Buddy Hield has revealed that he’d rather be considered a Power Ranger than Batman, after a fan dubbed him the Dark Knight.
On Friday (May 9), a Golden State Warriors fan shared a video of Hield after a game responding to being called Batman — a reference to the superhero alter-ego he's previously given himself on the court.
“Fuck Batman. Fuck Batman, I’m a Power Ranger," the Warriors guard told the fan.
Hield’s superhero reference stemmed from earlier in the playoffs when Jimmy Butler called Steph Curry his Batman after the Warriors beat the Memphis Grizzlies 121-116. "I think any team has a chance with me on it," said Butler. "But I know every team has a chance with Steph on it. I get to play Robin. That’s my Batman."
Keeping up with DC Comics references, Hield called himself Alfred to Curry’s Batman and Butler’s Robin after Game 3 of the series — but Butler fired back soon after and suggested that he was more like The Joker.
After Steph Curry left the first game of the Western Conference semifinals because of a left hamstring strain, Hield and Butler had to step up their games in order to bag the win, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves 99-88.
Following the game’s conclusion, Draymond Green joined in on the fun by praising them in DC terms. "Robin turned into Batman...Alfred turned into Robin,” he said in the postgame press conference.
Hield believed his performance earned him the right to be Gotham’s caped crusader. "I'm Batman today. I saved the day. [Jimmy]'s still Robin,” he told reporters. Butler, sat next to him, had a different take. "You had another good game man! Except for that stupid thing you did at the beginning of the game when you didn't have on the right shorts,” joked Butler. “That's not real Robin and/or Batman like."
Speaking of Power Rangers, Tony Oliver, the head writer and voice actor of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, recently spoke about the “mistake” made when a Black actor, Walter Jones, was cast as the Black Power Ranger and a Vietnamese actor, Thuy Trang, was cast as the Yellow Power Ranger.
In Investigation Discovery documentary Hollywood Demons, Oliver recalled a "mistake" being made. "None of us are thinking stereotypes," Oliver explained.
But it was during a meeting that Oliver's assistant "pointed out" that, although it may not have been intentional, the casting could be perceived as racist.
According to Oliver, it was Taylor who "seemed to have the swagger of the group," while Kwan was "the peaceful one, who tends to be the conscience of the group." But the explanation still has offensive connotations.
The writer also mentioned that Trang was not originally cast as the Yellow Ranger, with the first choice being actress and martial artist Audri Dubois. She would later leave the production because of a pay dispute.