(Get over the white-washing of a beloved fully black singer/actresses who’s biopic left black people everywhere feeling disgusted and repulsed at the character cast selection)
Ultimately
These women are not African. They are not suitable to play the role of Storm and her character is not given due justice in the films. Not only is she literally white washed, her powers are not utilized to their full extent and she’s basically a lackey making rain when she’s sad.
If there is a character who is specifically from a line of AFRICAN priestesses, why cast two half- African American half-White American women? There are plenty of African actresses who could fit the role and worst case scenario, a significant amount of African American/Afro-Carribean women who could due Storm some justice.
The bottom line, for all those who say that Halle Berry and Alexandra Shipp are black and it “doesn’t matter”, they are only half black. Which is fine for other roles, but in a role specifically detailed and built for a fully black woman it’s disrespectful. It’s lazy. It’s racist. It’s colorist. It’s offensive. It’s tiring.
In a society where people throw racist bytch-fits in regards to Annie being black or Flash having a half-black girlfriend on a TV show, it’s already hard enough getting representation in our media. Storm is literally one of the only well-known (by popular culture standards) Marvel Black female-identifying X-Men. To have her white washed in order to fit some mold of what the media and movies like to pretend fully black is, is frustrating.
I will not be silent about wanting a superhero who looks like me or at least has the same racial construct as I do as a lot of other children do. I’m so tired of seeing predominantly lighter skinned, half-white actresses portraying roles where they are meant to “pass” for fully black (with a tan). I’m over feeling so grateful when there are darker women or women with two black parents cast in a movie or TV show.
Why should I have to argue my point for representation? Why is it so bad that I want a woman who looks like me on a big screen as a character other than a slave or maid? Why are black actresses hardly ever love interests? Why are their romances cut short or one-sided? Why is there no mobility in acting for black women? Why must we have white hair and blue eyes to control the weather?
There are significant cultural consequences brought about by misrepresentation. It fuels animosity within the black community, it separates talent from socially accepted beauty, it leads to lower self-esteem in black children, and it does nothing to bridge the rifts and gaps created to successfully divide black and brown peoples. I am not asking these women not act. I am not saying don’t cast biracial women in roles. I simply want the world to understand that black comes in many different shapes and sizes and gender identities. Black is not solely one type of man or woman. Black children need more than one kind of hero. More than one type of media-mother. Black people are more than one kind of man. We are so fluid and beautiful that to cage us, clip our wings, and dictate which birds are pretty enough to fly free and succeed is murder. I might not look like a dove, but that doesn’t mean I am not equally as captivating.
Freedom is not an honorary black appearance.
Representation is not measured in half-sizes.
This pretty much sums up why it's an issue
. Lupita has zero screen presence. It would have been Halle Berry 2.0. Storm will never be done right in these movies, they would have you think that she's just some background character when she's actually one of the most authoritative members of the group. They can't even call her by her actual name "Ororo"
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@ 2;30
