Racebending Felicity and the limitations of audience identification

If somebody at DC ever has the audacity to racebend Felicity Smoak and turn her into an Indian werehyena seamstress, I can easily imagine and anticipate an outcry from Olicity fans who say that Felicity shouldn’t be racebent and a new character should be used instead. While that’s understandable in theory, the problem is most Indian DC characters aren’t anywhere as famous and to make matters worse, Teen Titans’s Jinx was originally Indian and she could’ve been the most high-profile Indian character DC ever has but that never happened when it got adapted for TV. Making Felicity Indian would be doing the very thing that Teen Titans writers should’ve done with Jinx, since she got whitewashed.

Not just because she now has paler skin, but she’s portrayed as a generic Western witch instead of the Indian she was. It would be in some regards far more controversial, if because it’s so common for some fans to identify with and relate to her a lot that turning her into an Indian werehyena seamstress would be taking away the Felicity they knew and identified with. But one that’s compounded by anti-Indian/anti-South Asian racism, now that Felicity Smoak is part Indian. Expect them to sound and behave exactly like alt-right trolls, since they essentially and practically are one themselves.

The fact that these women identified so much with her that it’s not a surprise they live vicariously through her and bash on Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen’s original girlfriend in the programme early on. Imagine if Felicity Smoak’s retooled to be an Indian werehyena who sews for a living, is shy and wary of people, watches football matches and reads books in her spare time. Fans would say she’s no longer relatable, if because she’s now the near-opposite of how she’s portrayed on television. Ironically Felicity Smoak, as originally presented in comics, is wary and dark-haired so this Felicity’s closer to that portrayal.

If Olicity fans say Arrow showrunners can take liberties with the source material, they should be fine with this reimagined and rebooted Felicity Smoak. But since she’s no longer this white self-insert now that she’s Indian, they’ll complain about her a lot and all day long on their social media profiles. Like I said, they’ll start saying that she’s unrelatable and unrecognisable. It’ll be worsened by racism, since the Felicity Smoak they know is now replaced by this distrusting, timid Indian woman. Weirdly enough, since both Felicity Smoak and the Hyena (a werehyena) come from the Firestorm comics this makes her reinvention as a werehyena a proper update in a way the Arrowverse version isn’t.

Let’s not forget that before Felicity Smoak showed up on telly, there was Smallville’s Chloe Sullivan. Smallville is a reimagining of Superman where you have a blonde hacker with an unrequited crush on the protagonist, except that she’s Chloe Sullivan an original character for that programme and she ended up with Green Arrow instead. An odd coincidence at first, but since Smallville was around earlier it’s only realistic for (other) people to be more familiar with it than they do with Arrow. It would’ve even influenced the way Felicity Smoak got to be presented, perhaps unconsciously so whether or not Oliciters like it or not.

In fact, I could go on saying that Arrowverse Felicity Smoak is really just the 2010s version of Chloe Sullivan. Smallville was around since 2001 and ended in 2012, Arrow was around since 2012 and ended in 2020 so this proves my point right. But it would be interesting that if Felicity Smoak ever gets reimagined as an Indian werehyena, one would wonder who’d be the successor to her Arrowverse incarnation now that Felicity has become too difficult and too brown for Oliciters to identify with and live vicariously through. I guess it seems relatable in this case is essentially a white geek insert.

Rao forbid if you make Felicity Smoak into an Indian werehyena seamstress with a penchant for watching football and shying away from people, because that would mean Oliciters will no longer project themselves a lot onto her and would probably move onto the next white geek character to live vicariously through instead. Felicity’s only relatable if she’s a white geek, which says a lot about their contempt for Laurel Lance. A woman who might be their rival in some sense as she was Oliver’s first girlfriend (or something like that), an Indian Felicity Smoak would be Laurel Lance squared as it’s compounded by racism.

