The Sandman Didn't "Go Woke", It's Always Been That Way

gamerant.com:

The term «woke» has undergone the slow and shameful death of every oversaturated term that is wielded as a weapon in the ongoing culture war. Unshockingly, every new piece of pop culture suffers the distasteful fate of social media discourse. Some examples are more valid than others, but the discussion around The Sandman seems to omit some key details.

Casting a comic book adaptation is always a fraught business, often because fans love to imagine their preferred performers in the role of their favorite characters. Of course, the casting announcements will be met with a bit more backlash if they dare cast a woman or a person of color.

'Sandman' Series Just Added A Whole Bunch Of New Cast Members

Netflix's adaptation ofThe Sandman made waves among certain deeply unpleasant communities for its casting decisions. Most notably, Rose Walker, Unity Kincaid, and Death, all traditionally portrayed as white characters, were portrayed by black actors. Death's portrayal by Kirby Howell-Baptiste received special negative attention from sections of the online outrage community. Dream's dutiful librarian Lucien was turned into Lucienne, and portrayed by a woman of color, rather than the typical white male appearance. Lucifer Morningstar, typically portrayed with painstaking resemblance to David Bowie, was instead portrayed by Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie. Finally, non-binary star Mason Alexander Park joined the cast as Desire, sparking the least logically accurate outrage of the bunch. These examples of interesting casting resulted in predictable bouts of bigoted shouting by the kind of person who makes a living off making people angry.

From even the most strictly canonical perspective, very few of these issues have merit. The