ResponseOne of the most vibrant and loud movements so far in the 21st century has been the push for diversification. You can see this movement everywhere; in movies, in government, in workplaces, and even in colleges and universities. One effort that has been proposed is race policing, changing white characters to a different race to appeal to a new audience or diversify a character. We've seen this in recent superhero movies, like The Amazing Spiderman 2, where Electro is racially inclined and transforms into a black character. Is race bending an effective way to diversify comics and attract a broader audience that is steadily becoming more diverse? In cases where a new version of a character is created (like Miles Morales becoming Spider-Man), then I believe racebending is useful for attracting a new audience. In situations where a white character already exists, race bias is not effective because it gives readers a feeling of unoriginality while constantly causing the audience to compare the new racially slanted characters to the originals. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay In 2014, there was a remake of the classic 1982 film Annie. When the trailers for this film were released, it was quite common to see people asking why the character's race had been changed on social media, with many outlets and blogs offering their opinion (and quick to shun those who asked ) (D Vina, 2014). For many people, these characters are seen as unoriginal, which Adilifu Nama (90) talks about in his book Super Black, saying that “the cliché of racial inversion invites criticism as disappointingly derivative and suggests that the formation Black culture has very little to offer in terms of originality." People grew up with Annie and the film became one of those films that parents pass on to their children. Annie, her red hair and her behavior are all well known Transforming Annie into a young black girl, while certainly diversifying the character, doesn't make her new. The "new" character doesn't offer much that's different from the original red-haired character, and those who have seen the original film don't. liked, they probably won't consider it a new, original take on the story, promoting the idea that black culture has little to offer in terms of race-bending also forces the audience to constantly compare the original character with the new one version, bent by race, especially if you are able to do so. identify with the original character. Often, against our will, we compare the people and places around us with what is familiar to us. Du Bois mentions these types of comparisons in his book Souls of Black Folk. He talks about a “double consciousness, this sense of always looking at oneself through the eyes of others” (Du Bois, 2). Even though the prejudices that existed in Du Bois' time have, in many ways, faded or disappeared, we can still see his point of view in these situations. Du Bois stated that he and all blacks of the time saw themselves not only as themselves, but also as white people of the time saw them; this gave whites a distorted view of what black culture had to offer. In the modern age, this can happen just as easily with comic book superheroes. If a formerly white superhero were created to be of a different race, we would constantly compare him to the character we are familiar with. If Peter Parker had changed to become a teenager.