The Casting Police – When Identity Politics meets Reality
August 20, 2022 in Media | Tags: Bill Maher, Identity Politics, Inane Woke Bullshit | by The Arbourist
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12 comments
August 20, 2022 at 5:52 am
tildeb
It’s even worse, far worse, throughout CanLit: manuscripts being vetted and EDITED by so-called ‘sensitivity’ readers in order to receive ‘approval’ for publication. Can you say ‘political Commissar’, comrade?
LikeLiked by 3 people
August 20, 2022 at 7:24 am
Estelle Kölner (Navigating by Shadow)
“Trans” women playing women, though? Nope. It ruined “Queen’s Gambit.” It was jarring, unconvincing, and insulting.
LikeLiked by 1 person
August 20, 2022 at 8:03 am
The Arbourist
@Estelle
I have not seen the Queen’s Gambit. I have seen a few shows on Netflix where they have a man playing a woman – it is quite jarring. Designated Survivor had such a weird last season because they decided to pick all the fruit on the queer identity tree. I suppose it would have been okay if I had been unaware of the negative effects of transactivism on female rights and boundaries – that isn’t the case however and therefore I just see male appropriation in action under the guise of being ‘diverse and inclusive’.
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August 20, 2022 at 8:05 am
The Arbourist
@tildeb
Kind of unsurprising these days. The wars for the cultural means of production burn brightly – I hope that honest critics and artists can maintain the pushback and enlarge the toehold they still have.
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August 20, 2022 at 8:17 am
Estelle Kölner (Navigating by Shadow)
Save yourself! It would (likely) be the exact experience you’ve had with other Netflix desecrations. I’d settled in for an engaging women-focused story and was completely thrown out of the narrative by a non-passing “trans” actor playing a minor female character *for no discernible reason* — except adding to the harvest, apparently. I’m a staunch reader and lit-type, not easily thrown, so . . . very disappointing.
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August 20, 2022 at 9:23 am
hbyd
I don’t completely agree with this take. He’s simplifying a complex issue. Hollywood has a rich history of choosing white actors for all roles while ignoring actors from marginalized racial groups who are perfectly capable of taking said roles. That’s where this issue originates. Italian American’s playing Native Americans, (extras no less) come to mind. I don’t think society is at the point yet where who plays a role doesn’t matter. At least not for racial groups with less acting opportunity, which I believe is still the case. There are many white character roles available. And many roles where the race of the character doesn’t matter. Perhaps the ones where it does should be left to actors of same racial background. Bringing the cast of Hamilton into the discussion is kind of obfuscating considering the choice of only casting people of color as the founding fathers is a commentary on that very history I’m referring to. Bill has
missed the point.
And James Franco the best actor for a role ? Come on. Oh wait, maybe one where he plays a mediocre adult male actor who likes to sleep with teenagers. I withhold my opinion of Mr Leguizamo for now as I think he’s been embarrassed enough already
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August 20, 2022 at 11:30 am
Cynthia Wolff
The reality (lol) is, often, they can’t hide their: Max Headroom-like jaw, gait like Lurch, the protruding elbow-to-hand muscular tendons of *male* forearms, linear lower-eyelid formation of the MALE facial structure, and…ta-da: their lumberjack beards (if they’re really demented)!
Party Fair leopard print bodystockings do not-a-woman-make.
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August 21, 2022 at 7:00 am
silverapplequeen
Mahor’s right & he’s wrong. Hollywood HAS picked a lot of the wrong actors but the best movies are ALWAYS about picking the best actor for the role. If that actor’s ethnicity matches up, that’s so much gravy. But it’s not necessary. & Mahor is totally correct when he says that acting is about being someone who you are not. Of course, you have to have the ability to make other people believe this.
Remember that Hollywood is about making money, not art. When producers & directors hold out for great art, then the right actors are hired. When they don’t, it’s always crapola.
As for Tom Hanks, he’s a great actor but he’s also a pragmatist & he wants to continue making money.
Remember when Daniel Craig was chosen to be James Bond? & everyone said NO WAY. & he was one of the very best Bonds ever IMHO. Totally reimagined the role, got rid of the stupid quips & puns, made Bond really kick-ass & tough. Sometimes the actor who doesn’t look like you imagine the character to be turns out to be perfect. Because that actor is a great actor.
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August 21, 2022 at 7:54 am
The Arbourist
@Hbyd
I agree that it is a more complex issue than what Maher puts forward. We have to acknowledge and learn from our history, and Hollywood still has a ways to go but I think its trying – in fits and starts.
What is Maher correctly identifies though is that the religious activist left has seized on identity issues and have gone too far – as they often do – in their quest to fix the problems they perceive in society.
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August 21, 2022 at 7:57 am
The Arbourist
@ SAQ
That is the crux of the issue isn’t it. Finding the best actor for the role – it is, in general, a meritocracy. Those who practice the craft well should be rewarded with the roles – regardless of their ethnicity or other immutable traits they were born with.
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August 21, 2022 at 8:00 am
The Arbourist
@ Cynthia Wolff
Our species has eons of practice in identifying the other sex. It has been essential to the survival and reproductive future of the species. Reality doesn’t care if queer theory and queer theorists want to blur the lines of what a woman is – their handwaving and obfuscations are (should be) moot.
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August 21, 2022 at 3:10 pm
Cynthia Wolff
If TIMs were ever cast in a role *actually* dramatizing everything they’re convinced about in the subculture of this insanity and, documented all their behaviors and delusions for belonging to it: such a thing would turn out being -in a suitable ironic twist!- THE WORST kind of selling-point publicity of their agenda. They constantly need lies to even be “true to themselves”.
I mean (hypothetically….but, often, so insultingly/sickeningly too common a scenario):
Mid-life-crisis hetero/married MALE comes out as “trans”….celebrated as: “courageous”/”brave”/”woman 2.0″/”diversity champion”/”blah-blah-blah”.
Woman he’s married to has had her entire world disrupted to its core….concerned about: STDs, his lying, unfaithfulness. SHE is forced to suffer in silence because she’s aware of the misogynist manchild mob of the Internet and its documented violence surrounding this aberration.
Later….it’s revealed (usually the pattern, it seems, 90+% with the grown men crowd) OFTEN BY THE MALE IN QUESTION, that:
HE fancied himself “a lesbian” and, frequently pressured his wife into trying sexual threesomes in their bedroom.
HE was addicted to computer porn.
HE admitted to invading their daughter’s personal belongings.
HE had strange cellphone messages from other men requesting encounters.
HE had a photo sharing account involving a fetish/crossdressing website.
If there is ever the case where they just once try to remotely refrain from making an endless spectacle of all those things like that, they stop being “true trans” by their own definition. So, they never will. Because they are shameless and they know the ‘effing level of madness the patriarchal order will tolerate them getting away with.
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