It’s a fact of life many actors in Hollywood have to get used to. Thanks to the internet and the First Amendment, people can spew all kinds of nonsense in cyberspace all day long, whether they know what they’re talking about or not. And especially before a movie comes out, the reaction from the geeks can be withering.
So already Michael B Jordan is getting nonsense on the net for playing the Human Torch in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, and he also feels some of it could be racially motivated. He responded to the haters in an Entertainment Weekly story, “Why I’m Torching the Color Line.”
Jordan admits he shouldn’t have checked out the criticism, “you’re not supposed to go on the internet when you’re cast as a superhero, but I wanted to check the pulse out there…Some people may look at my casting as political correctness or an attempt to meet a racial quota…Or they could look at it as a creative choice by the director, Josh Trank, who is in an interracial relationship himself – a reflection of what a modern family looks like today.”
Frankly we think any criticism towards Jordan just because he’s not white is ridiculous, and while geeks can be misanthropic trolls, they’re usually not racist, at least not as far as we can tell. Superheroes are getting more diverse with more women, and we’ll have a full blown African American superhero in a few years with Black Panther, and we’re all for it. Ultimately, The Fantastic Four will stand or fall on its own merits as a movie, not the race of whoever’s playing whatever role. If the movie blows, it won’t matter if a martian’s playing The Human Torch, so we’re hoping the movie’s gonna deliver, otherwise there may never be another Four reboot. (Three strikes you’re out, right?)