I do wonder if it’s a vicious form of living vicariously through a character, especially if that character’s a white female geek like them as if they can’t relate to a character who’s not that geeky let alone who’s the lover of somebody they have a crush on. Like they really want that guy for themselves, but can’t stand it if he’s with somebody else so they bash that other girl real badly. It would be worsened by racism, since it gives them a bigger reason to hate her if Iris West’s any indication. An Indian Felicity Smoak would really be DC Comics’s version of Arrowverse Iris as regular Iris is white there.

I remember writing about what would happen if Patty Spivot were presented as fat and big into romance novels, the big problem with her as I realised is that she’s created as a sort of distraction for Barry Allen. If she was portrayed as more into romance novels than comic books, is fat and also richer than him it wouldn’t be a portrayal that would endear to fans that much. Not only she would be harder to project their fantasies onto, but with Barry coming from a working class family means she has all the means to not only get an education easily but also more to spend on. Even if she has worse taste than he does.

Likewise, an Indian werehyena seamstress Felicity would be harder for white Oliciters to project onto since she’s so unlike the version they identified with a lot. She’s not a self-insert anymore, but a threat to the Felicity they once knew and loved. As for Caitlin Snow, it would be darkly ironic (and comical) that for all their habit of dehumanising Iris West it’s Caitlin who’ll be dehumanised big time in the new Flash season since she’ll become a werewolf sooner. But that would also test the limits of the characters they identify with a lot, since that involves a big change to her.

Far bigger than racebending Iris, since Caitlin now has a different powerset and would even be part of DC’s Creature Commandos (a monster team) replacing their earlier werewolf character. Making Caitlin Snow into a werewolf means she now has her own niche and role, since the Flash’s original ice character is none other than Captain Cold and in the comics he was a Flash character longer than she has. But that would mean Captain Cold was underused in the Flash, since he could’ve easily done the things Caitlin Snow did. Well, it might even be the right time to bring him back now that she’ll be a werewolf in Season 9.

Who knows if Snowbarries would still relate to her now that she’s a werewolf, but that would test their limits of identifying with her now that she’s gone off the deep end with her new powers. (Well, the only good to come out of this is that DC now has their own Rahne Sinclair, who is Marvel’s female werewolf character by the way.) But I think this would test the degree of identification they have with these characters.

Who’s part of your world?

Lately, there’s anger over the live action adaptation of Disney’s Little Mermaid with a black actress playing the part of Ariel. While the trailer just features her singing and with dyed red hair to boot, most of the comments were spammy in nature as if to mock the film because she’s played by a black woman. While I did find it shocking, it’s unfortunate that out of all the live action remakes this got bashed the hardest. While there are people who say that Ariel can’t be black because she has red hair, they forget that black people can have natural red hair if this is proof.

It’s like how the cartoonist John Byrne said that Jessica Alba shouldn’t play Invisible Woman because she looks like a hooker, even though she did her homework when playing the part at all. While complaints about race are understandable at first, it seemed they can’t stop being racist whenever a Latina or black woman dyes her hair to play the part. Geek culture and especially western geek fandoms are very anti-black, so anti-black they bash them a lot.

(Admittedly, I was like this at one point and I stopped.)

The fact that there are little black girls who identified with this Ariel makes you wonder if it’s a form of misogynoir, especially when some of these detractors complain about her being ugly and black now. They complain about how dark-skinned these Ariel is, even though animals like orcas have dark skin and live in the sea themselves. It seems their complaints are a form of misogynoir, they say mermaids can’t be dark-skinned but never complain much if a white blonde’s made into a white brunette.

Well not to the same extent it does for blacks, which says a lot about their double standards. Somebody on Tumblr said that in the West whites are so well-represented that they’re naturally assumed to be default, to the point where some fans of colour racebend existing characters to provide representation. It also gets worse if the existing characters of colour are either stereotypes, inauthentic or too obscure to gain much attention the same way a better known white character does.

I even admit to racebending other characters before, like say imagining Arrow’s Felicity Smoak to be a timid Anglo-Indian seamstress or Doom Patrol’s Valentina Vostok as a Yakut. Bear in mind that people of colour do exist in Russia, not just as immigrants and scions of immigrants but also indigenous people such as the Yakuts and Buryats. These kinds of people need more representation, not just on the local level but also on an international scale.

