As Ex Cathedra becomes more racially reactionary, --more reactiony in general--I continue to note that People of Color in drama must be played "authentically" by actors who match the race or ethnicity of the role. No more Sidney Toler as Charlie Chan. That is considered a grave offence indeed.
Likewise, though, White culture's figures in drama are not only no longer restricted to Whites, but their replacement --and that is the technically correct word for the process-- is considered both an achievement and some kind of payment on a long-standing debt. So a new Hercules movie will star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who is Black and Samoan.
Notice the rule here: Non-White roles are restricted to the appropriate ethnic actors, by sacred right*. Whites have no right to White roles: that, btw, is what "color-blind casting" really means. (Nor do males have a right to male roles. In Warehouse 13, HG Wells is revealed to have been a woman.)
Indeed, Whites and males have no rights whatsoever in face of the demands of racial Others or women. Non-White self-assertion is morally unimpeachable, a truth of nature and history. White self-assertion --unthinkable to most brainwashed Whites-- is rank racism. To use my image of late, we are the Dying Rich Uncle: our ownership of anything is a merely contingent fact of history, soon to be remedied when the unloving, resentful and greedy heirs get their hands on our stuff.
Hell, there was even a time when Americans would have rejected the idea of Superman being played by a Brit.
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*Johnny Depp will play Tonto in the upcoming Lone Ranger film. That's an interesting move. My suspicion is that Tonto is considered a subserviant figure to a White, so Indians were not so interested in the part. And I bet that there will be rivers of PC angst and revenge from Depp's Tonto.
2 comments:
The Native American response to Johnny Depp as Tonto has been mostly positive, actually. Why should it be negative? With their casinos, a lot of them are laughing all the way to the bank. If you ever go to Niagra Falls, you can see one of them. It has changing rainbow lights in the shape of a feather on it. I've never seen anything so beautifully unPC.
Reminds me of the Washington Redskins nonsense that they should change their name. Despite the fact that Native Americans have repeatedly assured them that they are not offended by the use of Native American nicknames on sports teams. A black sports writer for one of the (many) liberal news networks recently called Native Americans who were okay with the name "Redskins" were Uncle Toms. Cue tongue lashings from black Redskins fans who wondered aloud if they were Uncle Sams by extension. The results were not pretty. :)
-Sean
I don't call them Native Americans. They're not. There were no Americans prior to the Europeans who came here. The pre-Colombian inhabitants are/were the native peoples of this continent, which was only named America by the Europeans, who invaded their lands and conquered them. So Indians or Amerindians works for me. The use of PC language only inscribes the PC narrative and mythology, which I reject.
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