First of all, the casting of a black actress as Valkyrie is about more than just her hair. Valkyrie is Brynhildr, a Scandinavian goddess who is one of the Valkyries from Viking mythology and one of the main characters from the classic Norse legend, The Volsunggsaga. Sigurd and Brynhildr are one of the classic love stories of Norse mythology, and the casting of a black actress in that role is historically and geographically incorrect, as the Scandinavians are predominantly blonde and blue eyed. Would you cast a blonde, blue eyed actress as Isis, Egyptian goddess of the Nile? Remember the outrage when Gerard Butler was cast as Set in Gods of Egypt? Critics blasted that movie for casting Caucasian actors as Egyptian gods, and rightly so. So regardless of the actress' credentials, she's just not correctly cast in that role because there were no black characters in Viking mythology, just like there would be no white characters in Egyptian, middle eastern, or Asian mythology. I remember the hell that The Last Airbender caught when they cast white actors in roles that were clearly Asian in the original animated series. So I don't see how criticism of the casting of Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok is any less valid, and it's certainly not racist. And to accuse someone of racism for complaining about a black actress cast as a Scandinavian goddess when there was universal furor over a white actor cast as an Egyptian god is hypocrisy.

As for James Olsen in Supergirl... come on, does Mehcad Brooks resemble Jimmy Olsen in any way? Even if he were white, that tall, muscular James Olsen would still be the fantasy fan fic version of Jimmy Olsen. There's no way that character would be the beta male to Clark Kent's alpha male. Brooks' character would not be tagging along with Clark and Lois, shouting, "Mr. Kent! Ms. Lane! Wait up!" James Olsen looks like the kind of guy who would be off on his own adventures as a globetrotting photographer, not getting coffee for Perry White. And he certainly wouldn't have the same relationship with Clark as the comic book version because the alpha male territoriality would instantly kick in. And Clark would never let Lois be alone around him. And it's not just me, TV critics and other fans just don't see the chemistry with Kara and note that it all just seems forced and mismatched. When you deviate too far from the essence of the character, it's simply no longer that character.

Now, as to the casting of Mary Jane Watson... well, let me put it this way. Kirsten Dunst is a natural blonde, yet she dyed her hair red to play Mary Jane in Spider-Man. Emma Stone, ironically, is a natural redhead, yet she dyed her hair blonde to play Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man, and she wasn't the only one. Bryce Dallas Howard is also a redhead, and she also dyed her hair blonde as Gwen Stacy in Spider-Man 3. See what I mean? Everything about these characters, including their physical appearance as well as their individual personas, is iconic and informs who they are as individuals. The person you see in the mirror is the person you walk around as each day, and the person others perceive.

It's why Robert Downey Jr. wears a mustache and goatee as Tony Stark, why Chris Evans dyes his brown hair blonde as Steve Rogers, why Evan Peters wears a white haired wig as Quicksilver in the X-Men movies, and why both Famke Janssen and Sophie Turner dyed their hair red to play Jean Grey. So to say that the hair color or other physical characteristics of a character don't matter is to ignore what all these actors did to become their characters, which is to basically alter their appearance to fit the character. Even Latina actress Jessica Alba wore a blonde wig and blue contacts to play Susan Storm in Fantastic Four, and Brandon Routh covered his brown eyes with blue contacts to play Superman in Superman Returns. In the Hunger Games novels, Katniss Everdeen is described as having long dark hair tied into a braided ponytail. Did the filmmakers tell the naturally blonde Jennifer Lawrence, "It's okay, go with your real hair, it won't matter?" Nope, Jennifer dyed her hair dark at first, and then wore a dark haired wig later on. If the physical characteristics of the characters didn't matter, then why did all these actors physically transform themselves for the roles? Because when you look at the actor, you're supposed to see the character, not the actor playing the character.

I even made the case a while back that Michelle Pfeiffer playing Catwoman as a blonde ruins the character's persona, because Selina Kyle is a dark-haired femme fatale with a persona as dark as her hair. Playing Selina as a ditzy blonde who was borderline psychotic just wasn't the same character. Couldn't Michelle have dyed her hair dark for the role? If you see a woman with long blonde hair in leather and spandex running around Gotham City, you think Black Canary, not Catwoman. As for personality, no two actors are ever going to match personas identically(look at Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield), but they at least try to get as close to the character as possible.

I'll give you an example: Years ago I played a trick on someone I knew who's a comic book fan like me. I showed him frame from a comic book of Peter Parker kissing a redheaded woman, and then I asked him to describe who was in the picture. He said, "Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson." I said, "Are you sure? There's a lot of redheads in the Marvel Universe." He replied, "Of course it's Mary Jane Watson. Who else would Peter Parker be kissing, Jean Grey?" That's when I hit him with the awful truth. I said, "Dude, that's not Mary Jane Watson, that's Gwen Stacy. I had someone tint her hair from blonde to red." He shook his head and looked humiliated, and said, "Awwww, I can't believe it! You see red hair you think Mary Jane, you know?" See what I mean?

