TEDDY O’NEILL (HE/XE/IT) | NGĀPUHI
OPINION: On Saturday the 27th of July, at San Diego Comic Con, Kevin Feige announced that Marvel will once again be casting Robert Downey Junior in a role for the MCU, only this time, it’s not Iron Man. No, instead, Downey will be playing Doctor Doom. This is wrong for a whole catalogue of reasons, but the main one is that once again, Marvel are whitewashing their Romani characters. First it was Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, which broke my heart and subjected my flatmates to a lot of angry rants about Marvel’s casting. Now they’re doing it again, to a character who’s origin story centres on the fact that he was persecuted for being Romani. Don’t believe me? Go read literally any Doom comic book.
Doctor Doom is one of the largest and most impactful villains in the Marvel universe, usually facing off against the Fantastic Four (why is he in an Avengers movie? I just know Marvel’s going to try to justify this casting by using multiverse BS). He’s been portrayed in live action films multiple times now—and they still can’t get the casting right.
The oppression that Doom suffered because of his Romani heritage is integral to his character. Seeing as Romani people are still oppressed to this day, it might be prudent to have the general public’s first introduction to this character be his actual character and not some random multiverse knock-off, right? This way the public—who don’t know much about comics—won’t think that that’s his actual character, assume he’s white, and hold prejudice against any Romani actor they may bring in in the future because of the nostalgia bait of RDJ playing him first, right?
Oppression of Romani people started in the middle ages, and evolved over time. This history of persecution reached unimaginable heights in the 1940s—Romani people were specifically targeted in the holocaust, alongside Jewish people, Slavs, queer people, people with disabilities, and other minorities. Even now, segregating Romani children in schools is common practice across Europe. The uplifting of Romani children from their families is something which us in Aotearoa can understand, due to Oranga Tamariki’s treatment and uplifting of Māori children.
Romani people deserve representation, and when characters have been created with specific backstories that highlight the mistreatment of oppressed people in mind, you’d hope that when they’re cast in films, the actors playing those characters would at least be the right ethnicity.
I suppose this won’t surprise anyone, though, considering Marvel is owned by Disney, who support the genocide of Palestinian people in Gaza. Plus, they’ve whitewashed a lot of characters before, as I mentioned earlier. Having said I’m not surprised, I will say that I’m shocked they’ve dragged Robert Downey Boomer back out of the geriatric closet, instead of at least casting a new white guy.
It seems that RDJ, tired of blackface (see: Tropic Thunder,) has decided to simply embrace ethnic erasure instead. This with the MCU’s full support, probably because they’re desperate for a cash grab now that the MCU is tanking. Marvel comics fans, I’m truly sorry, and if you were even slightly excited for the X-Men film they announced, I guess you’ve gotta hope and pray they don’t pull this same shit with Nightcrawler.
As for Avengers: Doomsday? Thanks, but I will not be watching