on benedict’s casting
- I love Star Trek. Like, seriously, deeply, irrationally love it. I watched all of season three of Enterprise, for fuck’s sake — I think I can pull rank here and say I’ve seen it at its best and at its worst and I love it all the same. But that doesn’t mean I have to be so grateful for the fact that this movie even exists as part of the Trek canon that I’m going to shy away from calling it out on its bullshit.
- And the fact of the matter is that Benedict Cumberbatch, a white guy, being cast as Khan Noonien Singh, a character of Indian descent, is bullshit. It is whitewashing. It is less progressive than a movie from 1982. And it is racist as fuck.
- I’ve seen Sherlock. I’ve seen Third Star. Benedict Cumberbatch is an excellent actor and I have no doubts he’ll do justice to the role. This is not a complaint lobbied toward him, his acting abilities, or his fans. This is not about Ricardo Montalban’s ~legacy~ and the possibility of Benedict ~tarnishing~ it. It’s about the producers and casting department of the movie and their casting of a white guy in a role written (in the sixties, people) specifically for a person of color.
- Because I know someone’s going to bring it up — no, this is not the first time Star Trek has failed on the race front. They’ve done it a lot. I’m not ignoring that or excusing it or trying to gloss over it, but the fact of the matter is that The Powers That Be had a clear, explicit (mandated, I would argue) opportunity to hire a person of color for this role, and they chose the white guy. They looked at a character of Indian descent — one of the most iconic science fiction villains of all time! — that had been played by one of the most prominent Hispanic actors of his time (which is a whole different issue of problematic casting, yes, but the point remains — not white), and picked the white guy.
- If you have problems with me being angry about this, unfollow me now, because I’m not going to apologize for being upset about racist casting.
(Source: lesliecrusher)
