The website Vulture.com, run by New York magazine, is celebrating the cast of the new Marvel film “Spider-Man: Homecoming.”
The reason? Few white people are in the movie.
Abraham Riesman writes:
Though it’s not commented on within the script, one of the most remarkable aspects of Sony and Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man: Homecoming is its diversity. Sure, marquee star Tom Holland is as Caucasian as Caucasians get, but his group of high-school compatriots is almost totally devoid of white people: Laura Harrier, Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, and Tony Revolori are all standouts, and all are from ethnic-minority groups.
In recent years Marvel has attempted to appeal to liberals by changing the sex and ethnicity of many of its classic characters, at least in the comics if not onscreen. Thus the Mighty Thor is now a woman, Iron Man is a female black teenager, and the Incredible Hulk is Asian.
In “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” many of the characters, which were originally created in the early 1960s, have changed ethnicities. The character Flash Thompson, traditionally a large blond bully, is played by Tony Revolori. At a press conference on Saturday, Revolori thanked the film’s producers “for casting a 5’ 8” brown guy” to play the previously white bully.
The actor was then asked how it felt “to represent the Latino community” in a major franchise picture. “It’s wonderful,” he replied. “When you see the film, there’s not a single line of exposition as to explain why I look the way I look, and I think that’s wonderful. That I just am in the movie; it’s not about a certain race, it’s not about doing anything. I think that’s the diversity we need in Hollywood now.”
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