Why Idris Elba Can, Will and Should be in the Upcoming “Thor” movie

Yesterday the Council of Conservative Citizens, an organization characterized as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, urged Americans to boycott the upcoming Thor movie over the casting of black actor Idris Elba as Norse god Heimdall. While most of us will take a moment to point and laugh at the sad old men clinging to their outdated beliefs before moving on to things that actually matter, I decided to take a moment and address why I think Elba will make a fine Heimdall, and why the fuss of both the CofCC and a small but vocal minority of fandom isn’t just silly, it’s plain wrong. In four points, here’s why Idris Elba can and should fill Heimdall’s mighty boots.

Idris Elba is an awesome actor
The guy does comedy, drama, romance, horror and science fiction. He’s already been in one comic book adaptation, The Losers, and is set to star in another one after Thor (the next Ghostrider film). Further, you want to talk about real heroes? Elba is an Anti-Crime Ambassador for the Prince’s Trust, a non-profit that he credits with starting his acting career. He’s the real deal. All of the distraught fanboys should be celebrating the fact that Elba has been cast in the role, not castigating the film’s creators over it. Really, the fact that Thor is attracting talent like Elba is, if anything, a sign that comic book culture is moving into the mainstream, and mainstream American culture is increasingly more diverse. Comic book fandom needs to accept this or be prepared for the medium they love to be shelved in the dollar bin of history.

The times they are changin’
A lot has happened since the birth of comic books: dinosaurs no longer wander the Earth, and society has come leaps and bounds in recognizing and addressing racism. (It’s too bad about the dinosaurs, though. You should have read Diplodocus’ run on Superman – magnifique!) Minorities were sorely underrepresented in comic books during during the hazy Dawn Times of their birth, and the racial composition of their casts were nothing if not symptomatic of society’s institutional racism. Things have gotten a little bit better since then, so why not have comic book heroes of every color and creed? There’s no good reason why we should cling to traditions founded at least partially upon prejudice, and if we’re going to try to build a society based on equality, then we need to start seeing an actor’s ethnic background as entirely incidental. The fact that we’re still having this kind of controversy speaks volumes, I’m afraid.

The Thor comic book has jack to do with Norse mythology
I’ve read Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda, Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, Bullfinch’s The Age of Fable and H.R. Ellis Davidson’s Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, and I’ll be damned if I can find any instance of Thor or his buddies taking on the Bi-Beast (snicker…) or The Hulk or even just kicking it with Captain America and the rest of the Avengers. It’s not in there. Face it, Marvel Comics has played fast and loose with Norse mythology for years. Heck, even Marvel’s Thor has seen his fair share of revisions. A black Thor really seems kind of mild compared to Zombie Thor, or even Dog Thor, but I don’t recall seeing the Council of Conservative Citizens coming out from under their bridge to decry those particular affronts to the purity of Germanic myth. But wait, you might say, these weren’t the “real” Thor, these were Thors from an alternate dimensions, so they don’t count. Really? You’re telling me that you can stomach an undead Thor, a canine Thor, but not the idea of black guy in the role of not Thor, but a supporting cast member? That’s the one alternate dimension that’s too far for you?

Man depicts gods in his image
Take a look at any culture that worships an anthropomorphic god. Now look at the people of that culture. Now look at that god. See any similarities? There are exceptions, of course, but gods and goddesses almost always look like their worshipers. But..but…but…Heimdall is a Germanic god, and the Western Europeans who worshiped him were white! Not so fast, my xenophobic friend. Religions often grow to include groups beyond the original families, tribes and nations that originally worshiped them, and when they do, their deities often get a make-over. Take Jesus, for example. A quick Google search will yield African American Jesus, White Jesus, Asian Jesus, female Jesus…what, you really thought Jesus was a blue-eyed Caucasian? Jesus’ image has changed more times than David Bowie’s. So what does that have to do with Heimdall? Well, if the Norse pantheon had gone on to sweep the world like Christianity  it’s very likely that we’d be seeing Odin, Thor and the whole gang in every shade and hue humanity has to offer. It would be Asgard by way of United Colors of Benetton, and it would be fabulous. Heimdall could definitely be a black guy, or an Asian guy, or even a woman. That’s the nature of religion and myth, as eternal as they are in terms of their timeless truths, the little details themselves tend to change over the years. Don’t sweat the small stuff, the Universe seems to be saying, and boys and girls and true-believers, the matter of Heimdall’s purported melanin content is about as small as it gets.