The Marvel Cinematic Universe has become more diverse in recent years. At a time when white actors predominated the comic book movie genre, actress Jessica Alba played Sue Storm in the 2005 film Fantastic Four and the 2007 blockbuster Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
The blockbuster franchise, according to the 41-year-old actress in an interview with Glamour UK, is much too strongly dominated by white performers.
And although it seems like there are more diverse movies in this category now than there used to be, Alba says it’s still “more of the same”.
She said in the interview: “Even if you look at the Marvel movies – that’s the biggest driver of fantasy and what’s happening right now in entertainment because it’s sort of the family think – it’s still quite Caucasian.
“I would say I was one of the few back in the day… And it was before Marvel was sold to Disney, but it’s still quite more of the same.”
Alba went on to say: “It’s a business initiative for people now that they realize how much money they can make. It’s something they care about, which is fine.
“How they get there really doesn’t matter. You’re like, ‘Great. Now you realize there’s a whole group of folks that you just frankly left out of the conversation because you just didn’t even see them. They were there the whole time.'”
“And I guess it’s the people in charge. However they get there, it really genuinely doesn’t matter,” she continued. “I just think more for the younger people who are coming up, who are going to be our future leaders, it’s important for them to see the world on screen, or in stories, in the dreams that we create as entertainers; it reflects the world that they’re in.”
Prior to the early 2000s, Alba has previously discussed how her Mexican American ancestry held her back from landing movie roles.
“They couldn’t figure out my ethnicity,” Alba told PopSugar in 2017. “I would always go out for ‘exotic.’ They were like, ‘You’re not Latin enough to play a Latina, and you’re not Caucasian enough to play the leading lady, so you’re going to be the “exotic” one.’ Whatever that was.”
Source: vt.co