YouTuber Eric July declared that Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics fans should expect Kevin Feige and Disney to tokenize X-Men characters Magneto and Professor X.
July took to YouTube to react to a report from Full Circle Cinema that stated, “Kevin Feige and co. are considering having people of color portray both Magneto and Professor X in the MCU.”
July not only reacts to Magneto and Professor X being race-swapped, but he also takes issue with a statement made by Kevin Feige while promoting Captain Marvel in March. Feige told The Wrap, “This is the future. This is the way the world is, and the way, certainly, our studio’s going to be run going forward, because it brings about better stories. The more diverse the group of people making the movie is, the better the stories.”
July states, “None of those have anything to do with anything.” He adds, “If you pay attention to the rhetoric with the Captain Marvel promotion and going forward, that’s why she was shoehorned. Just pay attention that, you can see they’ve been discussing this whole concept of diversity. This is why you are getting all of the goofy characters.”
July continues:
“They are going out of their way to try to cast people that are not the race of the characters in the comic books. So it’s not even a stretch to say they might tokenize Professor X and Magneto. I would say expect it. I’ve said this in streams. Expect it. Yes, it’s stupid. Sure they could use other characters are of that color that they already have in that big ass encyclopedia that Marvel has with thousands and thousands upon thousands of characters in this book that they could just utilize that are of the race that they are.”
July then calls out the idea of the actor being the best person for the job:
“Look, there’s no shortage of actors, white actors, black actors, or any of that. There’s no shortage of those that could do rockstar, just really kill it. If they cast somebody that’s not of race or gender of the original character, they are going out of their way to do it. The people who are casting the movie they went out of their way saying we want this. It had nothing to do with the fact that Salma Hayek was the best they could find to play Ajax. That’s not how it works.”
July then makes it very clear that Marvel fans should expect the MCU to continue to tokenize Marvel Comics characters, “So I would say expect it. Expect it. Expect it.”
Do you agree with Eric July? Are you expecting Marvel Comics to continue to tokenize their classic Marvel Comics characters? Do you think they will have people of color playing Magneto and Professor X?