There’s one Cameroonian cartoonist who identified with Ariel before she got racebent, but with a new black Ariel where black girls identify with her a lot it becomes even more necessary to diversify. Sadly, some of the worst perpetuators of misogynoir are black men. So much so they relentless bash black women for being in relationships with white men, black women for speaking out against ills and black women for being into the ‘wrong’ kinds of black men.

Seems like whatever black women and girls like would be shot down in flames, not only by nonblacks but also by black men (as I know from experience). There are even black men who complain about how the movie would involve swirling/interracial relationships if the prince is white, but the fact that they desire white women a lot should make it fair for black women to do the same.

I think if DC ever did something similar to Felicity Smoak, the backlash wouldn’t just come from racist men but also racist white women who feel the Felicity Smoak they know is gone and replaced by a shy Desi seamstress. It gets weirder still when you realise that Black Canary in the Birds of Prey still sports blonde hair and Titans’ Starfire has red hair but not a single complaint’s aimed at Felicity Smoak’s representation on Arrow.

Even though she wasn’t a bespectacled blonde in the original comics, so if Felicity Smoak were to become a dark-haired not bespectacled Indian seamstress it would be closer to her original presentation. This Ariel still sports red hair, though duller than it is in animation but still. Complaints over characters’ appearances don’t change much even though they retain their original hair colour once they got racebent.

Admittedly, making Valentina Vostok Yakut would be a radical departure not just in terms of appearance but the fact that outside of Russian media there’s not a single Russian of colour in fiction. Even though they make appearances in nonfiction texts like Farley Mowat’s The Siberians, then again not a lot complained about her having darker hair in live action despite being a blonde in the comics.

I honestly think racebending existing characters gives an advantage, especially if otherwise original characters of colour aren’t just obscure but also whitewashed. In the case with Teen Titans’s Jinx, she is Indian in the comics but upon appearing in the televised adaptation she got whitewashed. If Felicity Smoak ever become Anglo-Indian, she’d be DC’s most prominent Indian character in a way Jinx didn’t get to be.

Likewise with Ariel, according to those who’ve watched the film The Princess and the Frog’s that although Disney did have an original black princess in Tiana she spent a lot of time as a frog that having Ariel be played by a black woman makes her Disney’s most prominent black princess. Just by going this logic alone. As what somebody else said, the original depiction of Ariel won’t go away if the live action remake has a black lead.

Arrow’s take on Felicity Smoak won’t go away if DC Comics and subsequent portrayals make her Indian, though I’d say these fans have to share characters with those who want to see themselves represented. Representation becomes even trickier if other portrayals tend to be so stereotypical that explains and deconstructs why many indigenous women have issues with Disney’s Pocahontas.

Pocahontas is not good indigenous representation because she not only distorts her real life counterpart’s life and history but also perpetuates stereotypes about indigenous women and their plight, having Ariel be played by a black woman provides representation for young black girls. It’s also not the first time she was played by a woman of colour, she was portrayed by a Hawaiian before.

The fact that white people are the default in most popular media means they get represented more often and less stereotypically (well in general) than nonwhite ethnicities do, it’s only fair that people of colour get represented more often well outside of local media for a change.

They kind of get it

It’s not that Marv Wolfman’s a practising Christian but he does it get it right when it comes to succumbing to the Devil’s influence that it goes downhill as with the character of Raven. The whole point about her’s that she tries to avoid her father’s influence, as to be rather shy and withdrawn but when she does give into his influence it goes bad.

There are also other stories that depict devil characters as villains, whether if they’re aware of it or not when it comes to depicting them as actually evil or suspicious. They’re not practising Christians but people like Wolfman do kind of get it, when it comes to succumbing to evil influences and going downhill from then on which’s the whole point behind Raven.

