The Equity and Belonging problem with Netflix’s sandman

This illustration is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Its artist is Álvaro Fernández Gonzalez.

With season two in production and the rest of the Endless Family being cast for the show, I think it’s finally time for me to talk about Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s comic book series, The Sandman (fair warning: major spoilers ahead for season one follow), because as much as I love it, I’ve got some problems with it that I hope the second season addresses.

To be perfectly clear, I love The Sandman on Netflix. It’s a visually gorgeous, gritty-dark fantasy that gives me the urban-fantasy vibes of The Magicians and the grandiose world-building of fifth-edition Dungeons and Dragons. Plus, it’s got Gwendoline Christie, who I fell in love with after seeing her as Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones, playing Lucifer Morningstar—a brilliant casting choice that I’ll be talking about later.

Most importantly, Netflix’s adaptation makes me want to read the original comics and see how they’ve stayed true to the source material or strayed from it like FX did with Kindred. I’ve been toying with the idea of adapting my novel into a film or a TV series, so my brain is both in study and entertainment mode.

But here’s the problem I have with The Sandman. You ready?

The cast is very white.

Before you tear my eyes out like Corinthian did to that beautiful man of color in episode two of season one, let me be more specific. The Sandman nails it with its diversity and inclusion, but misses the mark with equity and belonging.

To start, nearly every minor character is servile, is a love interest to a major character, is quickly killed off or given little screen time, and is portrayed by an actor of color. Take, for instance, the character of Lucien. In the comics, he was the head librarian in the Dreaming Realm and the faithful servant of Dream, AKA Lord Morpheus, portrayed by Tom Sturridge. Netflix’s adaptation reimagines him as Lucienne—a POC-coded feminine-presenting woman. A progressive, feminist, anti-racist move, am I right?

Not exactly.

Lucienne’s devotion to Dream is not the problem here. The fact that she sends the raven, Matthew, after Dream on his quest to find his helmet, ruby, and sand characterizes her as someone that cares for her god and ruler deeply.

Having Vivienne Acheampong portray Lucienne is not the problem either. Acheampong is a wonderful actress and portrays Lucienne’s devotion wonderfully enough that I can get lost in the story. She was apparently given advice from Gaiman himself, saying in a Women’s Wear Daily article that even though Lucien was male that they’ve “picked [her] for this part” and that she should trust herself.

The problem is that the white-Black, master-servant, strong-weak dichotomy is still reinforced to the viewers as it has been reinforced in white, Western literary canon and visual media for hundreds—if not, thousands—of years.

For a story about gods and mortals, magic and monsters, and good and evil, race shouldn’t seem to matter a whole lot in speculative fiction. After all, we see in episode four that Dream can take on different appearances toward certain individuals. To Nada, imprisoned in Hell, he is Kai’ckul, a young POC-coded (again, not Black) man of the First Tribe likely inspired by the first humans of Africa.

Fine. Sure. Gods are all-powerful beings like that. I can vibe with that because I can buy that as a speculative fiction writer.

But why does he need to resemble Nada ethnically? Did that make him more appealing to her as a lover in the past? Did he always adopt this appearance around her? Did it make him seem less threatening to her that he looked like her? Is deity-mortal miscegenation off the table, or are mixed relationships on screen off the table? Come to think of it, why does he not resemble an ethnically Greek man when he’s around Calliope in the epilogue of season one?

Race matters as much inside the story as it does outside of it, especially in visual mediums like television and film. There have certainly been strides in having more diversity and inclusion on screen in the last few decades. It used to be that BIPOC actors couldn’t even get a single line or a single shot in the scene or win any awards. Yet so long as there are people like me out there who cannot afford to stop thinking about their race and how it shapes their life and circumstances, not even seemingly safe spaces like speculative fiction can afford to ignore race in their stories either. Gods might be gods, and monsters might still be monsters, but race and ethnicity still matter if they’re used in these ways.

The latter question gets raised as well when Rachel, Johanna Constantine’s lover, is given a merciful death by Dream because having his sand in her possession turned her into somewhat of a dream addict. Portrayed by Eleanor Fayinka, Rachel and her subsequent death reinforces the Bury-Your-Gays trope and elevates the whiter, seemingly more prescient stories of confirmed bisexual Johanna Constantine and white-cisgender-heterosexual-presenting Dream.

