Despite being in charge of building a town made entirely out of tiny plastic blocks, the team in charge of the LEGO Batman Movie says they went out of their way to make sure LEGO Gotham City looked as “diverse” and “authentic” as possible.
Speaking to Film Journal, director Chris McKay said that, while he’s always been a fan of the Batman franchise (he even has a Catwoman tattoo on his upper arm), he recognized that the old-school Batman universe is “problematic,” and that he had a hard time justifying keeping Gotham’s cast of characters mostly white, male and cis-gendered (even though LEGO Batman is, in the real world, technically yellow).
“The cast of characters in Batman is a sausage-fest. It’s a bunch of white guys, for the most part,” McKay noted. “That was really important, to find ways of making the world look like it looks outside and sound like it sounds outside.”
And so, McKay expanded his universe of voice-over actors to incorporate…Mariah Carey. She’ll play Gotham City’s hardscrabble mayor.
He also cast Billy Dee Williams as Two Face and Rosario Dawson as Batgirl, and made sure that their on-screen LEGO counterparts were designed according to how they look in real life.
McKay seems to contend that this is the first iteration of Gotham City to incorporate characters of color, but he’s actually reprising Williams, who played the same role in Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film (though, technically, as Harvey Dent). Joel Schumacher recast Tommy Lee Jones in the role for Batman Forever, when movie Dent became Two-Face.
Regardless, Internet social justice warriors are overjoyed that this could be the Batman their children grow up with—a diverse, socially woke iteration that’s fun for the whole progressive family. The good news is, its also a LEGO movie, so it should be fun for everyone.
