Racebending—What It Is and Why It Should End

On whitewashing, blackwashing, and everything in between

Race and media

RACEBENDING—WHAT IT IS AND WHY IT SHOULD END

On whitewashing, blackwashing, and everything in between

Quinn Que

Racebending, in the context of culture and media, refers to changing the presentation of characters in ways that differ from the characters’ original ethnicity or race. It is similar to the term whitewashing, which refers to the practice of taking characters or content that is historically non-white (i.e., not associated with people who are ethnically European) and making them white. Or blackwashing, a less-used neologism that refers to the same process, but with people of black (e.g., sub-Saharan African) identities. Racebending is omnidirectional—it can happen when any two or more ethnicities are swapped for each other. There is in fact yet another term, race-swapping, which essentially is just a synonym for racebending, though it’s usually applied more to fan art than to official media.

These processes can be deliberate and explicit efforts to alter things from how they were depicted in the original source material, be that source film, television, literature (including comic books), or even historical fiction. Much commentary has been focused on such changes. Alternately, racebending can happen more implicitly as a matter of failing to respect certain norms of casting and/or rendering, such as the well-established, albeit historically recent, norms against blackface (the practice of having European-descended people portray dark-skinned characters using makeup) or yellowface (a similar phenomenon involving East Asian roles)—more on that below.

As an aside, since the concept of race itself is controversial and disputed, especially given its deep association with the discredited pseudoscientific concepts of race naturalism and race realism, we will be limiting the use of the term “race” in this piece and as far as possible, using “ethnicity” instead. Ethnicity is sufficiently functional and cogent, with the exact definition employed here being “the quality or fact of belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent,” following The Oxford English Dictionary. Ethnicity is essentially one’s nationality and/or parental lineage, such as being ethnically French, or even ethnically European. Color terms such as white, black, brown, and so on are not necessarily ethnicities, and they correlate with disputed racial taxonomies, so we will limit the use of them in this piece.

Why Racebending Happens

In the past, cultures throughout the world had a habit of taking pre-existing mythology or narratives, including non-local ones, and revising them for use in the homeland. The Egyptian story of Horus bears striking similarities to aspects of Mediterranean Christian mythology, particularly the narrative of Jesus Christ. The depiction of Jesus has changed radically from region to region and era to era, with some rendering him as having more pale Western European features, others more Middle Eastern, and yet others more dark-skinned, like sub-Saharan Africans. This is natural on one level, as people tend to want iconic figures to look like them, even if historical records would imply that this is a factually inaccurate portrayal of such icons’ real physical appearance and original culture.

Fast-forward to the more recent past, specifically the late 20th century, and we start to see a reckoning happening in regard to this sort of exercise, most notably the ways it impacts casting in film and television. Several castings that were once seen as benign would later draw intense scrutiny and calls for reform. Two such examples spring to mind: Mickey Rooney, an American actor of Scottish descent, cast as the Japanese man Mr Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s; and John Wayne, an American of mixed Scotch-Irish and English heritage, cast as the East Asian Mongol Temüjin (Genghis Khan) in The Conqueror. Casting actual East Asians, let alone actors whose national background closely matched that of their characters, didn’t seem to matter much back in the 1940s and 1950s when those films were made. Yet choices like these have engendered intense criticism since. The charge of whitewashing has made such castings, as well as the earlier Eurocentric depictions of figures like Jesus Christ, seem deeply tendentious and offensive, despite the possibly innocuous human tendency that informed those choices.

Since the late 20th and early 21st century, whitewashing has become increasingly criticized, and consequently disavowed, as a practice. It might still happen from time to time, but often receives significant pushback from critics and the general public. A different spin on the same problem happened when the 2010 live-action film The Last Airbender (based on the American animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender) was first cast. The three lead heroes, Aang, Katara, and Sokka, alongside the main villain Prince Zuko, were all initially cast with actors of European descent, despite the characters being variously of East Asian or Inuit descent. The role of Zuko and all his associated clan, called the Fire Nation, were later recast with actors of South Asian and Maori descent, a move many saw as a ploy and an attempt at appeasement. Because the Fire Nation were still changed to a different ethnicity than the source material, in addition to other castings that still were left as European swaps from the original (a point director M. Night Shyamalan oddly refused to budge on), a new term for the film’s casting practices was developed: racebending, inspired by the terms used for elemental superpowers in the story (airbending, firebending, etc).

