Seriously, the world is going mad. Apparently, the actress for a film of a book is being criticised because her skin isn’t dark enough. Yes, really.
“I was hoping it would be a very brown-skinned actress, because there’s so little opportunities in these big movies for darker-skinned actresses,” Cartwright told Vulture.
She added that when initially deciding what the protagonist would look like for the book cover, she “literally just followed exactly what they said in the book”.
And when they make films, they look for a suitable person to play the role – based, presumably, on their ability to act, not how brown their skin is.
Still, now the identity politics industry is turning upon itself. There isn’t enough popcorn in the world…
I’ve now learned a new word, “colourism” (or is that a cultural appropriation of “colorism”?). A more useful (and welcome) word is ouroboros.
Identity politics is something that I reserve a generous quantity of contempt for. The whole problem with racism, sexism and every other kind of prejudice, was that it was used to unfairly discriminate against certain people and, due to this, meant that others were unfairly privileged. By the 1970s we had laws against such unfair discrimination and, although there was some way to go regarding entrenched attitudes, the problem had more or less been dealt with. Even if we weren’t quite there, the way forward was obviously to carry on working towards equal rights for everyone regardless of their colour, gender or whatever.
Identity politics is an attempt to reverse this process by bringing back the evil of unfair discrimination on the back of the absurd idea that it is perfectly OK as long as it is applied in the opposite direction. This is highly insulting to those who were previously asking for nothing more than a level playing field. Basically such people are now being told that whitey was right all along, they really are inferior and just can’t be expected to compete with a white male on equal terms. Then of course there is the unintended consequence that couldn’t possibly have been predicted, the rash of freeloaders creating ever more imaginary persecuted minorities who need special privileges. Privilege, that thing that the left is totally against and has tirelessly campaigned to bring an end to?
Of course it goes without saying that I am an extreme right wing racist.
Aren’t we all?
Well said, agree.
Stonewall et al have achieved what they demanded and should be closed, or at the very least lose charitable status.
Shades of brown aside, there is another issue at play here.
The actress that has been cast is exactly the author’s vision of the character. She says she mentally cast her in the role during writing. The outcry is because the cover artist made a conscious decision about how she wanted the character to look, and that has affected how fans visualise her.
So now the cover artist has come out saying she is disappointed with the casting, and says it could hurt fans of the book. This seems to me a case where someone with a minor role in the book’s production is setting their vision up as more important that the author’s.
I didn’t know that. Even worse.
As an aside, I do that when writing. I have actors in my head when writing a character.
Maybe they should be grateful that the part didn’t go to a well known white actress with a blacked up face. I believe that this was how it was done in the olden days.
Saying this provoked a memory of a feature done by the Two Ronnies. They were blacked up and dragged up and performing a spoof Motown style song. I wonder if it is available on you tube, we could dig it up and then watch the SJWs heads explode.