Thursday 13 September 2018

The Culture-Swap Reboot Trend Has to End




The trend of reviving old shows and recasting the lead role with actors of colour is a poor attempt at improving diversity on television. Why not create new roles and new shows featuring characters from different ethnic backgrounds rather than rebooting old shows which have already had success with white actors and have established a fan base that are completely devoted to original versions of the character? It seems as though television executives have no faith in both actors and creators of colour’s ability to create new and successful shows and characters. Instead of investing in new shows they would rather depend on successful formats from the past as a safety net. Perhaps they think that new shows starring people of colour are somewhat risky or more likely to fail to attract diverse audiences, which is ludicrous especially after the record breaking success of Black Panther which introduced several characters that were arguably unknown to the general public beforehand.

The fact that the show’s white character(s) are now people of colour becomes the show’s main unique selling point. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is coming back, this time as a black woman. The Charmed sisters are returning to television, as Latinas. Though it is always fantastic to see more cultural diversity on television, the move to use two of the biggest shows of the 90s as a medium to increase diversity suggests a lack of confidence in attracting audiences to fresh shows starring actresses of colour.

There’s already a lack of women of colour in science fiction media. Casting actresses of colour in roles which have already been successful and are “owned” by white actresses is not progressive. Originals are always seen as “better” which actresses of colour will have to contend with. It gives fans of the original series another excuse to bash the reboot. Why is Buffy and Charmed returning to television? We need new roles to claim for ourselves and are wholly ours.

The issue extends beyond culture swapping characters to gender swapping characters in movies. In a lazy effort to give women more roles both in front and behind the camera, Hollywood has decided to reboot old IP to sell these movies to audiences. Again, it shows a lack of confidence in movies having a large female cast in starring roles.

No comments:

Post a Comment