Racebending remains a useful term for the omnidirectional way in which some ethnicities may be changed, since terms like whitewashing and blackwashing are too narrow. It also calls attention to the fact that what matters, or at least what should matter, is that an inaccurate change is being made at all, not simply that a change is being made in favor of, or against, one specific group. Racism, like racebending, is an omnidirectional problem. The primary reason to oppose racism is that bigotry towards groups based on things like color, ethnicity, or even dubious concepts like race, is wrong on its face. Racism, like racebending, is not made good or justified by virtue of which groups are doing it or which groups are being victimized by it. And yet, facile justifications for such actions still exist.

Common Defenses or Excuses for Racebending

● “It’s just a fictional character, so it doesn’t matter.”
Some argue that racebending shouldn’t be an issue because characters in films and TV shows are just imaginary creations, and ethnicity isn’t relevant like it would be if the character was (based on) a real person.

● “They cast the best actor for the job.”
Another defense is that the actor chosen for the role was simply the best person for the job, regardless of race, and that casting should be based solely on performance rather than ethnicity.

● “We’re making the character more ‘universal’ by casting a person of a different race.”
This line of thinking suggests that by casting actors from different races, filmmakers are broadening the appeal of a character, making them “more relatable” to wider audiences.

● “The character’s race isn’t important to the story.”
Sometimes, defenders claim that the race of the character doesn’t impact the plot, and thus, changing it doesn’t harm the story’s integrity.

● “It’s progress! This is diversity and inclusion.”
Some see racebending as a step forward for inclusivity and diversity, celebrating the fact that racebending can be used to generate opportunities for certain ethnicities in big-budget films and TV shows.

Rebuttals to These Excuses

● “Fictional characters do matter—and so does their cultural identity.”
Characters aren’t just empty vessels; they represent people, histories, and experiences. Everyone has an ethnicity, and everyone’s ethnicity should be respected, even in fiction. When a character’s background is changed, it matters. Doing so doesn’t just modify how they look, it devalues cultural specificity, something that can actually be essential and drive the narrative. Racebending often falls into the trap of a surface-level solution, failing to engage with the deeper implications of the character’s cultural context.

● “Best actor for the job? There are countless actors of all ethnicities who are equally talented.”
This excuse falls flat in a number of ways. First, not all racebending decisions are made at the level of casting — sometimes these are artistic choices with no actor involved, particularly when it’s an illustration or even a cartoon. Second, this argument implies that there is a dearth of available people to fit these parts, when anyone who’s spent any time in a casting call or in pre-production knows the exact opposite is true. A film like Logan needed a pre-teen actress who spoke English and Spanish, could do stunt work, and who looked like she could plausibly be Hugh Jackman’s daughter. They spent months auditioning dozens of little girls—they had options! Let’s stop with the disingenuousness. Third, since many incredibly skilled actors of all ethnicities exist, the reality is that good ones are always overlooked, it’s a necessary reality when casting is a subjective art in itself. It’s also true with almost any job in most industries.

● “Making a character ‘universal’ doesn’t require racebending.”
The desire to make a character universal shouldn’t come at the expense of cultural authenticity. It’s possible to create characters that resonate with a global audience while honoring their ethnic or cultural identity. The real work is in creating rich, diverse stories that allow all different backgrounds to shine. Turning a character into a supposed “blank slate” does not make them more relatable; it robs them of their originality and individuality.

● “Race does matter, especially when it’s a key part of the character’s identity.”
Changing race or ethnicity dilutes the very essence of what a given character is meant to represent. Take, for example, characters from specific ethnic or racial communities whose stories revolve around their lived experiences as marginalized people, or stories where it matters that everyone looks a certain way and is from the same general place, culture, and time. The latter is particularly applicable in historical fiction. Removing the context to make a character more or less relatable to a given audience misses the point and undermines the storytelling.

● “Diversifying the cast doesn’t mean you have to erase the cultures being represented.”
The fact that racebending is often celebrated as “progress” highlights the industry's reluctance to fully engage with diverse voices behind the scenes. It’s not enough to throw in a person of color and call it diversity; we need to prioritize stories from those communities and let them tell their own narratives. Without authentic representation both in front and behind the camera, racebending just feels like an empty gesture.

Why Racebending Must End

Racebending isn’t just an arbitrarily taboo practice. Nor is it some potentially permissible tool to ham-fistedly force diversity into a narrative. It’s very much predicated on pernicious ideas about identity and groups. As we established above, many defenders of racebending think that certain groups don’t have meaningful identities at all, and that it’s therefore fine to racebend them. Still others see this token gesture as justified on the basis of progressivism, diversity, and inclusion. Yet just as with whitewashing, racebending is deeply offensive and often causes backlash.

