As if, Scarlett.
Who gets cast as what is less about the roles that actors want to play, more about how audiences deserve to see themselves.
by Eric Peterson
Last August, I wrote about a minor Hollywood scandal involving Scarlett Johansson (Avengers, Lost in Translation) being cast as a transgender man in a still-yet-to-be-released feature film called Rub & Tug (which, it bears repeating, is the most awful title of any film that exists or not, ever), and after a significant backlash, dropped out.
But a few weeks ago, the controversy flared up again, thanks to some ill-chosen comments by Johansson to David Salle for As If magazine, about the dynamics of art and political correctness. She said, “You know, as an actor I should be allowed to play any person, or any tree, or any animal because that is my job and the requirements of my job.”
Hoo boy.
Before I say much more on the topic, I would like to offer a quick shout out to author and activist Ijeoma Oluo, who responded via Twitter, “I vote that we only cast ScarJo as trees or animals from here on.”
In the interests of absolute fairness, I should also point out that within hours, Johansson had commented on the renewed brouhaha, stating that her words had been “edited for click bait and is widely taken out of context.”
Still, she never denied saying them, and after thinking about it for several hours, it’s hard for me to imagine a context that would have made those words okay. All the same, I didn’t really think the whole mess was worth writing about again, until I saw another tweet, this one from journalist and filmmaker Tim Pool, who wrote, “How the f**k are we at ‘Ariel can be played by anyone’ but ‘ScarJo shouldn’t take certain roles’ levels of stupid. Anyone can portray anyone.”
In other words, make up your minds, you liberal snowflakes; you’re either allowed to get your panties in a wad over how Hollywood casts its movies, or you’re not. Heavy sigh. Okay, let’s all have a seat, shall we?
First, I get that ideas like anyone can portray anyone or that’s why that call it “acting,” seem so painfully obvious that they merit no further discussion. But while those arguments seem rock-solid, they only take into consideration the needs and desires of the performers, and completely ignore the impact that casting can have on an audience.
The audience of a Hollywood feature film is wide and varied; it includes people of every race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. And movies are powerful; they teach us a lot about ourselves, and those who are not ourselves.
Movies could, for instance, teach us that transgender people are striving toward authenticity when they transition into their chosen gender. Sadly, movies often teach us the opposite message when famous cisgender actors are chosen to play trans roles: that trans people belong to the gender category assigned to them at birth, and the rest is just costumes and makeup.
Johansson had previously caught some heat for playing a character that was originally written as Asian in the film Ghost in the Shell. She got some good reviews, although the movie wasn’t a big hit. In this one, she didn’t play an Asian woman; rather, the character was now a white woman. Some have argued that maybe they couldn’t find an Asian actress who was good enough or they needed a big name to open the movie. Such arguments ignore the impact on the audience, which basically boils down to a simple lesson: if white people are at the center of so many of our stories, they must be more interesting and more important.
As a gay man, I think of it like this: imagine that Hollywood has finally gotten around to making a movie based on Patricia Nell Warren’s The Front Runner. Now imagine that Brad Pitt has been cast as Harlan Brown, and a beautiful young actress has been cast as his star runner, Billie — because we want the movie to be relatable and gay movies don’t do well in foreign markets. Just the thought of it makes my blood boil, and that’s my point.
And so okay, let’s talk about Ariel. Disney recently caused controversy by announcing the casting of a young black singer/actress, Halle Bailey, as the title character in The Little Mermaid. In case you weren’t aware, the character was originally depicted in cartoon form as a white redhead — well, from the waist up. From the waist down, she’s a fish.
Sadly, when mermaids go to their underwater multiplex to see this film, they’ll miss out on an opportunity to see themselves authentically represented on screen. Except whoops — they won’t, because mermaids don’t actually exist. Which is why Disney didn’t cast one. However, young girls of every race will have a chance to see a movie in which the dreams and aspirations of a young black heroine are deemed worthy of their time and attention. And there’s nothing fishy about that.