You! Hey, you! That’s right, you, the one who completely lost their shit when they found out that 007 is not only going to be black, not only going to be a woman, but was going to be a black woman. You, the one who will never buy a Disney product or see a Disney movie again because of Little Mermaid white erasure. You’re the one who still, two years later, is getting online and declaring that Thirteen isn’t a real Doctor because the show is called “Doctor Who, not Nurse Who” (and you’re still patting yourself on the back for thinking of that one). I wanted to take a moment to explain something to you. 

Disney, MGM, the BBC, and all of the other studios have teams of marketing gurus and social scientists who follow the trends and evolution of culture, and they have determined that the benefits of forcing diversity far, far outweighs any losses they’ll get with your boycotts and snarky remarks online. The CEOs of Nike and Gillette and other companies aren’t Social Justice Warriors trying to force beliefs down your throats. Far from it. They’re businessmen and women who would never hire a man known mostly for his protests or put out a commercial asking people to be nice to each other or gender-bend and race-bend entrenched intellectual properties if they didn’t think they would make money off of it. You don’t factor into their calculations because your opinions aren’t profitable. 

Surely this can’t be too much of a shock to you. Remember everything you did to tank the Black Panther and Captain Marvel when they came out? Remember all those YouTube videos you made pointing out all the flaws in the movies that you hadn’t seen yet? Remember artificially lowering the scores for these movies on Rotten Tomatoes with your Internet trickery? Remembering calling out, “Go woke, go broke”? Remember how these movies made all of the money, and one even got nominated for Oscars? 

In conclusion, corporations have enough money that they can see into the future, and you and your Euro-, hetero-, male-centrism, despite all your bluster, are not in it. 

I, personally, in this age of loudly broadcast racism, misogyny, and homophobia, find that comforting. 

I just read this rant about the female Thor, and inevitably the argument came up that women should make up their own hero and leave theirs alone. I come across this argument a lot, whether it’s a black Little Mermaid or a bisexual Peter Parker. When The Falcon took over for Captain America, they said the same thing. When Miles Morales became Spider-man (in an alternate universe, even), same thing.  

It is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard, as well as the most disengenious. 

We live in a time when a new hero is not going to reach audiences. Think about all the heroes you know that are in the public consciousness, and think about how many of them were created recently, like the past twenty years that aren’t a spinoff of existing characters. I literally cannot (if you can, I encourage you to make me look silly). I think the biggest boom for new characters was the launch of Image comics in 1992, and even most of them are just plain forgettable. The current audience is married to their intellectual properties, for better or for worse. That’s why movies, particularly genre movies, not based on a book or a comic or an older movie are so rare. That’s why comics about new heroes rarely sell.  

Because of the nature of consumption right now, a new hero will become second and third tier. There are plenty of white, straight heroes out there, so why not borrow a first-tier one to make someone feel just a little included.  

If someone creates a movie about a new superhero, the person who suggested that said demographic create that movie will never see it. He won’t buy the comic. He has no intention of ever gracing the new hero with his attention. Unfortunately the general audience won’t either. They want name recognition.  

I’m a heterosexual white male. I have plenty of heroes to look up to. I think it’s time to share.