Just as the decision to racebend in Airbender was met with scorn, so have similar moves in Disney films, Marvel movies, historical fiction television, and even in theater. As noted previously, the play Othello is a narrative that hinges on the lead character being, an ethnically isolated figure, a “Moor” (African descent) surrounded by Europeans. In the past this was achieved through blackface as well as more authentic casting, but societies have now largely agreed that the former option should be off the table. Racebending, likewise, shouldn’t be seen as some blithely acceptable creative conceit. It’s too inflammatory to ignore.

We must acknowledge at this juncture that live theater, unlike film and television, does have a storied history of true colorblind casting and reimagining of plays for regionally different or newer audiences. These productions often cycle through dozens of actors for various parts, and feature alternates who can fill-in one night or more as needed. “Anyone can play Hamlet” is therefore a much truer statement than, say, “anyone can be Black Panther.” And thus Othello serves as an exception rather than the rule, where ethnic specificity really is vital.

But leaving medium-specific nuances aside, we need look no further for proof of racebending’s ills than the recent controversy over Paapa Essiedu being cast as Severus Snape in the upcoming Harry Potter TV series. Essiedu, a lesser known British actor of Ghanaian descent, is set to make his American TV debut in the HBO drama based on the books by J.K. Rowling. Whilst we should remember the essential truism that ethnicity always matters, the character of Snape has a particularly relevant one within his universe.

The new Professor Severus Snape (L) vs. the old version (R)

In the backstory of the HP books and films, Snape was a somewhat outcast student at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. During this time, in his teens, he developed a one-sided crush on a girl in his class named Lily. A group of students called the Marauders bullied him, partly because of his looks (he’s described as pale and ugly, with messy long hair), partly because of cultural differences. The girl, Lily, and one of the Marauders, James, would grow up to be the parents of the titular protagonist Harry Potter. Snape, for his part, would join a group called the Death Eaters, followers of series villain Voldemort. The Death Eaters function as a thinly veiled allegory for WW2 style authoritarian fascist nationalism, with all the associated ethnic chauvinism, hateful bigotry, and world domination goals. Snape outgrows this and ultimately acts as a double-agent for the good guys in adulthood, but his backstory has a lot of pointed implications.

Many observers have noted that Snape’s character operates like the contemporary fantasy equivalent of a white pride allegory, in addition to his being a tragic antiheroic loner. His dark beginnings as a quasi-incel who falls in with a supremacist group parallel real-world phenomena we see with young males getting radicalized like Christian Picciolini or Richard Spencer. Taking all that and inserting a black man into the role, especially given the likelihood that all the other key characters in Snape’s life will remain ethnically European, is beyond tone-deaf. Even commentators who support racebending and blackwashing in other contexts, like Ayan Artan of Teen Vogue, have come out against the move to make Snape black. There are a number of points they bring up, including the story details, but the most interesting thing they offer is the simple fact that racebending brings needless controversy and grief onto the actors themselves.

Aquaman appeared in the DC comics with blond hair. In the movie, he was played by Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa, who has black hair.

The Snape miscasting is just another in a series of similar movements in art, culture, and media. Characters like Aquaman in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) film franchise, Tiger Lily in Pan (2015), and several more have experienced this process. Eileen Gonzalez of Book Riot laid out the numbers in the specific niche of comic book superhero adaptations and found several key facts. Notably, the practice of racebending “has increased” significantly, and whilst the practice is ostensibly omnidirectional in theory, it has been utilized very unevenly on the ground, with over 65% of characters being racebent from white to other groups, very often changed to black, by margin of over 51% or 19 out of 37 sampled characters. Other interesting quirks and trends Gonzales found were that Asian characters are most likely to be whitewashed, though admittedly some of the examples she uses are questionable (partly regarding the supposed “Romani” characters, though that’s a dispute for another time).

The brutal reality is that racebending, and the controversy around it, puts the lie to a disingenuous bit of prattle often mindlessly uttered again and again in these contexts: “Anyone can play anyone.” While we may wish this were true, insofar as it would mean that the dubious social construct (read: fake idea) we call “race” would really be irrelevant, the fact is that identity matters, and thus, no, “anyone” can’t be reimagined or recast in the way racebending requires. There is merely an asymmetry, a crass double standard, as regards who can do what. Perhaps the only group that can plausibly “play anyone” in the current, capricious landscape are people of sub-Saharan descent, though this norm hasn’t been fully tested yet (racebending from Asian or Latin to black is rare). People of European descent can potentially play Asian or Middle Eastern roles, as can Latinos of various shades, or at least that’s how past instances of racebending have played it, mostly sans pushback. And authentic Asian, or more specifically East Asian, actors and characters are often left fighting for space with whatever’s left.

