiculous that real world politics has to be considered in a world of supervillains and superheroes.  Completely ridiculous that it does.

Good analogy, there. ^^
You also have a point about watershed moments... except only partially, in this particular case.  There are already major comic book characters of every race, religion, and gender identity out there.  We've got a black Green Lantern, and do people complain about him on account of race?  Some might... but he sells, well enough to cross from comics to cartoons, and well enough to be generally accepted.  I'd argue that that particular watershed, as far as comics go, has already been crossed- and the people who buy comic books, in general, have no real problems with the idea of black heroes.
I think how well a black Batman would sell, again, depends on the quality of the attempt.  If it was written well, I suspect it'd still start slow... then pick up as reviewers read it, said 'Hey, this is actually pretty good!', and spread the word.  Once you got over the initial hump, then the bar would go down for future issues/story arcs/lines, until it became an accepted part of fans' personal canons.  The biggest obstacles would most likely be fans' resistance to change, followed by the 'diversity for diversity's sake' problem everybody else has been touching on.  If the thing were done respectfully, thoughtfully, and with the writing chops a good Batman tale needs, I think it could be one of the greats.
(On a side note, it might be best to take disliked characters, retool them into something worth reading, and add the race-lift into that.  Take Azrael, for example- you could retool Knightfall, cut out the insanity, and tone down the conflict with Wayne, and you'd come out of it with a subtler, more interesting story.  Make the guy black as part of that, and you get a 'black Batman' who's a net boon to the franchise.)
My point was more about the quality of the discussion than anything
else.  Bringing up topical political issues- from a particular
ideological position like that, no less- tends to decrease the amount of
thoughtful discourse going on, and I think this issue deserves a better
class of discussion than that.  I'm just going to go over here now,
keep paying attention to people's
personality and talent only, and leave the Straw Tower of Political
Babel alone, 'cause you can't fight strawmen.  Even trying grants them
legitimacy, and that only makes them stronger.

---

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours.

I've been writing a bit.

[Dartz]

Is it wrong that my first thought involved the level of contrast between skin-tone and costume tone making it easier to pick out details? Especially since the cowl doesn't allow for much more beyond the mouth and jaw to be show - a lot has to be said with just the bottom half of the face.

Also. Am I the only one who thinks Captain Thunder actually looks kind of awesome?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?

[Labster]

Is it wrong that my first thought involved the level of contrast between
skin-tone and costume tone making it easier to pick out details?

Nope, it makes you the best human being in the whole thread.
-- ∇×V

[robkelk]

Is it wrong that my first thought involved the level of contrast between skin-tone and costume tone making it easier to pick out details?

Nope, it makes you the best human being in the whole thread.

That it does.

So, does anyone have any ideas about the other part of my original post - how to make things better?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012