Latino star Michelle Rodriguez took to Facebook to apologize for “that whole superhero thing” after igniting a fury of criticism when she casually said last Friday that minority actors should “stop stealing all the white people’s superheroes.”
“What I really meant was that ultimately at the end of the day there’s a language and the language that you speak in Hollywood is ‘successful franchise’ and I think that there are many cultures in Hollywood that are not white that can come up with their own mythology,” Rodriguez said in a video post taken from her bed.
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After the Fast & Furious actress denied rumors to TMZ that she might be cast as the new Green Lantern (previously played by Ryan Reynolds), she took the liberty to add that “It’s so stupid, it’s like, because of this whole minorities in Hollywood thing … it’s so stupid, it’s like ‘stop stealing all the white people’s superheroes’ … make up your own. You know what I’m saying? What’s up with that?” The TMZ reporter thanked her for the comment.
Fans were enraged, sharing their disappointment and shock on Twitter and Facebook. Rodriguez, who said in the video that her remarks “got taken out of context because a lot of people got offended or whatever,” acknowledged that she has a “tendency to speak without a filter. Sorry about that.”
“I’m just saying that instead of trying to turn a girl character into a guy or instead of trying to turn a white character into a black character or a Latin character, I think the people should stop being lazy, and that people should actually make an effort in Hollywood to develop their own mythology,” she added.
Several movie franchises have swapped in minorities for typically white superhero characters, including Michael B. Jordan as the Human Torch in the “Fantastic Four” reboot and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury in the “Avengers.” And in a big move for Marvel, the studio announced last year that it will have its first black superhero, “Black Panther,” played by Chadwick Boseman.
Watch her full apology here:
Anna Brand