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Fans Outraged Gay Actress Ruby Rose Isn’t Gay Enough to Play Batwoman
Reason ^ | August 13th 2018 | Robby Soave

Posted on 08/13/2018 2:29:22 PM PDT by Ennis85

Disney's forthcoming film The Jungle Cruise will include a prominent gay character, a first for the company. Sounds like a progressive milestone, right? Not according to the intersectional left: Jack Whitehall, the actor cast in the role, is straight—and, gasp, white—which is very problematic.

The CW fared little better in casting Ruby Rose to portray Kate Kane in its upcoming Batwoman show. The character is a Jewish lesbian; Rose is gender fluid and part of the LGBT community, but not Jewish, which isn't good enough for those who think the actor must check off all the same boxes as the character. Rose was attacked on social media and quit Twitter over the weekend.

https://twitter.com/negative_purple/status/1026896793202839553?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1026896793202839553&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Freason.com%2Fblog%2F2018%2F08%2F13%2Fbatwoman-ruby-rose-disney-lesbian-gay

Both these incidents follow Scarlett Johansson's decision to quit Rub & Tug, in which the cis white actress had been slated to play a trans man. Eviscerated for taking a role that should have gone to a trans person, Johansson finally backed out of the film—a decision that GLADD hailed as a "game changer" for the trans community, even though the actress's departure means the movie might not even get made.

This feels a little like the debate over cultural appropriation all over again: many on the left, including and especially the campus left, do not believe that people should engage in rituals, or borrow from other traditions, or cook ethnic food, or wear ethnic clothing, unless they were born a member of that tribe. Similarly, an actor shouldn't portray a marginalized person unless they were oppressed in exactly the same way as the character.

But controversies over Rose, Whitehall, and Johansson also reflect the growing influence of "intersectionality," a popular lefty academic theory that came into existence in the late 1980s, and generally makes several claims: various forms of oppression—sexism, racism, anti-gay animus, economic inequality—are both distinct and interrelated; they "stack"; the sole authority on a person's oppression is that person. Thus, in intersectional thinking, we cannot and should not turn to Ruby Rose to tell the story of a Jewish lesbian, even if she's an excellent and hardworking actress who endured some of the same struggles that the character did.

Obviously, it's important to listen to the marginalized, and intersectionality has value to the extent it encourages us to open our eyes to other people's lived experiences—to listen and learn from each other. Acting, though, quite literally demands imitation: informed and respectful imitation, we hope, but imitation nonetheless. As we become more aware of the various kind of oppression that are out there—and adherents of intersectionality are always adding more of them; able-ism and size-ism are on the rise—it's going to be more and more difficult to tell complicated stories if we demand that the people involved are perfect intersectional matches. The likely demise of Rub & Tug (the film is in "limbo," but things don't look good, according to The Wrap) serves as a useful example.

I'm thus quite skeptical we should aspire to build a world where these cultural boundaries are more rigid—where the perfect is the avowed enemy of the good. I'll throw one more recent example of supposedly insensitive casting at you: there is a person who's furious about the rumor that James Bond, who has always been played by white actors and was written as white in the source material, will be played by Idris Elba, a black man, in future film installments.

"A Black James Bond would be an act of dispossession far greater than a flotilla of a million refugees," wrote this person on Twitter. "Refugees are, after all, refugees. James Bond is a symbol of British identity—indeed, the British empire—and of European masculinity writ large."

This person, of course, is alt-right leader Richard Spencer.


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: batwoman; chat; gay; homosexual; lesbian
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1 posted on 08/13/2018 2:29:22 PM PDT by Ennis85
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To: Ennis85

OK, I’ll bite.

HOW GAY IS SHE?


2 posted on 08/13/2018 2:31:45 PM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Ennis85
[ even though the actress's departure means the movie might not even get made. ]

Buys stuff for IDF, but texted Obama. SMH


3 posted on 08/13/2018 2:32:37 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: Ennis85

BatDike


4 posted on 08/13/2018 2:32:54 PM PDT by butlerweave
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To: Ennis85

Another box office stinker. Can’t wait for J. J. Abrams to speak out and say movie fans just hate women and transgenders.


