Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope is a movie this blogger’s received email after email about, and friends and acquaintances have said “You have to see this!” And so finally I get time to stop and look at the trailer for the movie, this one:
And it’s full of white people. That’s not being racist; that is being race conscious. Look, anyone who knows me, knows that I love Comic Con and WonderCon, and enjoy going to both events, and other variants, and what is now called “Geek culture” although when my friends and I were going to Star Trek Conventions in the 70s, we weren’t called “geeks” we were called “Trekkers.”
And a mixed lot we were – and are. See:
And so it’s because of my personal, all-too-American roots, and attending Comic Con and WonderCon, and cons, that watching the trailer for Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope just pissed me off. I mean I’m royally seething.
I’m happy Morgan Spurlock made the movie, and very happy he included Stan Lee and Harry Knowles of Ain’t It Cool News, who I finally met two years ago, and deserves all the good things he gets…
But I’m not happy with the movie if the trailer I saw presents a World view of a Comic Con that’s devoid of black folks, because that’s not the truth.
From what I’ve seen, all of the people Mr. Spurlock presents to focus on in his movie are white. And it would be more terrible to have a segment asking some black guy what it’s like to be black at Comic Con, because that’s just rubbing salt in the wound. Just have someone or two people doing what the hell everyone else does who’s white.
But please, God, knock this crap off!
Why can’t we have movie makers who actually make movies that look like how America really is? Why can’t Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope reflect the racial diversity that I see at Comic Con? Why is it that the makers of this film look at Comic Con, and apparently see white people only? And I’d bet $200 the same folks who made this flick went to schools where there were black folks, in particular – like me.
You know?
Why is it left for me to even think I have to make a movie that shows this aspect of American Culture as it really is, rather than just plain freaking white-washed? Why should it be left to me to do it, because I’m black?
Do I have to walk in to a screening of Comic Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope looking to pick out the one or two black folks in it, when the reality is there are a lot of “us” at Comic Con. It’s sad – and I mean tearfully, tragically, awfully, criminally sad – that we live in a World where I can’t count on someone else who lives in the same damn culture I do to show it as it really is, but I can count on them to show it as they see it. In other words, I can count on them to exclude black folks.
The simple fact that this doesn’t upset you, but it upsets me is what’s wrong with our country today, and it’s something we need to fix.
Just ask Trayvon Martin.