Been there.
Done that.
Beam me up.
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.
I am no comic book geek, but my understanding is that Batwoman has always been a "lipstick lesbian"--which Ms. Rose certainly is not. Hell, Scarlett Johannsen would be perfect for the role.
My comic geek brother is O.K. with Batwoman being gay--because that is what the character has always been. It's when the SJW idiots change the fundamental nature of an established character that my brother goes berserk.
Here's my suggestion to bend everyone's noodle. Let's have someone do an adaptation of the play Othello where Othello is white and all the other characters are black.
Lots of comic book characters, like Iceman of the X-Men, have been rewritten as gay.
Been there.
Done that.
Beam me up.
Fugly dress?
Check.
One movie adaptation of The Fantastic Four made Johnny (The Human Torch) Storm, the full brother of White Susan (The Invisible Woman) Storm, Black.
The liberals sure are stubborn, aren’t they?
I'd like to think that has something to do with the "Stan Lee Held Captive in Own Home" stories that were circulating a little while ago, but it probably doesn't ...
Just a reminder to young ladies: tattoos are not an improvement! Nowadays you stand out in a crowd if you don’t have any. That’s how you can express your individuality.
“Just black? Surprised not also a homo who drives a Prius.”
That shocked me too. I know I’m in the minority, but I wouldn’t mind seeing Idris Elba playing Bond. Quite frankly, outside of Casino Royale, the Craig and Brosnan Bond movies have been various takes on the word “boring” and “predictable” (they really blew it with Spectre ... what a snoozer).
They could certainly take a risk to do something different ... I don’t think the franchise has much gas left in the tank overall (though I guess the box office draw has been good recently ... I can’t figure out why though).
Okay, so who gets the part? Sandra Bernhard? Judy Gold (who I'd never heard of, but she checks both boxes)? How about a real dark horse, Miriam Margolyes from Harry Potter?
Bond needs to be retired!
The original Bond was a WWII vet.
A new SIS hero needs to be dreamed up.
To match the times make him a UK Muslim Trannie.
Jodi Foster better not play any more straight roles.
Fine advice.
Since when is Bat Woman a homosexual?! These homosexual perverts are subverting our culture, our entertainment, our history. So now Batman, Bat Woman, Bond, our Star Wars, and Star Trek character are to be homosexuals?! Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan next? Captain Kirk? John McClane? Indiana Jones?
How does a woman that is being cast as a lead actress get work with all those tats on her? I know they can digitally take them off for a movie or TV show but it’s expensive.
I would not hire just on the Tats alone. Well that is one show I can avoid.
Everyone stay home and let all the gays support this movie, it will be dead on arrival
Batwoman was not always gay, that is more recent I think.
I loved Spectre and thought it was pretty good.
I don’t see why that tattooed young man can’t play Kate Kane. He looks like he could pull it off.
The new millenium Batwoman is.
Trace the history of this stuff and it's hard to take it seriously.
Writers go with whatever they think will sell and hope reader's memories aren't long.
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