Random Musings: Why Changing a Character's Ethnicity Isn't a Bad Thing

The New Sentinel of Liberty!

While on The Colbert Report last week, Marvel's CCO Joe Quesada revealed that Sam Wilson (a.k.a "The Falcon") will be taking on the title of Captain America this fall. When Marvel teased that Steve Rogers would be passing on the iconic shield, many people speculated that Wilson would be the one to receive it due to his longtime partnership with Rogers. Although many fans are happy with the announcement and excited to see this new take on the Sentinel of Liberty, a very vocal minority of fans have cried foul.

These "fans" labelled the decision as disrespectful to Captain America's legacy, believing the move is just an obvious ploy to pander African American fans and nothing more. These people are most likely the same people who criticized the decision the introduction of Miles Morales as the Ultimate Spider-Man or the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot. They see this decision as a slight against their favorite character, believing this change in ethnicity is is going against the true nature of the character due to the character almost always being depicted as a white guy.

Of course, this belief is total bullshit.

Yes, Captain America has almost always been depicted as a Caucasian male. However, there is nothing about the character that requires him to be that ethnicity. Captain America's core concept is a hero that truly believes that a person should always do what's right, no matter what the cost is. As long as the character remains true to that concept, their ethnicity (or gender, for that matter) shouldn't matter in the slightest.

Captain America is Captain America, whether its Steve Rogers or Sam Wilson behind the mask.

Also, I find it weird that some fans find it hard to accept an African American as Captain America, but will easily buy a world where a teenager can be bitten by a radioactive spider and gain superpowers or a scientist can accidentally combine the DNA of Tomas Edison with his pet cockatiel, creating an anthropomorphic bird genius. They can accept that, but find Captain America being black too much. I can't be the only one who sees the problem here, can I?

Random Musing: Do We Take Our Opinions Too Seriously?

((Have you ever had a question or idea pop into your mind that you'd love to write about, but feel like it might not be strong enough to base an essay/editorial on it? Same here! To deal with that, I'm starting a new series of random posts appropriately called Random Musings. Whenever I think of a question or idea that would be perfect for this series, I'll make a quick post introducing the topic and throwing out an answer/idea or two I head about it. At the end, I'll ask a question for you to answer in the comments. I hope you enjoy and please, keep the discussions in the comments civil.)) 

Last Thursday, I managed to catch an early screening of Man of Steel with a group of friends. While the film had a good cast and decent music, it was brought down by some serious pacing issues, story-structure problems, and a sheer lack of character development.

Since it currently holds a 56% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I knew I was going to eventually run into people who enjoyed the film and I would have to explain myself when they asked the inevitable question: "Why didn't you like it?"

A few days ago, I had a few people ask me what I thought and asked me the above question when I told them I disliked Man of Steel. After presenting my points, I expected to hear the usual response of, "I can understand where you're coming from, but I still enjoyed the film. To each their own." Sadly, that's not what I received. Instead, I had people telling me that I was A) a cynical asshole who hates everything, B) an idiot who wouldn't know a good movie if it slapped him in the face, C) a nostalgic idiot who hated the movie because it wasn't the original 1978 film or its sequel, D) had no taste, and E) blind and couldn't see how great the film really was.

When did it become okay to verbally attack someone for having a different opinion than you? I'm perfectly fine with other people having an opinion that is different than mine. If we all had the same opinions about the same things, life would be rather dull and boring. While I might ask why you like something, I'm going to do it as politely as possible and try my hardest to see your side of the argument.

With that being said, I'm going to expect the same respect from you when I disagree with you. I'm not going to call you an idiot for liking a piece of entertainment that I don't and I'm going to expect that you do the same. Why do some people see the need to do this? Is insulting a person based on their taste in entertainment really worth it?

If I had to take a guess as to why some people act like this, I would probably say its because they take their opinions on something too seriously. Because of this, they see someone expressing an opinion that doesn't mirror their own as a personal attack on them. Since they see it as a personal attack, they feel the need to attack the supposed "aggressor" and defend themselves. However, this is still just a theory and it could be something else entirely.

So, what do you think is the cause of this problem? Do you think it might be people taking their opinions about media and entertainment too seriously and personally, or is it something else?