How important is the colour of your skin when it comes to fictional characters? To say it bluntly, this is bullshit. Besides the fact that these are fictional characters, there have been a number of POC-portrayals of Catwoman. In other media, there have been African-American Catwomen before. And she was apparently a fan favourite. Despite her name not being Selina Kyle, she nonetheless was Catwoman.
But this leads to another, more intriguing question: Can Batman ever be black? Like the other characters, he is a fictional American hero, drawn and coloured.
His secret identity is that of billionaire Bruce Wayne, a somewhat reclusive CEO and philanthropist, living with his butler Alfred, and sometimes with a young ward, Dick Grayson or Jason Todd, in his manor. As it stands, there have been several people who have done the mantle and cowl of the bat. All of them white. But there have been two black incarnations.
But both of these people were alternate universe-versions or replacements, but none of them is the original incarnation, none of them is Bruce Wayne. Therefore, I will have to change the parameters of my question:. In short: Yes, I think he can and I think he really should be. But since you came here to learn about why, here is the long answer: Diversity for me also means that anybody could be anyone, could portray anyone.
PoC, women and immigrants should have the same possibilities to shape the world. It is possible that we came close to having a black Bruce Wayne in film once too. Darren Aronofsky was once attached to a Batman-film, years before Christopher Nolan redefined the caped crusader for modern audiences. Using a script co-written by Frank Miller, who wrote The Dark Knight Returns and later became a right-wing lunatic , the story would have been loosely adapted from Millers Batman: Year One.
