No, the MCU's Fantastic Four should NOT be "Latinx" - Here's why

Image courtesy of Mavel Comics

I rarely write rebuttal articles. I prefer to give my own opinion on a situation rather than refute what someone else has written or made a video about. However, the latest CBR drivel has forced my hand. The article in question is titled The MCU's Fantastic Four Should Be Latinx - Here's Why and it is, to put it mildly, terribly misguided. Now, before I get into the meat of things we need to address "Latinx". It is a word created by people whose biggest problem is deciding what flavor of latte to get on the way to the country club. Latinos and/or Hispanics hate that word and only use it when they are making fun out of it. Giancarlo Sopo wrote a great article for USA Today called "Progressives, Hispanics are not 'Latinx.' Stop trying to Anglicize our Spanish language." discussing this very issue and I suggest you all give it a read.

That said, let's dive into this "article" and break down the stupidity piece by piece. It starts off by praising the Fantastic Four comic and letting us know that there hasn't been much success translating them from comic to Film and cartoon. Despite being called "Comic Book Resources" the author gives us no insight into WHY the FF might have had this difficult transition. It's fine, I'll just do it for him.

The Fantastic Four comics, much like The Incredible Hulk comics, are not as action focused as you would imagine. Their is plenty of downtime where Reed discusses science, Ben laments his fate as a monster, Johnny acts like an impulsive twenty something, and Sue putters around Four Freedom Plaza. The first 2 released Fantastic Four movies were not able to strike a balance between action and downtime and the reboot FF movie was just a mess. Similarly, the cartoons try to be action packed but that loses half of what made the FF comic such a classic.

The writer then goes on to use the failures of the cartoons and movies as the reason the FF needs to be shaken up to "reinvigorate" the franchise. Going on to propose that they be turned "Latinx". Already the premise is faulty because we know the reason the previous attempts failed had nothing to do with the FF being white or "boring" and everything to do with the people in charge unable to pull the essence out of the FF comic and put it on the screen.

Again, we need to take a brief aside and discuss the racial aspects of the original Fantastic Four. For Sue, Reed, and Johnny their is nothing about being white that defines who they are.Perhaps in 60's you could sort of make the argument that University students were mostly seen as white so they kind of had to be white but that is reaching pretty hard. Ben Grimm on the other hand is 100% Jewish and that IS a big part of his identity. Although it took until 2002 to really highlight the fact that Ben Grimm was Jewish, subtle nods were there from nearly the start, if you were clever enough to pick up on them. Ben Grimm being anything other than Jewish would be a disservice to the character and a slap in the face to the Jewish people.

Back to the article we get statistics tossed at us, which are probably true but I didn't bother to fact check them. One of the reasons is because this is a trick "Diversity Hustlers" like to use. One I talked about before when discussing diversity in video games, which you can read about here. To make a long tirade short, people like the author of this CBR article only care about those front and center. Background characters and supporting cast do not matter when counting the number of non white people in a film. Additionally, unless the character explicitly states they are X race, then they don't count. Actors race also doesn't matter to these people unless they are white, this is why Latinos playing aliens don't count. Lastly, they don't care about the percent of non white main characters in all films, rather applying the statistical data to each film with a majority white cast. It's disingenuous and designed to trick people who refuse to think for themselves.

The article goes on to basically state what I said, that they need to "...have their cultural and ethnic heritage meaningfully explored in a feature format." No one goes to a superhero movie to learn about cultural heritage. This is a great thing to explore in films centered around that idea but to force it into a superhero film will completely destroy it. It is also very shitty to pretend that a story can't resonate with a Latino audience unless it features Latinos. As far as I know, Latinos have been going to the movies and enjoying films with white people in them for decades.

We then get the author praising the "diverse" casting in the MCU despite not mentioning that Nick Fury was turned into a Samuel Jackson analogue in the Ultimate line of comics years before he was cast to play Nick Fury on the big screen. As for Tessa Thompson and Idris Elba being cast to play Asgardians, both of this were huge mistakes. Thompson had none of the presence to carry off an effective Valkyrie and Elba's brilliant acting was wasted for 2 Thor movies and only briefly got used in 1. Casting a black or Latino actor in a white role just for "diversity" makes for a worse movie and the author should be ashamed of himself for praising it.

The article talks about the backlash the rebooted Fantastic Four got for casting Michael B. Jordan while brushing aside why people were actually upset. It also talks about Black Panther and Captain Marvel(why) making money so people want "diverse" casts. Again, completely misrepresenting the facts. Black Panther was a well known character and the movie was pretty good, tho a bit unfaithful from the source material. Meanwhile, Captain Marvel was released right before Infinity War and many believed there would be some tie in between those two movies or at the very least a special preview of Infinity War before Captain Marvel. None of their success had anything to do with "a hunger for diversity."

The article truly gets ridiculous in their suggestions for casting. Sure, these are fin actors but none of them fit into the Fantastic Four mold. It's almost as if the author picked the first four Latino actors he could name and shoved them into the roles to try to prove a point. He could have at least picked someone that looked a bit darker. I guess diversity is great, as long as you can still pass for a white person.

The Fantastic Four do not need to be turned into Latinos. There are plenty of characters from the pages of Marvel Comics that are already Latino that deserve to be on the big screen. Maybe advocate for them to get a film instead of trying to turn white characters brown. Conversely, maybe CBR could talk about the superhero movies made by and starring Latinos that were already released.Or, maybe talk about the history of superhero movies made in Mexico that feature stars of Lucha Libre.

The sad fact is, this article and the premise behind it isn't to get Latinos on the big screen in the MCU but to cause division in the comic book fandom and take something away from white people so they feel better about themselves. Latinos don't want second clothes, they want their own thing. Possibly a nice Zoot suit with a gold chain. So, no the Fantastic Four should not be "Latinx" or any other made up ethnicity.