Neil Gaiman has responded to harsh criticisms over casting choices in The Sandman. Based on Gaiman's graphic novels of the same name, The Sandman is a television adaptation that debuted exclusively on Netflix earlier this year. After a long development cycle saw it go from a film to a show, The Sandman cast began to grow throughout 2020 and 2021, with some casting decisions causing hateful backlash, namely the castings of Kirby Howell-Baptiste and Mason Alexander Park. Howell-Baptiste, a Black actress, was the recipient of racist backlash for playing the role of Death, who was depicted as a white woman in the original graphic novels, while, Park, a nonbinary actor, received homophobic backlash for being cast as Desire. Some viewers were simply embittered over the casting of queer and BIPOC actors, while others saw it as another attempt by Netflix to appease audiences by including token minority actors.
In an interview with the Endless, such as Death, don't have one set appearance, but rather appear differently to different people. Read Gaiman's full comment below:
"Oh, and occasionally, you get people shouting at us for having made up all of these gay characters who weren’t in the comics, and then we’d go ‘Have you read the comics?’ And they’d go ‘No.’ And we’d go, ‘They were gay in the comics.’ And they’d go ‘You’re just woke and nobody is going to watch your horrible show.’ And then we went Number 1 in the world for four weeks. And they went ‘It’s all bots! We hate you. You’re woke.’ It’s a weird silliness. These complainers don’t like gay people, they don’t like Black people, and they don’t like women. And if you look at their profiles, they don’t like vaccines, they don’t like Democrats, and they’re not big on voting."
How Sandman Overcame Toxic Critiques To Become A Hit
As Gaiman points out, The Sandman became a massive success, with the show being ranked at No. 1 globally on Netflix only three days after its release. By September 18, just over a month after the show premiered, the series had garnered over 393.14 million hours watched internationally, and stayed as the No. 1 watched English-language TV show on Netflix for several weeks. Despite racist and homophobic backlash to the casting choices, many other viewers applauded The Sandman for being openly diverse - perhaps even more diverse than the original graphic novel series.
Since the show's casting was announced, Gaiman has constantly been ive of the series' casting choices, even once tweeting that he gives "zero f**ks about people who don't understand/ haven't read Sandman whining about a non-binary Desire or that Death isn't white enough." Gaiman has very quickly been quick to call out not only fans who haven't read The Sandman comics for their hateful comments, but also those who don't understand why a Black Death or a nonbinary Desire make complete sense in the series. Death, like Dream, appears differently to different people, and can therefore look like anyone; Desire is referred to by they/them pronouns in the graphic novels as well, making their screen debut as nonbinary entirely in-line with Gaiman's original work.
Though there have always been, and will always be, toxic critiques from viewers, that isn't stopping The Sandman's success. Earlier this month, it was finally confirmed that the series had been renewed for more episodes, and in October, Jenna Coleman confirmed that there is the potential for her character, Johanna Constantine, to get a spinoff of her own. While receiving hateful backlash isn't something any actor or creator would want to deal with, both Gaiman and the rest of The Sandman's cast have been nothing but ive of their castmates, signaling that there are many more great successes to be had with the show.
Source: Inverse