Casting for my Post-postracial Dream Movie
I admit that I was looking forward to a live action version of LAST AIRBENDER because it was and is my favorite anime, certainly my favorite anime made in America. I was very pleasantly surprised when M Night Shyamalan found a young actor who looked so exactly like Aang.
I was even more surprised, nay, I was emotionally scarred for life when the Race Police erupted in a surprise raid, and protested that certain characters were of the wrong races to play the made-up make-believe races of pretend magicninjaland. They demanded that the blue-eyed Eskimos of the Water Tribe be portrayed only by blue-eyed Eskimos, of which, as we all know, there is abundance of blue-eyed young actors and actresses who are good thespians and can do convincing martial arts stunts flooding Hollywood.
The cast of the movie looked like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise docking with the UN building in New York: this was not good enough for the Race Police, however, since the specific races of specific cast members did not match the eugenic profile and pedigree that the rule of Limpieza de sangre or ‘Clearness of the Blood’ that the Race Cultists demanded.
Shaun Toub born in Manchester, of Persian racial stock, was criticized both for being Caucasian, on the grounds that it was racially insensitive to have a Caucasian portraying a Non-Caucasian, as well as for being non-Caucasian, on the grounds that it was racially insensitive to cast a Non-Caucasian guy in the role of one of the most depraved villains in the story, the evil Uncle Iroh. This proved three things: (1) the critics had no idea who Uncle Iroh was, nor anything about the story or the background (2) the critics flunked Elementary School geography (Persians are Caucasian. There is where the Caucasus mountains are!) and (3) the critics were yammering dunderheads.
The movie was mediocre, even bad, and my emotional scarring became all the more traumatic, because to take my family to watch it in 3D cost me more than a years wages. There was a remarkably stupid scene in the movie where the Earthbenders, instead of being locked up on a steel rick in the middle of the ocean, where there is no earth to bend, are imprisoned, well, in a field of rocks. This is like locking up a Marine sniper, with rifle and pistol intact, in a fully stocked arsenal along with a five-man gunnery crew, mortars, howitzers, and bombards. I still have flashbacks due to post-cinematic stress disorder.
Instead of seeking therapy, I decided to become a lifelong enemy of the Race Police.
I have no problem with Othello being played by Sir Lawrence Olivier, even if the Race Police do. I have no problem with Werner Oland as Charlie Chan the detective chasing Fu Manchu being played by Christopher Lee, whose daughter is not named Fa Lo Suee but is played by the beautiful Tsai Chin.
(I am actually more bothered by the fact that Hammer films changed the name of Fu Manchu’s daughter, than the fact that a white guy with a British accent is portraying her father.)
For that matter, I just got done watching a cartoon version of Romeo and Juliet done in Japan, of an English playwright’s characters about a Tragedy in Italy. Of course, the anime made Juliet into a superninja disguised-as-a-boy Robin Hood character fighting the evil ‘daimyo’ Montague-as-Tokugawa, so what can I say.
I am an American. We should not have Race Police, and not even have an informal Race Vigilante Squad.
The excesses of the Race Police are not hard to find. When MEMOIR OF A GEISHA by Arthur Gordon was made into a movie, a story written by a White male about Japanese females, Race Police pouted and stormed because the lead actresses were Chinese rather than Japanese, two races as genetically distinct as Welshmen from Irishmen, or Portuguese from Spanish.
The Race Police also whined and wept and gnashed their teeth because it is forbidden by Race Police commandments for Western Men to write about Eastern Women, since this is a cultural imperialism, or an appropriation or a trivialization or a type of rape, or whatever the Marxist doublethink Newspeak lingo phrase is this season.
I am just sorry that Gordon did not write about the Shirabyoshi of the Heian period of Japan, ladies of the court, perhaps courtesans, who danced for the Tennyo dressed in male clothing and carrying swords. Then we could have had the spectacle of the Race Police tearing their garb and frothing in agony, because it is wrong for a male writer to pretend to be a female character in print, even if the female character is pretending to be a man in dance.
