The Mary Sue: Writing for Deadline Hollywood, in a piece titled “Make Way, Or Rather Don’t, For The Recessive Movie Male Of 2018,” Michael Cieply decided to invent the inane idea that the 2017 nominations at the Producers Guild were “cinematic eclipses” of white men. He’s particularly concerned that these men are being sidelined and outshined by a wider diversity of characters. What’s most head-scratching about this notion is that most of the films he listed had white men either behind the camera, behind the pen, or still acting as a main focal point of the story.
2 comments:
The fact that this article had to be made is honestly disgusting to me. I am a firm believer in equality, and the fact that this white man who clearly hasn't faced any hardship in his life is saying that white men are getting "eclipsed" in theater is honestly pathetic. He should be happy for his coworkers for being able to get more roles, while he still has the same amount of opportunities because films will always make room for a white man. In addition, the films he described about not having roles for white men shouldn't have roles for white men because the plot has nothing to do with white men. It would be slightly different if they were casting minorities as characters that were supposed to be white, however, they are not. So his argument is completely irrelevant and honestly insulting. He also did not bring this topic up in a sensible way, he made sure to insult everyone he could.
It is baffling to me that people can still be this obtuse. To me, it seems that a person who is still getting the entire issue of realistic diversity so completely backwards is probably making a conscious decision to ignore the facts in front of them. Nevertheless, in disputing the statements made by Michael Cieply, Rachel Leishman makes many points that I agree with or had never considered before. The one that I responded to most was the discussion of white men in "Get Out". Other than the fantastic cinematography and acting, one of my favorite parts of "Get Out" was that they flipped the common theme of the normal, white, suburban family to the point of terror and social commentary. I think this is especially effective for the education of white men. In the case of many movies, there are few actors or actresses of each minority in the cast, which often mentally connects that person's gender or race to the character's personality or actions. Like Rachel says, by only letting white men see themselves represented by Dean Armitage they can begin to understand how this can affect minorities in such a negative way. Movies are a universal reality across the country, so using that as an opportunity to express realistic diversity and discuss social problems allows the message to reach a broader scope of viewers, and if you are skillful enough, they may not even realize it is happening.
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