"Inclusion" Doesn't Equal Diversity; It Means Less White
/The Lord of the Rings has become another victim of pallet swapping. Iconic character Aragorn has been redesigned as a black man by Wizards of the Coast for a trading card. Not only do fans picture Viggo Mortensen (who portrayed Aragorn in the widely successful and beloved film trilogy) as the one true king, but J.R.R. Tolkien describes him with a “shaggy head of dark hair flecked with grey” and “a pale stern face and a pair of keen grey eyes.”
Tolkien’s fans are very passionate and vocal about their source material, to the dismay of The Rings of Power series adapted by Amazon.
But who cares about the fans, the authors, and their work when you can be inclusive! It’s so noble and virtuous to add diversity, especially at the expense of white fragility.
But the truth is, it’s not virtuous. As companies make it a pattern to race-swap historically white characters, it’s evident that inclusion doesn’t mean more black characters: it means less white people.
When Wakanda Forever revealed their changes on Namor, I was not happy. My parents watched The Submariner cartoon, and I read plenty of comics about Namor McKenzie. For a long while, a beautiful poster by the late-and-great Michael Turner rested on my wall. When Marvel revealed “K’uk’ulkan,” I was displeased. I wasn’t happy about the casting, design, or all of the changes to the character. When I voiced my concerns online, many fans shared my feelings. However, I was also scolded and told, “As a black woman, you should be happy about the casting.”
This was bizarre, especially since they did not cast a black man to be Namor. So, I was just supposed to be happy, as a black person, that Namor wasn’t white? If that’s the case, how is that progress? We’re not making a less racist world; we’re simply dressing our racism in a façade of virtue. We’ve simply dressed the Bogeyman in a fancy suit and tie.
This pattern continued as I complained about Halle Bailey as Ariel. I could understand people being excited about the new take, but it was totally valid for fans to want a faithful adaptation. True fans invest more than an hour or two of time in these properties. Think of all the times they’ve watched the film, the dolls they own, the dress-up wigs, cosplaying, and trips to Disney to pose and take pictures with actors who resemble the princess they love. My eldest sister has known Ariel one way for as long as I have been her sister: for 34 years. For Disney to pretend like they can’t understand the emotional attachment people have to their characters is rich. They very much care about how their characters look and how they’re portrayed. Disney wouldn’t even allow a father to put Spider-Man on his four-year-old’s tombstone because they wanted to preserve the “magic” and “innocence” of their character (Spider-Man in a cemetery would have been very on-brand).
So, as a creative person who creates my own characters, it’s kind of strange that Disney would allegedly spend $150,000 on Ariel’s hair, even though it wasn’t the iconic vibrant color we’re all accustomed to. The Little Mermaid is an adaptation of the folklore by Hans Christen Anderson, but Ariel is their version. She’s their character. They even wanted that red hair to set her apart from another mermaid that came to the big screen in the film Splash. And throughout the years, Ariel stood out among the other Disney princesses.
I was called “anti-black” for rebutting Entertainment Tonight’s claim that Halle Bailey was the “perfect Ariel,” when she clearly lacked Ariel’s red hair and blue eyes. Social media influencer and movie reviewer Savannah Edwards released a Tiktok review that quickly received over 3.6M views, and she received unnecessary backlash for her honest take. She was personally attacked and referred to as a white person in black skin.
Fans are told they’re overreacting for caring, yet those complaining about Aragorn have been called Nazis. Both sides obviously care, so let’s be honest about it. I expect that’s the point of big studios choosing not to honor their source material and spice things up. If you make a controversial casting, there will be lots of buzz. The defenders will take it personally and ensure the film’s success, and if the film fails, they can blame racist trolls rather than pacing, bad acting, and bad writing. In the case of The Little Mermaid, it’s doing well domestically but the lackluster overseas performance is being pinned on review bombing and racist Asians who—for some reason—went to watch the very diverse cast of Fast X instead.
Representation does matter, but many viewers want unique and original characters as opposed to sloppy seconds. It’s not black excellence if you believe black characters can only do well if they’re piggybacking off the popularity of historically white characters. The first truly successful Marvel film franchise was Blade, and its success was monumental for Marvel. It painted a world of possibilities for a company that was struggling.
So many people have commented and said Wizards of the Coast’s character looks amazing, and they’d love to know his backstory. They obviously don’t recognize him as Aragorn, and once they are told, they lose interest.
There are a lot of black content creators, such as myself, who don't understand why "diversity and inclusion" mean changing historically white characters instead of uplifting new black characters and creatives. And the answer is these corporations are soulless machines trying to grind out cash and pat themselves on the back with fake virtue. They are not creative and they don't want to take risks, yet their sycophants will call them stunning and brave. But I don't think progress equals fewer white people. If you want to empower black characters, then support black characters; don't palette-swap white ones.