As a science fiction writer from Earth, I can hardly abide by the rule that I am not allowed to portray any sex, race, culture, national origin aside from my own, since that would limit me to writing about Vulcans and Houyhnhnms and gentlemen from Virginia. Sure, JOHN CARTER WARLORD OF VULCAN would be a good book, and so would YAHOOS OF MARS, but then how could I write about the Samurai Vampire of Kyoto fighting a cyborg British spy or a California beach-bunny mutant half-elf superninja?
So, no, if I see Vivian Leigh portraying a Southern Belle, when her race is incorrect for the part, it does not pull me out of the film.
Indeed! I am looking forward to the Samurai movie LIGHTNING SWORDS OF THE NOSFERATU OF KYOTO which stars Tyra Banks as Miyamoto Musashi dueling against Yagyū Jūbei Mitsuyoshi, played by Urmila Matondkar.
I am hoping Rex Harrison will come back from the grave to play the guest starring role as Shaka Zulu, and that Avery Brooks will play the dashing pirate Sir Francis Drake, cast by the waves unexpectedly upon the shores near Ido, the capital of the islands of Xipangu.
John Cleese can play Queen Elizabeth, because it would be racially insensitive to allow a non-Englishman to play the English role.
Sean Connery, a Scotsman, can play Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, while Christopher Lambert, who is a Swiss Frenchman, can play Conner McLeod, a Scot, or Lord Raiden, a Chinese thunder-god. We can have a scene where the French actor tells the Scotch actor what haggis is. Aye, laddie!
Then we can have the Scotman from SAMURAI JACK show up and blow them both to bits with his machinegun pegleg. The voice of the samurai, who is Japanese, should be done by Phil Lamarr, who is Black. The voice of Aku, Lord of Evil, should be done by Mako, who is Japanese, but who is also the voice of Uncle Iroh, see above.
Now, just to be clear, in the same film, as guest stars, I would like Fu Manchu, Vlad Dracula, Scaramanga the man with the golden gun, and the evil wizard Saruman all to appear under the leadership of Sith Lord Count Dooku, and every role to be played, thanks to the miracle of trick photography, by Christopher Lee, who, I will point out, is not Chinese, Romanian, Spanish, Istari or Sith.
In the same Samurai movie, would like the role of Ghandi, an Indian, to be played by Ben Kingsley (English, but born Krishna Pandit Bhanji in Snainton, North Yorkshire, in case you are wondering) and the role of Mary Magdalen to be played by Monica Bellucci (Italian, not Jewish) or by Yvonne Elliman (Irish-Chinese, not Galilean) or by Renee Castle (Black, and really pretty, but not Magdalene.)
There is of course one huge exception to this. Lady Toda Buntaro aka Mariko must be played by Yôko Shimada, who I fell in love with at age eight when SHOGUN came on the television, or, if she is unavailable, by Gong Li, Michelle Yeoh or Zhang Ziyi.
Sorry, but I don’t think any Non-Oriental girl looks good in a Kimono, no matter how cute she is. Not even Aishwarya Rai can pull it off. My postracial colorblindness does not extend to gorgeous girls. It would be an insult to God Almighty not to admire the differences of color, form and hue with which the various beauties of the globe were shaped by the hand of their creator.
However, the role of Aang, the Avatar, must be played by a Tibetan and only by a Tibetan! Not a Hmong, nor a Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uyghur, Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Buyei, Dong, Yao, Korean, Bai, Hani, Kazakh, Li nor a Dai. If you are not familiar with these various racial and ethnic groups, that just proves how much more racially sensitive I am than a rightwinger racist white-supremacist like M Night Shyamalan, so there! IT IS ALL BUSH’S FAULT!
Okay, I will stop now.
There is a case to be made for making Samurai Japanese and Zulus Zulu, of course. Hollywood has to make the actors and actresses match the character the audience expects to see at least to the decree it does not break suspension of disbelief.
My whole point is that the Race Police make these expectations into a burden and a stumbling block, if not an insanity, trying to ruin my simpleminded pleasure of watching films about magical ninja girls.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
