Fan’s “Controversial” Opinion: Why Casting a Black Actor as Charles Xavier in the MCU Would Never Work

With the release of ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ the era of mutants has begun in the MCU, according to Feige’s own words. Some X-Men and mutants were already present in the MCU projects, but with the upcoming X-Men live-action reboot in the works, we can look forward to a completely new cast.

Professor X has already appeared, played by Patrick Stewart in ‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.’ However, we’re talking about an alternate variant, an Illuminati member who eventually meets his end at the hands of Scarlet Witch.

Stewart was never meant to be MCU’s main Charles Xavier, just like Krasinski was never meant to be MCU’s Mr. Fantastic and so fans have been putting forward actors that might take on the role in future projects. With Marvel’s recent push for inclusion, some of the actors that have been put forward to play the role are black for example David Oyelowo and Courtney B. Vance.

The arguments supporting this are some fans’ opinions that Xavier and Magneto were based on Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, while Chris Claremont said that the parallels are valid, he presented a more direct inspiration behind his take on X-Men.

Now usually when you have race-swapped characters it causes quite the commotion, not beacuse their race brings anything to the table character-wise, it because people don’t like change. When race swaps are done well, like was the case with Nick Fury, no one seems to mind it all that much. When race swaps are done for the sake of diversity, this is when you have a problem.

So what does this have to do with Professor X being potentially black in the MCU? Well, I’m afraid that in this case, the character’s race does play an important part in his character. Recently fan posted a controversial opinion on X that Charles Xavier should never be black in the MCU:

The running argument is that Xavier comes from a place of privilege and has never experienced racism. If you’re familiar with Xavier’s character in the comics you will know that he was born wealthy, to an accomplished father. Yes, his origin story is painful and traumatic as well as his childhood but it had nothing to do with discrimination based on his race or class. His funds eventually funded the whole X-Men, so he turned that in-born privilege into a good thing.

Xavier is discriminated against based on being a mutant, but even that can easily be hidden as nothing about his screams mutant he can easily go undercover and won’t be discriminated against for merely existing if he does not disclose his status.

The fan also proposed that Magneto, a Jewish character can be black since he did experience racism during the Holocaust, as his origin story is far more discrimination-based than Xavier’s ever was.

Some fans agreed in the comments:

What do you think about this notion? Let us know in the comments below!

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