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| Hollywood bleaching continues with the upcoming Akira film |
White Americans, bless their generous little hearts, are quite unable to imagine that there can be anyone, anywhere, who does not wish to be White.
- James Baldwin, The Evidence of Things Not Seen
Remember the comic-book-turned-animated-film Akira? It's about young people in post-apocalyptic Japan who have enormous telekenetic abilities. Any geek will tell you that it's a classic. African American directing duo the Hughes brothers will be bringing it to the big screen as a live-action, big-budget, special-effects feature film. But there's just one caveat.
The main characters will be cast as white people instead of Asian people.
This dull and unimaginative practice isn't, I'm sad to say, an anathema to Hollywood. In fact, the conventional (read: economic) Hollywood wisdom says that the only way white people can be engaged in any medium is by reflecting their own images back at them. According to Hollywood, white people, especially white boys, are so tribal, narcissistic, egotistical, and racist; they are so severely lacking in the ability to empathize with anyone outside of their race, that it's impossible for them to patronize films that contain casts of primarily non-white actors. Or not so primarily.
Case in point: In the upcoming Thor film, Idris Elba was cast in the relatively minor role of Heimdall. Heimdall is fictional Marvel Comics character based on the god Heimdallr from Norse mythology. Traditionally, Heimdall has been depicted as white. When some white fans of the character got wind of the casting decision, they nearly lost their minds. This despite the fact that Heimdall is a relatively small character in the mythology, the comic book and, apparently, the film. This despite the fact that aside from Elba and Japanese actor Tadanobu Asano (who plays a tiny role as Hogun, who has been depicted as Asian), each and every other actor in the film, especially the leads, is white.
But, on the other hand, they apparently have no problem, whatsoever, when characters that have been traditionally depicted as non-white are cast--both in the leads and in the bit parts--with actors who are white. Their ire is raised only with the threat of the reverse. For example, they had no problem when M. Night Shyamalan--a grievous person of color--cast The Last Airbender so that all the lead heroes were white and all the lead villains were people of color (even though, in the show the film was based on, all of the characters were either Asian or Inuit).
And if they stick to type, and there is no evidence or indication that they won't, they will have no problem when these two willfully obtuse black directors cast Akira with white leads. Because, you see, political correctness and diversity is bad, but white supremacy and white privilege is good.
Well. As the video below will outline, quite poignantly, writing letters and complaining won't do a bit of good. The only way to make Hollywood understand the depth of your outrage at their pandering to institutional racism is to withhold your economic support.
BOYCOTT AKIRA!