*Side Note: Happy Thanksgiving! I love this holiday... the eating together, not having to worry about presents, and family time part. (The destruction of native culture thing is not so pleasing.)
Today I'm thinking about this Huffington Post article about Ridley Scott's new movie.
It seems that Ridley Scott has been getting a bit of flack over the white people he cast in his movie and, according to the article, he's given two explanations. There's this quote, "Egypt was –- as it is now -– a confluence of cultures, as a result of
being a crossroads geographically between Africa, the Middle East and
Europe," which seems to be a subtle way of trying to say, "Oh, you noticed they're mostly white... well, way back then there were white people in Egypt too because it was a central place," as a way of excusing the casting choice. The other explanation is funding.
Neither of those explanations is really sufficient.
They sound... true... kind of.
But then, this is not Ridley Scott's first movie. Are we really supposed to believe that he couldn't secure funding if he had cast people of color in those major roles? When I think I about that question my next thought is this: Does he actually need to secure funding or does he have enough money in his bank account to eliminate the need for outside funding?
What's he afraid of?
Alien was a film with a female lead. Yes, she's terrified and yes, she hides a lot, but she's also part of a mining crew in space fighting a gigantic monster alien. It was action, horror, and a woman. Action movies very often get a pretty side female who has perfect hair, big boobs, gets kidnapped and the big bad man fights off many a bad guy to recover and/or seduce her. Alien was different because of the choice to create a female character who was a well-rounded human being. Sure, she was scared - but who wouldn't be? She didn't worry about perfect hair or high heels or if the male lead approved of her; she just did her best not to be murdered by a scary alien monster.
Blade Runner mixed film noir/hard-boiled detective with a big ol' dose of What does it mean to be human? Granted, it was based on P. K. Dick novel, but it was a tremendous examination of what he define our humanity by. It takes Dr. Frankenstein and, instead of doing the same ol' movie simplification and making everything the monster's fault, really looks at that. Sure the "monster" gets killed at the end but we don't feel good about it and we don't like it. (Also, depending on which cut you watch, it turns out that the one doing the killing of the "monster" might actually also be a monster too!)
He's done a fantastic job of creating well-rounded female characters. (I use the term, "well-rounded," intentionally. It seems like that strong female character is pretty much the same one over and over and she's not a developed, full character.) Thelma & Louise presents a pair of friends loyal to each other in a unique way that didn't involve tissue boxes or cancer or swelling orchestras. G.I. Jane, while casting a "hot" actress, also had her shave her head (back when that wasn't a necessarily positive thing for actresses... even though it seems to be more and more popular) and was a well-rounded female character doing her best in a tough situation. Even Prometheus, which wasn't as good as we'd all hoped it would be, it tried its best to represent a well-rounded female lead who wasn't easily defeated or just a male character in a wig.
Maybe that's giving him too much credit on the front of females in film.
Maybe Ridley's just had screenwriters who do well at that part. Perhaps it was just a set of pretty good casting directors or second unit directors or costuming or something outside of Mr. Scott altogether. Maybe those positives were accidental and incidental.
I would like to give the man more credit than that. I would like to think that he's a thoughtful filmmaker and that, in the course of translating from page to screen, that he's actually a very good puppeteer and he's intentionally and methodically putting things together.
I would also hope that the criticism about race in film doesn't offend him or prompt him to bristle at the notion that he's done something wrong while staunchly sticking to his notion that it's not wrong. I think we have a tendency to deny our errors when we make them without intent and I hope that doesn't happen for him.
Just because you're not aware that it's wrong doesn't mean that it isn't. But then you know. You know better and so next time you do better. Hopefully that is what will happen.
I look forward to the better.
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