But rather than get stuck on whether this stuff is art or not, let’s just call it entertainment. I just chafe at the idea that all art, and every aspect of art, has to be considered political. That’s a burden I would never place on an actual artist, and if I were an artist, I’d rebel against that notion with every political bone in my body.
So, that’s leaves us with the entertainment found in movies and whether those who make them have an obligation not to just explicitly not discriminate (no way am I hiring any black people for my movie) but also to affirmative be inclusive. I’m not convinced that the latter is a burden that can legitimately be placed on a movie maker. I could not, in good conscience, call Scott a bad person for what he has done.
There are other, not illegitimate ways to approach and understand art (or entertainment).
But the political implications are still there, whether recognized or not. Just as, say, aesthetics are still an aspect of design, or environmental impact is an aspect of agriculture, whether engineers or farmers care to notice or not. You can’t do anything that interacts with the world and other people without there being secondary implications.
John Mace: I don’t understand how you can frame this as Scott failing to take affirmative and helpful steps. That sounds like how you might describe the decision of someone on a beach not to wade out into the waves to rescue a stranger’s child. That person did not create the situation, does not benefit from it, and therefore has no moral obligation to solve it (you might reason).
But here, Scott both contributes to the problem and benefits from it by casting Bale as Moses (among other bizarre 1950s-era casting decisions). It’s as if he’s standing on the beach and deciding not to swim out even though he talked the kid into going swimming and gets to keep the gold watch left on his towel if the kid drowns.
In other words, if you concede that racism in Hollywood casting is a problem and an injury to people of color, why should Scott not have an obligation to do something about it?
Except he explicitly discriminated: he hired a megastar from a studio system that overwhelming discriminates in favor of white people, and in the process continued the discrimination in favor of white people.
Nobody is asking for him to be inclusive. If he’d cast a movie set in Egypt entirely with actors who are ethnically Northern African, nobody would have batted an eye; if he’d cast a movie set in Scotland entirely using actors who are ethnically Scottish, nobody would have said anything.
It’s his conscious decision to cast an ethnically inappropriate actor–consciously to exclude “Mohammad so-and-so” from consideration–that he’s getting dinged for.
You can’t; I can. He decided, in making probably the biggest movie in the world about Africa this year, to use a cast of white people, because he suspected that would make him richer. He did so despite knowing that this sort of decisionmaking is what makes it hard for nonwhite actors to get parts. It was a conscious decision.
Why on earth would any producer fly extras from country A to country B, pay for passports and work permits, pay a per diem, on top of the actual wages? Just to make a political point?
Who cares what race “Palm frond-waver #3” is, anyway?
But why though? Art is a form of expression. When people make art, they are making statements. An artistic statement might be as bland as “flowers are beautiful”. And it might be 100 times more provocative than that. But regardless of where they fall on the scale, these statements are meant to impress and influence other people. This makes art political.
If Scott had made Exodus with a predominately Asian cast, most people would wonder what statement he was trying to make above and beyond the story of Moses. If he’d cast a bunch of black folks (in Africa, no less), same thing. Change the cast to predominately white, and suddenly this choice is immune from analysis and critique? Even when Scott himself says he cast Bale for cynical reasons? Nah, that’s intellectually lazy.
He did claim it wasn’t political, and the response to it lead to him making Intolerance right afterwards. Whether you believe those claims is up to you, really.
See, for me it’s not about good or bad. All of us are infected by racism, so we’re all “bad”. But we aren’t consciously choosing to be racist. I don’t think Ridley eats black babies for breakfast.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with drawing. I’d walk around with my sketch book and draw like crazy. I was pretty good at it too.
One day my mother asked why all of the people I drew were white and male. Why would a litte black girl choose subjects that look absolutely nothing like her? Did I not like black people or girls or something?
I gave her what sounded like a good explanation. I told her that white boys were easier to draw than black girls. She wasn’t satisfied by that answer, but she dropped it. (Which is saying something, if knew my mother).
My mother could see what I could not see. I’d been infected with racism. And because this racism dwelled in my unconscious mind, I had to come up with a “just so” story to explain it to myself. I could not tell her that white males were my “default” human being, since all the books and stories and movies I consumed were pretty much all about white males. I didn’t know this, so how coould I?.
But it’s funny. After she pointed out my bias, I became more cognizant of my subjects and diversified my style. Because I didn’t want to be racist, especially against myself.
I wasn’t a bad person before my revelation. And I don’t think I would have been teh evil if I had chosen to ignore my mother’s criticism. But I do think that every individual has a responsibility to challenge bullshit.
She was a link in a generally racist system. But we’ve mainly been looking at the responsibility of those with the most decision-making power, producers and directors.
That’s not “likewise” at all. To my knowledge there has never been an institutional bias against male actors. And I believe there was a work-specific reason for casting a woman there.
