quote]4runner wrote:
The name comes from the 1960's-- when the idea of having a black superhero was a radical idea. The otherness had to be explicitly identified.
Over the years, there were a whole raft of black superheroes. Almost all of them had "black" in their name.
Once again, the otherness had to be explicitly identified.[/quote]
You're in the unenviable position of volunteering to defend the decisions of others, but you did volunteer. So here we go...
Yes, the filmmakers had to dig up a short-lived '60s-era character to base this movie on. It was, of course, very much intentional to do so, as opposed to just coming up with a modern character with no tribal baggage associated with it. So there's that. They didn't HAVE to resurrect this character, yet they did.
Why is it so important to racially define this character? All that does is unnecessarily alienate the outgroups.
People have eyeballs. They can see what characters look like.
Want to have a majority-black cast? Go for it. People loved Good Times, not Good Black Times. People loved The Jeffersons, not The Black Jeffersons. People loved Family Matters, not Black Family Matters. And they damn sure loved Sanford and Son, not Black Sanford and Black Son.
Get over the tribalism, people. It's just dumb.