There was a movie back in the ‘90s called White Man's Burden that starred John Travolta and Harry Belafonte. Its premise was an alt-history where Africans colonized North America and Europeans are the oppressed underclass in the United States. The film wasn't that great, but it did have a scene that's stuck with me and gets across why diversity in media and society is important. Travolta's character is discriminated against and treated like dirt by his black employers. He comes home and takes his son to a toy store, only to be reminded of his place in society when all of the toys in the store are of black characters. I watched the film as a kid, and it was the first time I can remember thinking about how not being represented in society, whether it be in government or in the everyday functions of living, can affect people and create feelings of alienation. It's something most take for granted, especially this time of year when they walk into department stores and are surrounded by posters and ads of smiling white people.
It’s interesting to analyze how diversity, or the lack thereof, is covered in the media and how, in itself, it can be part of the problem. Because whether or not something is multi-ethnic or egalitarian is more than just counting up the numbers to see if there's parity across demographics. The true problem is the inherent bias which values white and male as being the "default," and any deviation from that default is considered special and noteworthy to the point of reclassifying it if someone has a high enough melanin count or lacking a penis. It’s no longer just a “good movie,” it’s a “good black movie,” or a “good feminist movie” with all of the stigmas and marketing biases that exist within those stereotypes.
And it’s because of that default status one ends up with a situation like Gods of Egypt. The upcoming film is a fantasy epic from director Alex Proyas, which has been the subject of a scathing backlash for having an almost all-white cast portraying Egyptians and Egyptian deities. In response, both Proyas and the movie’s distributor, Lionsgate, issued statements over the weekend apologizing for the casting decisions that were made. This has led some to speculate whether we’ve reached a critical mass for race and roles in Hollywood. An example of where we are in 2015 is that it would be totally untenable to just put some brown makeup on Yul Brynner and Edward G. Robinson and call them Egyptians.
From Scott Mendelson at Forbes:
Alex Proyas: “The process of casting a movie has many complicated variables, but it is clear that our casting choices should have been more diverse. I sincerely apologize to those who are offended by the decisions we made.”
Lionsgate: ”We recognize that it is our responsibility to help ensure that casting decisions reflect the diversity and culture of the time periods portrayed. In this instance we failed to live up to our own standards of sensitivity and diversity, for which we sincerely apologize. Lionsgate is deeply committed to making films that reflect the diversity of our audiences. We have, can and will continue to do better.”
The buzz surrounding this movie has been horrible for a while, but things seemed to hit high gear with the release of the film’s posters. All of the major leads—Gerard Butler, Nikola Coster-Waldau, and Brenton Thwaites—are white, there is only one non-white actor among the larger cast (Chadwick Boseman) who plays the Egyptian deity Thoth, and none of the cast are of Middle Eastern descent. All of this led to an extremely negative reaction in social media circles, which accused the film of “whitewashing.”
This is not a new issue. However, it’s one that’s become harder for Hollywood to ignore in recent years. And Gods of Egypt is not the only movie to catch intense flak for some of its casting decisions regarding race this year.
"I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such," Scott told Variety. "I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up." Later, at the premiere, he told critics to "get a life."
- The extent to which blackface is acceptable for a performance has shifted over time, and seems only acceptable in a meta self-aware comedic way nowadays. John Wayne put on some brown makeup for his infamous take on Genghis Khan for The Conqueror. Laurence Olivier and most of the cast of 1965’s Othello were nominated for Academy Awards for the production based on the Royal National Theatre’s staging of the play. Olivier wore blackface and affected an accent for the role. In more recent years, Robert Downey, Jr. put on blackface for Tropic Thunder, where the joke was not exactly the stereotypes associated with blackface, but the stupidity of a method actor that would base a performance on stereotypes. However, 2007’s Stuck became a joke for some after actress Mena Suavari was cast as what for all intents and purposes was a black woman. The movie was based on the very real Chante Mallard, a black woman from Fort Worth, Texas, who hit a homeless man, panicked, and tried to cover it up. The movie decides the very white Suvari can be “a particular kind of girl from a particular place” by spraying on a tan and putting her hair in cornrows. Beyond just the ridiculousness of that line of thinking, the question then became why did the filmmakers cast a white woman when there are many fantastic African-American actresses to pick from?
Mena Suvari in real life (left) and in ‘Stuck’ (right)
She's a fine but not great actor; her name puts zero butts in seats. So why not cast one of the many fantastic, underused black actresses with a fame level roughly equivalent to Suvari's?
We would love to have seen, say, Viola Davis, or Sophie Okonedo, or Gina Torres, or N'Bushe Wright, or Sanaa Lathan, or Anika Noni Rose take on this part. (We came up with that list in like twenty seconds, by the way, so presumably professional casting directors could do even better.) Any one of these women likely would have been just as good as Suvari, would have resulted in a box office no worse than the meager box office this movie is likely to have anyway, and the whole thing wouldn't make potential audience members like us — who would otherwise be interested in a crazy-creepy-sounding thriller like this — totally queasy.
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Disney's Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time encountered some bad press when the titular prince was played by "Hancock Park's own Swedish-Jewish-American prince, Jake Gyllenhaal."
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Director M. Night Shyamalan was heavily criticized for casting white actors in lead roles instead of Asian actors for the movie adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
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Going back a bit further, back in the late '80s and early '90s the producers of the musical Miss Saigon got a lot of grief for casting Jonathan Pryce in the role of a Vietnamese pimp, with some likening the production to a minstrel show.
- The hacking of Sony and the leak of their internal emails not only revealed pay disparities between female actors and film executives and their male counterparts, but also discussions about how race should affect casting. In one email, an unnamed producer wrote to Sony co-chair Michael Lynton warning that casting black actors for lead roles, such as Denzel Washington in The Equalizer, limits the amount of revenue a film can generate worldwide.
“No, I am not saying The Equalizer should not have been made or that African American actors should not have been used (I personally think Denzel is the best actor of his generation),” the producer wrote.
“Casting him is saying we’re ok with a double if the picture works,” the producer wrote, using a baseball analogy. “He’s reliable at the domestic [box office], safe, but has not had a huge success in years. I believe whenever possible the non event pictures, extra ‘bets’ should have a large inherent upside and be made for the right price. Here there isn’t a large inherent upside.”
Washington’s The Equalizer grossed $191 million at theaters worldwide, with 47% of the ticket sales coming from outside of the United States. Still, the e-mail chain suggested that the overseas box office percentage was not good enough. Other films should expect 65% of the sales abroad, the analysis said. The reason for the disparity? According to the producer, it was Washington’s race … “I believe that the international motion picture audience is racist — in general pictures with an African American lead don’t play well overseas,” the producer wrote. “But Sony sometimes seems to disregard that a picture must work well internationally to both maximize returns and reduce risk, especially pics with decent size budgets.”
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Back when the first Thor film was released, the Council of Conservative Citizens and other racists called for a boycott because of the casting of Idris Elba as the Norse god Heimdall. When the first trailers for Star Wars: The Force Awakens were released, there were some who were irked by the addition of actor John Boyega as a "black Stormtrooper." On Reddit and Twitter, there was a fair amount of racism displayed toward Boyega, and some argued the entire idea was based in liberal political correctness, and decisions being made by "racial bean counters."
