Bad Bunny to star in"El Muerto" Marvel movie. Is it a win for Latines everywhere?
Sea lo que sea, Bad Bunny todavía está en su peak
Last week, Sony Pictures announced that the Puerto Rican rapper — and most-streamed artist of 2020 and 2021 — Bad Bunny will star in the Spider-Man spinoff “El Muerto,” making him the first Latino lead in a live-action Marvel movie.
The story is based on a character who was featured in just Marvel two comics back in 2006 and the fact that Sony had to reach for such an obscure character (so obscure it apparently didn’t have a Wikipedia page before this announcement) has some people wondering about the intentions of the entire production of the movie.
And more than that, some are already assuming it’ll be a likely flop, especially after the recent failures of Sony’s recent Marvel movies, Morbius and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
Yet there’s been some focus/tepid celebration about the “win” this presents for Latinx representation, which I feel mixed about. Similar to how Netflix makes shows about non-white characters to attract new audiences to their platform, then cancels the shows once their targeted audience becomes subscribers (e.g. the production and cancellation of Gentefied), this move by Sony feels like an attempt to get that kind of win without really doing much. And it’s really going to feel hollow if the movie is of the same quality as Sony’s recent Marvel movies.
🔃 yet, I’ll still give it the benefit of the doubt. It could turn out to be great, even if the character has such a limited storyline that it’s doubtful they’d make other movies about him. It’s also wild that Sony owns the film rights to 900 Marvel characters and the one Latine one they could find was this obscure. But that’s a problem that is present for most superhero movies since they’re based on comics, many decades old, that never aimed for diversity. Until this movie, Michael Peña was the most recognizable Latine in the live-action Marvel universe. And rightfully so because he killed it in his role.
Maxwell Yezpitelok at Cracked wrote that Sony has three options to add diversity to Marvel adaptions:
Continue scraping the bottom of the barrel
Anger the internet by changing the race of one of the more notable characters they own
Invent new characters
All are kind of bad ideas, but I guess the truth in all this is that we probably shouldn’t be looking for diversity in a world (Marvel Comics) that was not created by Latines or with Latines in mind. The movie might end up feeling like more of a #diversitywin if the movie and main character get true hype and success closer to its release, but the true win would be having the opportunity to create something like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or even the Sony's Spider-Man Universe) that centers characters of color and is designed with audiences of color in mind.
Maybe the movie will be a win if Bad Bunny can use his role to advocate for Puerto Rican independence. But I doubt he’d be able to get that into the movie, considering he’ll be playing a Mexican American character. At least we know he’ll have the wrestling down.
All this to say, if there’s enough hype when it comes out in 2024, I’ll probably watch it. Until then, I’m more curious about Bad Bunny’s new album, slated to be released this Friday.