I read two articles that absolutely incensed me about Namor in the forthcoming Wakanda Forever film debuting Nov. 11. One was on a producer talking about changing Namor into the “voice of the colonized”, and another on how he’s a better character from being race swapped. These people have done everything they can to rationalize why it’s okay to racially replace Namor and when you read their reasoning you realize they have zero reverence for these characers or what they really represent and representation has always been a slow motion cultural hijacking.
Firstly in this article by Bounding into Comics The producers decided Namor is actually an oppressed guy who is more interesting for not pronouncing his own name correctly.
So instead of just hating humans and thinking he’s better he’s big mad that we fucked his people over and he’s back for revenge. So he’s not the same character with the same motives anymore is what you’re really saying. He isn’t an evil guy killing us out of supremacy, he’s the oppressed standing up to us now. Is that really Namor to you people?
Namor was by design a supremacist, elitist, scumbag. Now he’s the vengeful oppressed?! That sounds like… hmmm the opposite of supremacist to me. You flipped the character on his head and instead it being interesting he’s another brown guy angry at white people on a movie screen in an era of brown people being angry at white people on movie screens. Wow, such complex characterization, such layers! Whatever. Nothing matters… not even pronouncing his name right.
So having Namor pronounce his name the way it’s supposed to be pronounced isn’t as genuine as butchering it with an accent. Glad we found the genuine place here guys. As in this genuinely has shown even more of a need to shroud the original character with the identity of the new one so that Namor isn’t Namor. He’s Namoré! Having Namor make his name sound like he’s comin’ on to us in Spanish enriches the character guys. Shit, even my latino comic friends would correct a fool if they went around saying “My name is ÑÁMÓRÉ.” When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that’s Namoré! We gotta stop pretending this is helping over destroying time tested characters that worked for a reason as they were.
Then I read this:
Which is a strange piece that makes some very odd statements and even takes time to contradict themselves.
They argue that for this one story, changing his race was good because it makes him like the Wakandans. Why can’t he be white and like the Wakandans? Cause Oppression, bigot. Also making him like the Wakandans for one story doesnt sound like a wise character choice in a massively shared movie universe where he’s sure to return to the screen as a hero one day. Will he help save us then call us dirty colonizers now instead of dirty humans? How charming to be reminded I’m a dirty colonizer! Usually I have to go to a BLM rally or college campus Marxist rally to be reminded of this but luckily I have Namoré here to help!
Their argument becomes that white characters should only remain white when they embody things like status and privilege and entitlement — all current negative racial stereotypes about white people created by radicals to stoke division in our era, and here this guy is talking about it like it’s just the way you’re supposed to portray white people in stories. And don’t forget to add characters that are there to lecture them about their whiteness nonstop! Sound like healthy reading for our kids and not like they’re tricking us into paying them to have our own heroes hate us. Nope nothing like that going on here!
And as if this demented piece couldn’t get itself high enough on it’s farts trying to explain why desecrating a legacy character is good cause movie plots and race baiting, now it’s decided to go ahead and prove it’s own thesis wrong and accidentally argue that Namor is better off being white according to the left’s own backwards anti-white messaging.
By the left leaning standards, Namor should be the whitest of the white of Marvel characters. Look at what they had to work with:
Namor was fashioned after Roman emperors.
Imperius Rex his catchphrase means EMPEROR KING.
Namor is Roman backwards.
Namor is an Imperialist.
Namor thinks he’s better than everyone. Yes, everyone.
Namor hates one more than anything in the world. HUMANS.
Namor hates ALL humans equally. That’s what makes him fun. He’s the arrogant overpowered prince that can roll with good guys or bad depending on what he wants in the moment. What better messaging could white hating leftists ask for than that in a Black Panther movie? Talk about missed opportunity.
Nah, they couldn’t do it because Namor will become a sympathetic character by the end that could be good in future things, so we can’t let a white guy have that - even though many people said an Asian actor could have embodied the role well and I tend to agree. He’d be playing Namor though, not Namau.
A lot of the fun of Namor that charms us to him has been lost to be replaced with lectures about imperialism against Mayans… as done by the Spanish. Even though Mayans fell not due to imperialism but instead their own internal blights like drought and warfare. But let’s not miss a chance to remind white people paying us for a few minutes of entertainment what bad people they are for being more successful at doing what everyone else was doing back then.
I won’t be seeing Wakanda Forever. It’s about what a bad person I was in the past when I… checks notes… SANK THE MAYANS. They turned an imperialist into a college kid whining about colonialism along with the Wakandans. They didn’t try to make Namor more interesting or different at all - they made him into the same resentment politics Hispanic/Latinos will be voting out in a week or so. As I type this both Latinos and white suburban women have turned on Dems by huge margins. They are waking up, but Namoré is here to remind you to hate whitey again. Don’t worry! They’ve got you! They’ve got you… they’ve got you.
Von Klaus @__RiseAgain__
Didn’t know much about Namor until this stuff started coming out about him being in Black Panther 2. However after researching and reading this, can you imagine if Namor was represented on screen a little over a decade ago? He’d be this buff Asian dude that looked down his nose at everyone, and people would love it! He’d be the asshole you love to hate, much better than him being a sympathetic antihero that has a sob story that’s defines him.