The thing about telly adaptations of superhero media

Whilst this isn’t always the case for almost any media (it’s possible to do faithful adaptations of things like Peanuts and probably Little Women as it was in the past), it seems with superhero media the continuity’s often so convoluted that writers have no other choice but to take liberties with the source material. Practically and nearly impossible to get a faithful superhero adaptation these days.

It doesn’t necessarily help that a lot of superhero comics tend to change writers that in all likelihood there wouldn’t be much of a clear consensus over the characters’ actual personalities. It’s likely Disney and Star Wars have similar issues to some extent, but it’s still clear when you keep changing writers there’s not going to be a clear vision of the character’s personality or fate.

At any rate, usually the televised or cinematic adaptation’s often the most accessible interpretation of the same character or story. Moreso with superhero comics for reasons I said before. It doesn’t help that DC and Marvel seemingly treat superhero comics as if they’re research and development that it’s probably why we’re never going to get a faithful superhero adaptation.

To make matters worse, even if the comics are like the canonical version those in more accessible media adaptations are often the first things to come to mind for outsiders. I.e. it’s like if almost every non-comics medium makes Barbara Gordon Batgirl, it’s going to influence people’s ideas and preconceptions of her that it’s going to have a big say in the comics later on.

In fact superhero adaptations are practically more influential and successful than the source materials are. It’s parsimonious to say that both the Joaquin Phoenix and Heath Ledger takes on the Joker more or less influence people’s preconceptions of him in recent memory. Likewise the Teen Titans programmes are far more accessible and popular than the comics are and will be.

So much so that the recent Titans programme’s practically based on the 2000s cartoon version. Logically the 1960s Batman programme more or less influences subsequent Batman productions. Anne Hathaway’s Catwoman’s obviously based on the Julie Newmarr version with Eartha Kitt’s take paving way for Halle Berry and a future Batman adaptation.

It’s safe to say that the telly and cinematic adaptations are far more influential than the comics are by sheer accessibility that it’s going to inform people’s preconceptions of such a character, unconsciously or not.

Odd Really

Whilst I do have my moments, I long wondered why almost no Christian seriously distrusts X-Men even if you’ve read the comics they all seem to be written to have a hatred for Christianity in mind. No seriously, almost all the Christian characters there are villains and the one good Protestant character (Rahne Sinclair) got killed off real badly. Adding insult to injury’s that the other practising Christian character looks like the Devil.

Though that might be part of the point, it’s as if X-Men writers don’t seem to have a high opinion of Christianity so much so that they have the bollocks to imagine a church getting destroyed. (What makes X-Men even worse than Teen Titans is that the former often had the bollocks to depict Satanic characters like Magik as heroes whereas in the latter one heroine strives to avoid her father’s bad influence and said father’s meant to be a villain.)

If she does succumb to his influence, it goes real badly for her and her colleagues. Not that Teen Titans is any better other than at least getting one thing right when it comes to temptation and consequences for bad actions. X-Men seems really, really bad in this regard especially with the apparently low opinion of Christians and Christianity in general. Yet it’s surprising why so few Christians bothered to criticise it even if it has a more blatant hatred for Christianity than Pokemon and Ben 10 ever did.

Rao help if the X-Men brand gets cancelled for good, the fact that X-Men writers seem to spite Chrisitanity a lot would be the franchise’s own undoing.

Not the same

I still think how ironic for some fans to bash Starfire’s live action presentation when Felicity Smoak’s own telly incarnation resembled her comics counterpart the least. At least Starfire not only had curly red hair (and sometimes bright pink or red hair) but also wore a purple dress on one occasion, which probably influenced this version. Felicity Smoak as originally presented was nothing like her telly incarnation at all.

I could go on saying that telly Felicity Smoak feels like a copy of either Abby Sciutto or Willow Rosenberg. The latter who’s a Jewish hacker who had a Goth phase of sorts, much like Felicity. It wouldn’t be any better if Felicity Smoak were to be reintroduced as a werehyena in DC comics. But the odd fact that both Felicity and the Hyena (an actual DC villain) were Firestorm characters makes you wonder how far removed Felicity’s from her roots.

