Julia Garner Female Silver Surfer Cast Controversy
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Overview
Julia Garner Female Silver Surfer Cast Controversy or Julia Garner Silver Surfer Casting Debate refers to the viral debate and controversy relating to the 2025 The Fantastic Four film announcing actress Julia Garner to play as Shalla-Bal, a female version of the Silver Surfer character from Marvel Comics. The news, which broke in early April 2024, sparked widespread media coverage and debate on Twitter / X (among other platforms), as well as ironic memes about people who criticized the casting choice.
Background
On April 3rd, 2024, the news outlet Deadline[1] revealed that American actress Julia Garner joined Marvel Studios‘ The Fantastic Four 2025 film cast as Shalla-Bal, a version of Silver Surfer from the comics. The news was also shared on Twitter / X by the account @DiscussingFilm[2] that same day, which amassed more than 69,000 likes and 9,700 retweets in a day (seen below).
Online Reactions
Shortly after the announcement, many netizens started to speculate that the decision of a female Silver Surfer would be turned into a viral debate on the internet. For example, on April 3rd, 2024, [3] X user @TenguRey reposted @DiscussingFilm's tweet and said, "The worst YouTuber you know is making the worst video imaginable, with the worst thumbnail possible." The post (shown below, left) amassed more than 59,000 likes and 4,600 retweets in a day.
A day later, on April 4th, X[4] user @NebsGoodTakes gathered some thumbnails from various YouTubers criticizing Julia Garner's cast as Silver Surfer. The post (shown below, right) garnered over 22,000 likes and 1,700 retweets in a few hours.
Several YouTubers posted reactions to the news on April 3rd, 2024, some of them adding to the debate and controversy with their commentary. For example, YouTuber Tyrone Magnus uploaded a video titled "R.I.P Disney" that day, receiving over 65,000 views in 20 hours (seen below, left). Also that same day, YouTuber Ryan Kinel uploaded a video titled "Marvel DOUBLES DOWN On Woke M-She-U | Casts FEMALE Silver Surfer Julia Garner In Fantastic Four," receiving over 42,700 views in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).
Numerous discussions about the casting of Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal also appeared on Reddit in early April 2024, many of them including top-voted comments from Redditors joking about people reacting negatively to the announcement.[5][6]
Various Reactions
Search Interest
External References
[1] Deadline – ‘The Fantastic Four’: Julia Garner Joins Marvel Studios Movie As A Shalla-Bal Version Of Silver Surfer
[2] X – DiscussingFilm
[4] X – NebsGoodTakes
[5] Reddit – r/MarvelStudiosSpoilers
[6] Reddit – r/marvelstudios
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