Teen Titans? Starfire is an orange alien. Racist ?fans? don?t want a black woman playing her.
t takes a particular strain of hateful ignorance to harass someone so much that they don?t feel safe on social media. And it appears that certain ?fans? of DC Comics? Teen Titans have tapped into that toxic combination.
In comic books, two cartoon series, and a new animated movie, Starfire is a female alien with creamsicle-colored skin and a mane of scarlet hair. Like many female characters you see in comic books, Starfire is a supernatural and unrealistic being ? a work of pure imagination. Understandably, and largely because orange-skinned, energy-projecting aliens are not real, Titans cast a human actress named Anna Diop to play Starfire in a darker, grittier live-action TV version.
With Starfire, Diop, who has appeared on shows like Bosch and Greenleaf, snagged possibly the biggest role of her life. But in doing so, she also became a target of social media attacks from people who at best believed she didn?t embody their version of Starfire, and at worst resorted to heinous misogynistic and racist attacks on Diop:
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Following the wave of harassment, Diop has turned off comments on her Instagram and minimized her social media presence. It?s the latest chapter in a particularly ugly ongoing saga about a certain segment of comic book ?fans? not getting exactly what they want and retaliating in the worst way possible.
Starfire is orange in the comics. People are mad that a black actress is playing her.
People got their first chance to see Diop in action as Starfire when the first trailer for Titans was released during Comic-Con last week. The trailer was met with a fair bit of skepticism (and mockery), mainly because it featured a flagrantly emo Robin uttering the phrase, ?Fuck Batman.? But that strange moment doesn?t mean the show is going to be bad, and for all we know, it could be great.
https://www.vox.com/2018/7/27/17618954/teen-titans-starfire-racism-anna-diop