(To give you an idea, it would be as bad as Caitlin Snow becoming an evil werewolf though that necessitates Barry to be her Red Riding Hood*.)

I still think if Felicity Smoak’s any indication, some fans won’t care much about a character who’s made so far removed from her original presentation for as long as she’s presented as a manic pixie dream girl (at least up to now). And how ironic of them to attack Starfire when Felicity scarcely resembles her old self more.

*That actually makes turning Captain Cold into either an actual ice character or good guy a good idea but because at least that’s not much of a stretch as opposed to Caitlin going wolf.

Just saying

For all the criticisms Starfire’s actress got, ironically I feel as if she actually resembled the character as she’s originally presented. There was a time when Starfire not only had curly red hair but also wore a purple dress. This is very much in line with that rare portrayal. As for Raven, she’s already been made younger in recent comics especially now as a teen Goth so her portrayal shouldn’t be that much of a stretch.

At least Starfire and Raven actually resemble their comics selves a lot. The same can’t be said of Felicity Smoak who when she appeared on Arrow, she bore absolutely little to no resemblance to her comics counterpart at all. The fact that she’s even compared to Chloe Sullivan of Smallville fame (also a hacker) makes me think Felicity’s got an even better or worse case of a character in name only.

Starfire was also portrayed as amnesiac and even murderous in the comics, Felicity as originally presented was never shown to be quirky. She was even somebody’s angry mum. (That somebody being Firestorm.) Felicity had dark hair before but she was never presented as a Goth. Let’s not also forget that NCIS already had a quirky Goth named Abby Sciutto or for another matter, Buffy’s very own Willow (who’s also a Jewish hacker).

Starfire and Raven at least are very much themselves, the telly Felicity Smoak was practically a copy of other telly characters before. Not that she’s bad but the odd fact that Felicity Smoak resembles her comics counterpart the least, much worse than what Raven and Stafire got, should be unmistakably more problematic.

Well…what

There’s been some suspicion about white redheads becoming black. This also shocked me (though to be fair, at least when it came to racebending Starfire as well as Lightning Lass and Light Lass they left their red hair alone and redheaded blacks do exist). As for Jimmy Olsen, a racebent version done right (in the sense of leaving his personality and role alone) already exists in the real world. Same with Iris West where you’d be better off familiarising yourself with actual black journalists and even young ones too.

Though I also think the other problem with racebending’s that it risks patronising certain demographics. Some black people don’t like racebent characters (as I know from personal experience). It’s not necessarily wrong to want to make a black version of an existing character or whatever, I even considered racebending some. But if you really want to racebend a character the right way, you should at least keep them grounded in real life. As in they give a better idea of what that character could be like.

That goes for changing any character outside of ethnicity. This is however really complicated, in the case with prose characters sometimes they should get away with being racebent that’s if/when their ethnicity or appearance’s not always specified. (So much so that they could easily get away with being albino blacks or something.) It’s like how Hermione’s mostly described as having merely bushy hair, she could easily be whatever ethnicity including black or at least mixed-race. Even some Asian people can have curly or wavy hair (I saw one bloke with an Afro).

In visual media, however this is much more shocking as people are given an idea of what they look like without trying or describing much. This also gets even more complicated in real life as some mixed race people can be white-passing. Wentworth Miller might have a black relative somewhere if he’s said to be mixed race. Likewise Pete from Fall-Out Boy’s also mixed-race but this shocked me as I used to think he’s white all along.

(That he has a Jamaican relative somewhere kind of surprised me.)

I could go on saying Tim Drake’s probably of Mexican descent and if it sounds odd, not all Mexicans and Latinx are necessarily brown (or mixed race). Some of them are white/white passing. Both Shakira, Cameron Diaz and Sofia Vergara are blond, the latter two naturally so. AJ McLean’s both Scottish and Cuban American. There shouldn’t be any issue with making Tim Latino (though he might if he were to show up on Titans at all).

