Enough with TV's dependence on white women warriors!

Salon.com

Netflix's Warrior Nun, Amazon's Hanna Season 2 and Netflix's Cursed are all premiering seasons this month with one thing in common: white women who kick butt. "Over the years audiences have tacitly accepted this notion that queens, knights and warrior princesses are some version of white by default, owing to the genre's roots in European myths, epic poems and fairy tales, as well as the prevalence of the J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis world-building structure," says Melanie McFarland. "We've only begun to recently question this unspoken rule as films and TV series featuring leads of color or, in the case of Black Panther, non-white casts featuring mighty women, have proven to be popular and therefore bankable. Nevertheless, this recent flood of releases highlights anew the fact that women of color are rarely allowed to flex the supernatural heroine mantle. Naturally there are a few exceptions. The CW's Black Lightning features Thunder (Nafessa Williams) and Lightning (China Anne McClain), daughters to the main hero. Over on The CW, a remake of Charmed renders The Charmed Ones as Latinx women although, in reality, only one member of the core cast is Latina, Melonie Diaz. Her co-stars Madeleine Mantock identifies as Afro-Carribean and Sarah Jeffery is Black. But when we call to mind the influential super-women made indelible via their time on TV, the names that spring to mind tend to be Buffy, Sydney Bristow of Alias fame or going back farther, Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman or The Bionic Woman, starring Lindsay Wagner. And while the racial identity of these characters does not prevent girls and women from every culture from claiming them as objects of power fantasy, it is one of those baked in entertainment tropes that has aggravating implications. The popularity of Game of Thrones, for example, ignited a fascination with dragons among teenage girls. But those watching the series received the message that only white people are able ride magical mythical beasts while characters of color served as the support staff."