Another related concern is that cultural possessiveness necessarily leads to conflict over which group’s claim to a now racebent character should be respected. This is what we might call a “Once Done, Can’t be Undone” problem. Take the character of Nick Fury, originally white in Marvel Comics. Whilst the history there is complicated, the short version is that an artist had used Samuel L. Jackson as a reference to draw an alternate universe version of Fury in the early 2000s. Fast-forward to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and they cast Jackson in the role. The mainline comics later introduced a new character, a biracial son of Nick Fury Sr. and the spitting image of Jackson, to replace the original Fury and create synergy with the films. The racebending essentially changed the character in all mediums, and few would now dare suggest switching back to the previous version. Jackson’s performance, for what it’s worth, is also fairly solid and most fans are indifferent to Nick Fury Jr. in the comics. Still, these challenges and points of confusion can and should be avoided.

Ultimately, there are several reasons why racebending is a divisive, disreputable, and damaging habit that certain creatives have gotten addicted to. Here are a few key takeaways:

1. Everyone has an ethnicity; no ethnicity is more important or less important than any other. It would be per se racist to think, let alone to argue, otherwise, and yet racebending is predicated on these racist assumptions.

2. Everyone deserves to see themselves reflected in popular culture. Everyone deserves to see themselves reflected in popular culture. Repeated for emphasis, because formal equality is challenging for some.

3. Groups aren’t interchangeable, as Gonzales and others note. Specificity matters. Proper representation matters. Recognizable characters matter. Racebending flies in the face of all that.

4. Racebending enables racist double standards, like ones which say blacks can replace whites or that whites can replace Asians.

5. There are other, infinitely better ways to achieve the goals of true, lasting diversity and representation in the arts and media, as we will now show.

A Better Alternative

If the goals people have are good (debatable, but we’ll grant it for the sake of argument), then clearly the problem is the method, as in the activity of racebending itself. Diversity in the arts and media is fine, even positive in some cases. But it can’t be achieved on the back of terrible things like whitewashing, blackwashing, and so on. No one likes seeing their culture or their identity being erased, even if the pretense under which it is done sounds noble. Again, the whole reason whitewashing became controversial in the first place was the evolution of multicultural societies and the sense that homogeneously localizing ethnically-specific narratives was increasingly unnecessary, and even harmful, in modern mixed societies.

So then what might we do? As alluded to already above, all ethnicities have media and stories to pull from. And beyond that, they have creative folks who can be empowered to make new content. The 2025 black-led vampire film Sinners has become an improbable cultural phenomenon. Crazy Rich Asians was comparatively new in the 2010s, first as a book and then as a film. Captain Planet was a new idea when it debuted back in the 1990s, with a deliberately multiethnic cast of characters. Slumdog Millionaire, the 2008 star-making intro to multiple young South Asian actors and actresses, was also new content. Even the Black Panther and Shang Chi films, despite being adaptations of old comics, were still culturally authentic stories with clear, indispensable roots in Pan-African and East Asian cultures, respectively.

There are plenty of ways to skin this particular cat, if we simply opt to have principles and stop being racist about it. Take the character of Superman, just for example. Whilst Clark Kent, alongside most (though pointedly not all) of his supporting cast, have ethnically European heritage and/or physical appearance, there are canonical non-white options available, all of whom exist in the source material. Multiple versions of Superman, including black ones (Calvin Ellis and Val-Zod), Asian ones (Kong Kenan), and so on. There are plenty of non-white supporting cast members too, even just at the Daily Planet. As opposed to racebending Perry White, use African American Franklin Stern, a sometime owner or chief at the Daily Planet. In lieu of palette swapping Lois Lane, try Angela Chen, an Asian (sometimes biracial) Planet reporter who's occasionally acted as a professional rival to Lois. Need a break from ginger Jimmy Olsen? Try Dave Stephens or Ron Troupe, both black coworkers and friends of Clark Kent’s. Want someone younger, like certain versions of Jimmy? Try Keith White, the adopted black son of Perry.

Moreover, the option to create new characters always exists. Some of the ones just mentioned were originally created in adaptations, then backdoored into comics. Another such example is Renee Montoya, now a staple of the Batman mythos. Biracial hero Miles Morales is a relatively new and beloved addition to the Spider-Man canon. Kamala Khan, a Pakistani-American superheroine, has been a hit with her target audience in comics and more recently in TV. We can build great, multicultural content, and do it in a lasting way. All that’s required is creativity, principles, and a clear vision. So many projects seem to be lacking some or all of these however, and thus the first impulse is to racebend rather than actually do right by the source material or the cultures involved.