5 posted on 08/13/2018 2:32:58 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Ennis85

I thought John Wick killed her?.


6 posted on 08/13/2018 2:33:41 PM PDT by TexasM1A
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To: Ennis85

WTF is “Rub & Tug” about?


7 posted on 08/13/2018 2:34:28 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Just barely moves the Gaydar.


8 posted on 08/13/2018 2:37:41 PM PDT by Fido969 (In!)
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To: Ennis85
p07

Short dyke haircut? Check.

More ink than a Sing Sing lifer? Check.

9 posted on 08/13/2018 2:37:44 PM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: Buckeye McFrog

“HOW GAY IS SHE?”

Gay movies do not do well in the box office. If you compare the take on family movies versus politically themed movies, you’d be hard pressed to find a politically themed movie that does better. The audiences are simply too small. Apparently Deadpool is a gay character. But other than one scene where he is getting his butt worked over, and it’s by a woman, it is hard to tell. (I haven’t seen the second one.) I’d guess that if they made his gayness as explicit as the alphabet people want that the audience for the Deadpool franchise would disappear overnight.


10 posted on 08/13/2018 2:39:06 PM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: Ennis85

So Gay that she describes herself as a Womyn.


11 posted on 08/13/2018 2:41:47 PM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: Gen.Blather
Gay movies do not do well in the box office.

This is going to be a gay TV series.

All of CW's DC Comics TV series have prominent homosexual characters.

12 posted on 08/13/2018 2:43:34 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy (The Obamanation has ended!)
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To: Snickering Hound
More ink than a Sing Sing lifer? Check.

Yeeech!

13 posted on 08/13/2018 2:43:39 PM PDT by RedMonqey ("Those who turn their arms in for plowshares will be doing the plowing for those who didn't.")
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To: Ennis85
I too am outraged.

How do we stop these superhero movies for once and for all?

Or at least for a generation or two.

P.S. Is this "gay Batwoman" thing an admission that the scoffers were right about Batman and Robin all along?

14 posted on 08/13/2018 2:43:50 PM PDT by x
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To: Ennis85
the rumor that James Bond, who has always been played by white actors and was written as white in the source material, will be played by Idris Elba, a black man, in future film installments.

Just black? Surprised not also a homo who drives a Prius.

How to Kill a Franchise 101.

15 posted on 08/13/2018 2:44:00 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
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To: Ennis85

“Disney’s forthcoming film The Jungle Cruise will include a prominent gay character, a first for the company.”

This is incorrect isn’t it? Beauty and the Beast?

In any case expect a significant box office loss due to this movie being banned in countries where that kind of content is a no-no.


16 posted on 08/13/2018 2:44:03 PM PDT by Ennis85
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To: Snickering Hound
Short dyke haircut? Check. More ink than a Sing Sing lifer? Check.

LOSER? Check!
17 posted on 08/13/2018 2:44:08 PM PDT by rhubarbk (Winning, Winning, Winning . . . MAGA it's a beautiful thing!!!)
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To: Ennis85

Maybe they want straight people to play homosexual characters to cure their “intokerance”?


18 posted on 08/13/2018 2:45:19 PM PDT by Morpheus2009
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To: Ennis85

May the left consume itself in an orgy of self-ignited flames.


19 posted on 08/13/2018 2:45:50 PM PDT by sitetest (No longer mostly dead.)
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To: Bubba_Leroy

“This is going to be a gay TV series.
All of CW’s DC Comics TV series have prominent homosexual characters. “

We’ll see how they do in the marketplace. My guess is they won’t be around long.

Gosh, I miss the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, when men were men and women were women...at least in public.


20 posted on 08/13/2018 2:47:39 PM PDT by Gen.Blather
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