Much Ado About Nothing

With many comic book movies that's been around lately, not much been said about the upcoming Luke Cage movie. I wouldn't blame them since, the character will not be known to most people outside the comic book society. I didn't even know about it, until I trawled in one of those comic forum.

Before we go any further, we need a little background on the character. Luke Cage was a character that was created in the height of blaxploitation. He was created as "the ultimate brotha'". His origins is simple enough, he was a subject to an experimentation which makes him somehow invulnerable, and superstrong. Cage was also known as the first black main character that appear in his own book.


In the current Marvel continuity, Cage has a long time relationship (and later married) with Jessica Jones, superhero turn PI which story can be found in highly succesfull Alias comics. It's interesting for me to noted that since they're probably one of the most high-profile interracial couple in the comics, it wasn't much of an issue in it. The story in the comics was NOT about a black man and a white woman having a relationship, but it's about two people who somehow end up falling with each other. You could easily swap the characters with two people in the same race and still tell the same story. And I applaud Marvel for that. Rather than telling a cliche, they managed to avoid that and still deliver a strong storyline.


However, question was raised when the director of the aforemention Luke Cage movie, John Singleton, choose a black actress to potray Jones in the movie. Singleton probably took the safe way of not trying to 'upset' the female target of the movie, if they see the black main character having a white woman as a wife.

The thing is, I could never understand what black females objects to (if any), on having a male black character married with a white woman. It smacked racism to a degree. I've said it before, making an issue of something that isn't worth making an issue about, is drawing negative response to it. The story in the comics never made race as an issue, and it was great because it should not be an issue.

Hollywood seems still to scared to made that point. Television series True Colors try to it lighten it up by taking the matter to family humour, and partly succeed. The show didn't last very long either to succesfully made that point. But so far, I hardly see any major interracial couple (mainly black male and white female), in the screen, without making race as an issue in their relationship.

I sincerely think that Hollywood missed a major opportunity in making that point in this case. However, if this actress somehow dropped out or actually playing another character, and they did cast a white woman as Jessica Jones, then forget what I've just wrote 6 paragraph before