Does Mary Jane being a redheaded white girl matter? Well, she looks in the mirror and sees that spitfire red hair staring back at her, and has the personality of the hot-headed redhead. Even Jean Grey referenced her "red haired temper" several times in the comics. A redhead goes through life hearing about how hot-headed they are, just as a blonde girl hears endless dumb blonde jokes, or about how "blondes have more fun." Even women who go to beauty salons say how different they feel and how differently others see them with a simple change in hair color. But James Gunn basically made a logical fallacy when he claimed that the character's "skin color or hair color" was not important. I basically disagree. I think every aspect of a person, inside and out, informs who they are, who they will be, and how others perceive them.

Gunn defended, for example, the casting of Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four reboot, saying that Johnny's race had nothing to do with his character or persona as a wise-cracking hot head. Well, first of all, that movie tanked miserably, and not just for that reason. The casting all around was horrible, and fans and audiences just couldn't recognize any of those characters as the Fantastic Four. The guy playing Reed Richards looked nothing like Reed, the skinny guy playing Ben Grimm certainly didn't look like Ben, the woman playing Sue Storm looked even less like the character than Jessica Alba, and of course, Michael B. Jordan. The filmmakers gambled on the flawed notion that they could cast anyone in the roles, and that the physical recognition of the characters on the part of the audience wouldn't matter, and they lost that gamble. That, plus the horrible screenplay and sloppy direction sunk the film. Why go see a movie with the Fantastic Four that doesn't resemble the Fantastic Four in any way?

Also, there was the terrible inappropriateness of casting a white actress to play Susan Storm while Johnny Storm was cast as African American. That was a ridiculous stretch, and it seemed insulting to insinuate to African American women that they weren't good enough to be the superhero sister of a black superhero, and that a white woman would be in the role instead. Why couldn't a black actress be cast as Susan Storm? Where was the outrage over that? And to justify the casting, they came up with the idea of Susan being adopted. Now, while that's certainly a slim possibility, it is also extremely rare to see an African American family adopting a white child. Casting a black actress would have been a much more logical choice, and eliminating Susan and Johnny's blood relation and making her adopted only alters the storyline to an incredible and unnecessary degree. Susan not only being Johnny's sister, but being his much older sister who raised him as a surrogate mother after they lost their parents is a great deal of what defines their characters, and altering that just changes the characters way too much to the point where, again, they're just not the same characters anymore.

And let me tell you something... there's a reason why I never pretend to know what it's like to be a black person in this world, because I know that a white person simply does not go through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, living the same life experiences that a black person would, and vice-versa. Just like a white, redheaded girl from Queens would not grow up with the same life experiences as a black girl growing up in Queens, or why Michael B. Jordan's Johnny Storm simply would not be the same as the Johnny Storm from the comics. I would not presume to think that there would be much of anything in common; different worlds, different experiences, different outlooks, different influences, everything that informs the person you become is based on nearly every aspect of who you are, and not just on the inside. We don't like to admit it or talk about it, but it's true. Those life experiences we all go through informs and molds us into the people we will become, and a lot of it has to do with how we see ourselves in the mirror, and how others see us as well. Our diversity makes us a special and unique society, but we are most definitely not interchangeable.

So while Zendaya might try hard in the role, she simply won't come off as Mary Jane Watson. It just won't be the same character. With this casting, everything will be different to the point where it just won't be Mary Jane anymore. It'll be a character named Mary Jane, but it won't really be the same. And there's another issue. Mary Jane Watson is still a redheaded white woman in the comics; that part won't change. I've argued that it really doesn't make sense, nor is it wise, to have too much of a discrepancy between the source material and the movies. Marvel isn't going to alter Mary Jane's ethnicity in the comics, just like they didn't change Peter Parker's. They instead created the character of Miles Morales, who is the other Spider-Man from the Ultimate Universe, who is now co-existing in the same universe as Peter.

And 50 years from now, Mary Jane will still be a redheaded white woman in the comics, so I see the casting of Zendaya as being somewhat futile given that sooner or later the next actress who plays Mary Jane Watson will ultimately be another white actress with red hair because that's what the character in the comics will always be. It'll be like Eartha Kitt playing Catwoman in the old Batman TV series. People remember that one time that a black actress played Catwoman decades ago, but every actress who has played the role since then has been white(Halle Berry didn't play Selina Kyle) because that's what the character is in the comics. Having diversity is important, but it's not necessary(and a bit insulting) to alter a character from who they are into something they're not when it's better to simply create new characters to reflect diversity. That's why characters like Storm, Black Panther, Luke Cage, and Falcon were created. The comics never change the characters' race or ethnicity(Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury is from the Ultimate Universe), they just make new characters like Kamala Khan(Ms. Marvel) or Miles Morales(Ultimate Spider-Man). But as a fan I don't like seeing the classic icons either sidelined or completely altered to the point where they're no longer the character, so I totally understand fans taking issue with this casting, and their disapproval is valid, and not inappropriate or racist.