And, why is the demon that Johanna Constantine sends back to Hell portrayed by a Black man with dreads? What do these kinds of casting choices say about the tendencies of casting directors in the television and film industry even now? Why, in almost every shot with a white actor, must an actor of color portray a lower-class role in contrast?

And you’re going to hear me say those kinds of things a lot—“POC-coded,” “white-presenting,” “feminine/masculine-presenting,” etc.—because unless I’m told otherwise, I don’t want to assume anything about the characters or the world of the story. I want to give gods the space to be gods, but it’s hard to do that in a show like this where race and gender clearly matter but aren’t really talked about or referred to in the show

As a Black, queer, nonbinary speculative fiction writer, I will forever live at the intersection of art and activism. Artistically, I’d rather let things be the way they are. But as an activist who wants to see more of their world reflected in the media that I consume, I can’t look the other way.

To that end, I did like the choice of casting Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer. I like the idea of Lucifer possibly being trans-masculine and genderqueer, defying the cisgender heteronormative gender binary set forth by Adam and Eve. But why does Mazikeen—daughter of Lilith, Lucifer’s servant—need to be presented alongside Lucifer as a POC-coded woman? Sure, Mazikeen was portrayed by Lesley-Ann Brandt in the Lucifer spin-off, so maybe they were just going for consistency, but why do I have to be reminded of my lower-classed ethnic status as she presents Dream’s helmet back to him once he’s won his challenge issued by Chronzon?

And don’t get me started on Rosemary (Sarah Niles) of Buffalo, New York, whom I assume to be a Black woman and the only soul kind enough to give a white man stumbling into the street a ride to Mayhew. Granted, this scene shows the villain’s terrifying ability to compel people to do his will, but for aiding him in his journey to find Dream’s ruby at the cost of a gas station attendant’s life, she’s given the Amulet of Protection, preventing her from aging and being harmed. Unintentionally, Rosemary the good Samaritan becomes Rosemary the good Negro and sends the message that protecting white men and whiteness as constructs will be rewarded.

Another example is Death, Dream’s sister. I firmly believe that a woman of color—specifically a Black woman—should portray her. With the angry Black woman stereotype, she is a refreshing rebuttal to that notion and the only answer to it. But why does she only show up in one episode to offer sisterly advice to Dream, unintentionally making herself look like the magical Negro that helps solve the white man’s problem?

Similarly, Rose Walker (Vanesu Samunyai) and her rainbow dreads are #fire, and I will embody her dream-ending energy to the end of my days. Her Black rage and all the power she puts forth to save her brother is the stuff of epic storytelling. But once again, she is portrayed as the antagonist whose very existence threatens to destroy reality and the Realm of Dreams, as though she were a wild animal that needed to be put down.

No. Not on my watch. Not when Breonna Taylor was murdered in her sleep. Not when George Floyd was murdered while being filmed. #SayTheirNames, or I’ll say them for you.

And I can hear them now, too—the people who say that we should be grateful that actors of color are even getting any roles these days, let alone minor ones. We should be content that we’re getting less. But, you see, that’s a trap. In championing diversity and inclusion in our stories, we cannot forget equity and belonging. We cannot forget that actors of color should be given equally powerful roles and to ensure a television show’s viewers belong in the audience.

Like, if we took away all the magic, all the gods, all the monsters, all the demons, all the dialogue of the story—if we took that all away and we were left with just the visuals—what would the show be saying? What would it be intentionally or unintentionally reinforcing?

That’s what I’m talking about here. It’s not enough that something looks good on screen. It’s not enough that there’s a diverse cast because those decisions have to mean something due to their intended or unintended impact on audience members like me who view art with a racially-informed lens.

What I hope the next season of The Sandman considers is putting more actors of color in front of the camera and not in contrast to the bigger, whiter players. What I hope we see across the board in television and film is that characters of color will be given the space to be heroes and villains, flawed and heroic, big and small.

People of color are people, not just parts for actors to play.