Shouldn’t we demand better? Why settle for such slop as racebent content? We as audience members deserve more Ryan Coogler films that start in the black community and cross over for everyone. More Kevin Kwan series about the authentic Asian experience. On and on. We as ethnic minorities (or majorities) deserve better. We as human beings, all equal and equally valuable, deserve better.

Exceptions Prove the Rule

One common refrain, a sort of last gasp to defend the indefensible, is that racebending should be allowed on a case-by-case basis, since art and media are inherently fluid, creative areas of life. “We can’t enforce some universal and strict rule(s) in this area,” some may say. “What about imagination and artistic freedom?” Leave aside the criticism which is already levied at the “freedom” to change people of non-European descent to a European one (i.e., whitewashing) and that many of the people who favor racebending are activists, not artists. What can we say to this critique, if we are to entertain it?

A rule can have exceptions, but only if it is in fact a rule. Take something like the 1997 version of Cinderella on ABC with Brandy. It worked because it was a one-off. That production had a deliberately diverse (in the truest sense) cast, including a multiethnic, proto-Bridgerton style royal family helmed by Victor Gerber as the King, Paolo Montalban as the Prince, and Whoopi Goldberg as the Queen. This production was also seen more as the TV equivalent of a heavily produced play than as a film adaptation, with all the attendant flexibility in casting that live theater typically enjoys. In contrast, something like the live action Disney remake films, such as 2015’s Cinderella or 2025’s Snow White, seem like far worse vehicles for drastic changes.

What critics of whitewashing have historically wanted is first an acknowledgement that it’s happening, second a reckoning with why it’s wrong, and third a general end to the practice. With racebending, as Gonzales and others proved with data, there has been a deliberate and increased push to racebend more and more. If this practice were used sparingly, as it had been in the past, that might be one thing. But as some toxic trend? It’s untenable. People already don’t like change in general, so why give them an obvious reason to reject diversity? No one can criticize Black Panther, Ms. Marvel, Coco, or similar projects on the same basis that they can reject whitewashing or blackwashing. Given this, amongst the other factors outlined in the previous section, one approach is clearly better than the other.

Nevertheless, if a fleeting exception must be made, we can perhaps see it as a distant possibility. Having a one-off instance of racebending isn’t the end of the world, though overall the exercise should still be discouraged on the basic principle of fairness and equality. What we actually must overcome is racebending as lazy cheat, one used to achieve token diversity rather than real representation. To say nothing of how it’s being enacted in racist ways and then talked about in dishonest fashion when people inevitably object. Like the proverbial case of someone being greeted by urine pouring on their head and gaslighted to believe it’s only rain water, people are smarter than that, and they shouldn’t be treated so poorly.

Conclusion

All groups want to see themselves represented in the art and media they encounter. Racebending might seem like one way to achieve that, but the irrefutable cons vastly outweigh the contestable pros. That we have tools at our disposal to achieve representation and diversity without racebending makes the correct position on the racebending question all the more obvious. Just as the answer to past discrimination isn’t present discrimination, the answer to whitewashing isn’t blackwashing.

As much as people might say the point is creative freedom and/or just telling great stories in a new way, it’s transparently not. The tool of racebending is being leveraged as part of a cultural revanchism that’s both divisive and unoriginal, all whilst rubbing its contempt for true diversity in people’s faces. In an era where inclusivity and authenticity are not just buzzwords but necessary components of responsible storytelling, racebending feels like a step backward, a lazy shortcut that doesn’t move the needle for real change. For true representation to occur, we must embrace all ethnicities and cultures in ways which are respectful and holistic. Diversity is not simply a marketing tool — it’s an essential part of art and media in a multiethnic society. Racebending is a product of bias and indolence, and it’s high time we move past that in favor of deeper, more authentic portrayals that reflect the richness of the communities they are meant to represent.

Let’s stop changing the color of characters just to tick a box. Let’s cast people who belong, who are part of the fabric of these stories, and who deserve the space to tell their own truths. Representation matters—and it should be done right, not just for optics. Tell the stories of each and every group. Honor those narratives and that history. Let everyone have their time to shine, and don’t commit unforced errors. The goal of diversity is one that the vast majority of us can all get behind—it simply must be pursued the right way.

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Quinn “Edokwin” Que is a journalist, commentator, and artist featured in a variety of publications. His blog, the Edokwin Editorial, and his prolific Twitter (X) account are great sources of insight. A larger portfolio can be found on his Bento. His primary areas of interest are arts, entertainment, philosophy, and politics. His previous essay for the Journal of Free Black Thought was “Reforming the DEI Reforms.”