Let's all take a moment to just stop. Breathe. Remember that we have to live together on Earth for the next few/hundred/thousand/million/gazillion years. Hopefully you've actually done what I asked, because the next words are going to describe my frustration with Hollywood and race.
I like movies. I like Hollywood. I spend appropriate amounts of time watching both. But can I get just a little more consideration on the "non-white people do exist" front? Not only do I get tired of seeing Mr. Everyman depicted as a white guy/gal, but I really get tired of having vaguely historical and fantastical films do the same thing! I get tired of black people only being allowed to shine in the films of other black people. I get tired of Asians only being good enough to play villains. I get tired of non-white directors never breaking through the ceiling of film festivals and independent films. I get tired of movies like Exodus: Gods and Kings.
The movie Exodus is about Moses y'all. The biblical character who freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Parted the Red Sea, scribed the Ten Commandments? That guy. There's one problem with this movie though; the cast is white-washed. White people get to play characters whose ancestors have basically lived on the friggin' equator for thousands of years, and so are probably kind of a little bit BROWN! But okay. You want to make Pharaoh's entire family white. Fine. Whatever. You then go a step further to make the villains and servants brown. Dandy. Whatever. Seriously, far be it from me to expect true accuracy from a Hollywood film, because that would kind of be like expecting a fish to bark like a dog. But the least the director could have done was cast Moses as a brown-skinned man! Moses was born to slaves (you know, the ones who are conspicuously brown in your movie?) and then adopted as a child by the Royal family, aka the sovereign White-Washed. Wouldn't it just be a purely logical step to make Moses brown? You know; LIKE HIS BIOLOGICAL PARENTS?! So because he's lived with the royal family since childhood, his genetics suddenly go, "And on your 4th birthday, you shall become...WHITE!"
I don't think so.
To cast Caucasian people to play parts that were historically brown is to partake in blackface, without the black face; minstrelsy 2000. But those directors will say things like, "we can't worry about that", or they'll cast a person whose aunt eight generations back was 12.98% black, and call it good enough. People who simply do not understand why race was made to matter will say, "can't you just get over this? Does a person of non-white descent now have to be in EVERY movie?!"
All of these points help to make my point. Yes, these directors should worry about who gets to portray film characters, because to continually subjugate minorities in favor of the white man only perpetuates racism. No, having an actor/actress who's got 3.17% African in them is not enough, because chances are, they've been accepted as white, and then we really need only to refer back to point one. And lastly, no, I can't just get over this, because minorities have a right to take up space too. It would be great if at least one minority was in every film, because guess what? Statistically, that's how the world works, genius!
Please white Hollywood. Minorities are valuable too.
