Tim Burton and Netflix face backlash after viewers of ‘Wednesday’ criticize the series for racist characterizations of its Black characters

Tim Burton and Netflix face backlash after viewers of ‘Wednesday’ criticize the series for racist characterizations of its Black characters.

Bianca Barclay, played by Joy Sunday, was portrayed as a mean girl while Iman Marson’s character, Lucas Wilson, was written as a bully.Character Lucas Wilson is also the son of a corrupt mayor who is revealed to own Pilgrim Land. 

The accusations towards Burton follow a history of comments perceived as racist, such as when he compared the inclusion of Black and Asian characters in ‘The Brady Bunch’ to “blaxploitation” when discussing the lack of diversity in ‘Miss Peregrine’s.’

With”Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” Samuel L. Jackson will be the first black actor to play a leading role in a Burton movie, according to Bustle. “I don’t think it’s any fault of his or his method of storytelling, it’s just how it’s played out,” Jackson told Bustle. “Tim’s a really great guy.”

As Hollywood and the entertainment industry increasingly face criticism over the lack of diversity in roles, the lack of actors of color in Burton’s long movie-making career — more than a dozen films in three decades — is receiving greater scrutiny. And Burton delivered a rather tone-deaf response when Bustle asked him about his adaptation of the popular Ransom Riggs fantasy novel, which features a large, and largely white, ensemble.The famed director acknowledged that diversity has become a popular discussion topic, but told editor Rachel Simon that “things either call for things, or they don’t.” He continued:

I remember back when I was a child watching “The Brady Bunch” and they started to get all politically correct, like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black — I used to get more offended by that than just — I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.His defense doesn’t really track. He compares a contrived network television plot line, one that had black and Asian American adopted kids and resulted in a failed spinoff attempt, to blaxploitation, a genre intended to serve as defiant commentary on racism and black empowerment (though a number of films were criticized for perpetuating stereotypes of African Americans). And now Burton’s comments have been met with blowback on social media: