Tulip could have easily become an empty caricature of a so-called Strong Female Character, the kind whose personality mostly comes from a propensity for violence and one-liners. Or she might have been the typical comic-adaptation girlfriend who is kept away from the action and implores her man to be a good guy. Instead, Tulip is a complex figure who challenges preconceived notions of women in comic adaptations, diversity in the genre and antiheroes on TV.
Casting Negga demanded major changes to the character. In the comics, Tulip is drawn as a blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman; Negga is of Ethiopian and Irish descent. Racebending older comic characters for the screen is a necessity given the justified demands of audiences for greater diversity. It’s a challenge to others who feel comfortable whitewashing characters, sidelining people of color or trading in the harmful stereotypes that are baked into the premises of these decades-old stories. Just look at Marvel’s recent mistakes with the mistreatment of Asian characters on the second season of Daredevil and the upcoming Doctor Strange. Changing the races of characters like Tulip to people of color opens up much-needed story possibilities. After all, how many more white men prone to quips and brooding can audiences take?
The change also shifts our expectations of Tulip's narrative. The weight of being a black woman in the South — especially in a story that skewers Southern bigotry — can’t be downplayed. The show hasn’t fully delved into the way her identity has shaped her experiences, but there are hints in how her aggression almost functions as a defense mechanism, biting back at men twice her size before they get the chance to cause any harm. Tulip willfully trades insults and threats of violence with everyone, from the men lounging around the brothel she occasionally finds refuge
Tulip’s introduction in the pilot makes it clear how radically different she is from her comic counterpart. In a flashback to the recent
There’s a moment at the kitchen table, as she crafts that
In a few short
Negga discusses the morality of Tulip in a recent interview, saying, “The brilliant thing about that speech [with the kids] is that she's basically saying it's okay to beat someone up or be violent if it's going to help you. She has a very twisted moral viewpoint, but it's so
Much has been made about the recent proliferation of female antiheroes, like the icy lead of The Girlfriend Experience, the dedicated Elizabeth Jennings of The Americans and the manipulative women of UnREAL. What has been less discussed is how white this trend remains. Yes, there are exceptions, like Viola Davis in How to Get Away with Murder. But not enough. That’s part of why Tulip is so fascinating. If the usual white female antihero makes the claim that women can be monstrous too, black female antiheroes do something more subversive. An antihero like Tulip is a striking repudiation of the roles black women have been defined by in this country — the mammy, the jezebel, the strong black woman — whose legacy still manifests itself onscreen. What’s refreshing is that, despite having faced a lifetime of Southern racism and sexism, Tulip isn’t suffering or routinely beaten down like many of the other black women onscreen (just look at Olivia Pope on
Tulip's morality may be more than a bit gray, but she doesn’t waver in her beliefs or desires. She’s a black woman moving through a bigoted milieu full of leering townsfolk who wish she would stay in her place — especially when she is the only person to complain about the death of a young prostitute after a paintball game gone wrong. For all that, none of this would work without Negga’s assured performance. She infuses Tulip with unexpected levity and innocence, and her charisma is enough to carry the scenes with the far more reactionary Jesse.
Preacher still needs to find a more solid point of view and stop spinning its narrative wheels. Sure, it’s fun seeing Tulip try to seduce Jesse into returning to who he used to be. But that can grow stale after a while, especially since he doesn’t seem that interested in doing so. It’s yet to be seen if Preacher becomes a cohesive story that gives Tulip an arc that lives up to what Negga brings to the role. Until then, seeing her swaggering performance is enough to make the case that maybe the show should be renamed Tulip and put her in the lead.