On Changing Wesker's Race, Resident Evil Showrunner Says We "Shouldn't Assume All Eugenics Equal Ubermensch"
Major spoilers for Netflix’s Resident Evil.
Netflix’s live-action Resident Evil series is not a reimagining, but a direct continuation of the games’ long and complicated story. The history of Resident Evil is woven through the eight-episode first season, and while the connections become more apparent as the series progresses, one well-established character plays a key role from the very beginning. Lance Reddick stars as Albert Wesker, Resident Evil’s most prolific antagonist who, fans of the series will remember, died in 2009 via rocket launcher in the base of a volcano. The circumstances of Wesker’s return are explored in the series, but one major retcon is never addressed. Wesker, the Aryan poster child for Umbrella founder Oswell Spencer’s eugenics program, is now a Black man and apparently, within the reality of the show, always has been. This is confirmed in episode seven when the original Wesker appears - with his signature black leather trench coat and dark glasses - and is also played by Reddick.
Whenever an adaptation of a popular franchise decides to change the race or gender of a character, there is always a lot of pushback from a certain sect of the fandom. Superhero movies commonly draw the most ire for casting actors who don’t match the race of their comic book counterpart, and everyone from Olga Kurylenko as Taskmaster to Zendaya as MJ has had to deal with bigots crying about woke agendas and virtue signaling. The fact that we’re still debating whether or not Sam Wilson is Captain America after a movie and an entire television show told us he was shows how little sincerity is behind these complaints. When people complained about the Eternals - a superhero team no one has ever heard of - having such a
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