Why Representation Matters, Even In Bad Movies

Feels like eons ago that Gods of Egypt dealt us the most egregious miscasting of this century and left an indelible stain on each of our souls. Feels like ages ago that the New Mutants trailer debuted and had fans hype for the 1st big budget adaptation of this awesome X-Men team, myself included. 3 years of delays, reshoots, and allegedly upping the scares/horror elements later, and it finally made it to the big screen….andddd issa flop; we all expected that.

Looks like 5 Exceptional Egyptians To Me

What we didn’t expect was director, Josh Boone, to be terribly misguided in his validation speech after the movie was exposed for whitewashing. In the interview, this man defended the decision to cast Henry Zaga as Sunspot aka Roberto da Costa, the son of a black Brazilian, and the lack of value Boone places on the representation of black characters became abundantly clear. How inept can someone be at honoring the source material? Very inept, is the answer that’s come to fruition over and over again.

And over

And over

And over again

Roberto da Costa was created by X-Legend Chris Claremont and Bob McLoed as a founding member of the New Mutants…and a distinctly black man. If we’re talkin nationality, he’s Brazilian. If we’re talkin culturally, ya boy’s Brazilian. If we’re talkin racially, he is as black as asphalt. This is no shade at Zaga, but he isn’t a black Brazilian. Zaga could Superbad out of a situation and wind up drinking with 1 …