Do Black Creators Have To Make Their Main Characters Black?

[Illuminatos]

As a Black creator with creative control in any story-telling medium whether it be writing novels, comics, video games movies, etc. Do you have an obligation to create a Black main character due to lack of representation in these fields? Would it be weird for a Black creator to make a White or Asian, etc. main character? Let’s say a struggling Black creator chose to go the route of making a non-Black main character due to mass appeal, is that ok? Or is art just art and it doesn’t matter?

And before you ask I’m not talking about myself. I’m not currently creating anything. I just fell into a deep rabbit hole on Reddit about this topic and wanted to see the Coli’s opinion on it.

 

[Piffiztheanswer]

Create whatever you want blud.. thats the beauty of creativity there are no bounds or rules by which you need to abide by. Whatever you feel bring it to life.

 

[OVER]

I feel like in most cases creators will cast their characters to reflect themselves race/ethnicity/culture wise majority of the time but either way I don’t think it’s a problem. I think it’s better to have multiple black characters in a story. I know Dwayne McDuffie had a theory of the rule of 3 making it a black story to white audiences but black folk say they want to see black main characters in different settings outside of gangster/poverty/slave I agree and those stories have existed but I need more black characters and some flavor not a brother or sister on some swagless generic made by and more digestible for cacs shyt.

 

[Fill Collins]

Absolutely not, read Savage Holiday by Richard Wright

 

[Luke Cage]

No, but nobody else is making their main characters black. So if not even black creators are doing it, nobody will outside of a few rare exceptions here and there

 

[OneManGang]

Make what the market wants. A white man came up with Black Panther bc the market wanted a black superhero.

 

[FlimFlam]

to answer, no

black creatives don't have that kind of agency on a commercial level. sure, they can write a black character and push for it to presented as such but that decision is ultimately in capital's hand (on a commercial level)

and we're talking about appearance.... lets not get into worldview, ideology, background , historical frame of reference etc. all that has to be constructed in a manner that services commercial white audiences if you want play

black people will have to navigate beyond these imposed concepts of not only success but quality productions as well to get out this crucible

a good black creative to reference on this topic is Mtume Gant. He draws a sharp distinction between ostensibly "black " hollywood and actual Black Cinema. He has many articles and video interviews

 

[Easy-E]

A white man created Mile Morales and will eat of that for years.

I'm creating a super hero white girl to get that CAC dollar.

 

[Jasonmask]

You would be challenging yourself more trying to think outside the box with your character not being the same culture or ethnicity as you. You’d have to do some anthropology kind of research as compared to just making a black MC

 

[Ziggiy]

Why wouldn’t you?

 

[Seoul Gleou]

yes. because if you don't, non-blacks will and, because they don't know what it means to be black, they will often miss the mark.

you'll notice that black main characters that CACs make are often interchangeable or derivatives of existing non-black characters.

a good black main character should be unique and almost impossible to swap or copy. that responsibility is on black creators, writers, etc.

 

[LuuqMaan]

whatever you do

Just don’t get Mel Gibson involved with your pro black project

 

[Illuminatos]

A white man created Mile Morales and will eat of that for years.

I'm creating a super hero white girl to get that CAC dollar.

Didn’t even think of it the other way around. A lot of the Black comic book heroes were created by White males.

Why wouldn’t you?

The main reason I see would be for monetary purposes.