Actually there shouldn’t be any issue with racebending black-haired characters because Africans and Asians are the very demographics most likely to be black-haired anyways. So it seems racebending’s going to be tricky anyways not just because it clashes with prior depictions (moreso in visual media). But also that real life’s complicated and surprising. Especially when you realise that both Miller and Pete Wentz are part-black.

Titanic Bats and Legions of Superfolks

Like I said, part of the reason why Teen Titans is more popular than Legion of Super-Heroes is that the latter’s more insular but there are other factors to play. Superman used to be the biggest DC brand and still is to some extent (partly why we have still have Supergirl and Superman around, whether in the cinemas, on telly, merchandise or in magazines).

Superman was so big it even included magazines specifically centering on Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and Legion of the Superheroes which Superman and Supergirl do show up and are closely affiliated with to varying degrees. But once the grim and gritty school of storytelling arose, that’s when DC began favouring Batman more.

So much so that it now became really consistently expected for Batman’s protege Robin to lead almost every incarnation of Teen Titans even if Dick Grayson was technically doing this before (the 1960s). As well as Batgirl, Catwoman, Dick Grayson, Robin, Red Hood and Batwoman getting their own magazines.

It’s not that Superman and company are going away, they’re just nowhere as big as they used to be and moreso in comics. Logically it makes sense that even if Superman is still a big brand enough to have its spinoffs adapted for telly (Supergirl, Legion of Super-Heroes, DC Superhero Girls, Young Justice, Superboy, Smallville, Krypton, Lois and Clark), it’s going to pale in comparison to what Batman’s getting.

At this point Batman can claim The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Teen Titans (all five incarnations and six if you include Young Justice), Beware the Batman, 60s Batman, Batman: the Animated Series, The New Adventures of Batman, Gotham Girls, Harley Quinn, Gotham, DC Superhero Girls, Birds of Pray, Batman Beyond and Batwoman.

So anything strongly affiliated with Superman at this point’s going to pale in quantity compared to Batman these days so there’s that.

The Legions

Legion of Super-Heroes is one of those DC franchises that isn’t really ever going to be that big to begin with, mostly for reasons like being really hung up on esoteric knowledge (much moreso for the original/older comics stories), being a spinoff of a far more popular brand (Superman, even if it’s not doing well at times too and why LOSH often appears whenever Superman and/or Supergirl’s around) and being too insular for its own good.

I mean Legion of Super-Heroes was practically set in the distant future, which makes it incredibly hard to keep track of in relation to the main DC canon (especially whenever it either centres on Superman or Supergirl, both of them which are capable of existing in the main canon). Also, it was really ahead of its time in not just having female members but also having multiple female members (despite cliches) and being the earliest teen team still in existence.

At least for a long period of time given there could’ve been other teen teams before but most have faded to obscurity. LOSH was also much more cultish than Teen Titans ever was. When you think about it, Teen Titans actually got its own telly series thrice and appeared on telly five times. Perhaps six times if you include Young Justice. LOSH, like I said, only needed either Supergirl or Superman to become a thing.

Similar things can be said of Doom Patrol if because it’s actually the first superhero team with freaks and needed Teen Titans to ever appear on telly (thrice). The fact that both Cyborg also appears in Doom Patrol and Beast Boy’s the ward of two members prove my point right. Keep in mind that superhero fans may’ve started writing for superhero comics professionally earlier still.

It would however be parsimonious to suggest that both the Flash and Legion of Super-Heroes were one of the earliest superhero magazines to pander heavily to superhero fans in one way or another. Same with the later Marvel magazines (as in Marvel was around earlier under different names before arriving at the most memorable one). It could be me being nostalgic about this, being into it when I was younger.

Mostly because it was an alternative to Teen Titans and chronologically speaking also its prototype and predecessor. (Though it’s also a case of the student usurping the mentor if because Teen Titans is objectively the more successful of the two, being significantly less insular.)