Anthony Mackie criticises Marvel for lack of diversity

Team Udayavani, Jun 30, 2020, 10:19 AM IST

Los Angeles: Actor Anthony Mackie has called out Disney’s Marvel Studios for its lack of representation in the cast and crew.

The actor, who has been part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since 2014 as Sam Wilson aka Falcon, said now that he is leading Disney Plus series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier , he hopes to help the crew look a little less white.

When The Falcon and the Winter Soldier comes out, I’m the lead, Mackie told actor Daveed Diggs during the pair’s recent Variety Actors on Actors interview.

When Snowpiercer’ came out, you’re the lead. We have the power and the ability to ask those questions. It really bothered me that I’ve done seven Marvel movies where every producer, every director, every stunt person, every costume designer, every PA, every single person has been white, the actor added responding to Diggs question on how he was interacting with Black Lives Matter.

Mackie has appeared in MCU movies Captain America: The Winter Soldier , Avengers: Age of Ultron , Ant-Man , Captain America: Civil War , Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame .

The actor said he wants to promote diversity in Hollywood through every project he joins.

I find a lot of my interactions are just trying to make things better in the gigs I have in front of me how can I affect different kinds of representation? What is the thing you feel compelled to do? What is your participation in this moment?

Criticising Marvel for ignoring the need and importance of diversity, the 41-year-old actor said till now the studio has only had one Black producer, Nate Moore, who was behind Black Panther .

Mackie believes the fact that the studio decided to have an all-black cast and crew on the Oscar-nominated 2018 movie made it feel even more racist to him.

We’ve had one Black producer; his name was Nate Moore. He produced Black Panther.’ But then when you do Black Panther,’ you have a Black director, Black producer, a Black costume designer, a Black stunt choreographer.

And I’m like, that’s more racist than anything else. Because if you only can hire the Black people for the Black movie, are you saying they’re not good enough when you have a mostly white cast?

The actor said people should be cast on the basis of their caliber and gender or color biases should not govern the choices the studios and filmmakers make while roping in the talent.

My big push with Marvel is hire the best person for the job. Even if it means we’re going to get the best two women, we’re going to get the best two men.

Fine. I’m cool with those numbers for the next 10 years. Because it starts to build a new generation of people who can put something on their r sum to get them other jobs. If we’ve got to divvy out as a percentage, divvy it out. And that’s something as leading men that we can go in and push for, he said.