An upcoming movie, Argo, directed by and starring Ben Affleck, tells the story of Antonio Mendez, a CIA officer who helped smuggle 6 Americans trapped in Iran during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. The official synopsis of the movie, per usual, skates over the finer points of history but while press have pointed out that the film “doesn’t point out that his plan is to use a fake movie as cover for the operation,” (http://collider.com/argo-synopsis-ben-affleck/112567/) it fails to note that Ben Affleck chose to cast himself for the role of a historical Latino figure. This erasure of Latino history in America is completely compliant with the hegemonic view of white people as superior, important, and the norm.
The common complaints of such critiques are that there are simply more talented white actors and that actors’ jobs require them to put on a new role which may include a new race. These critiques, however, are completely ignoring (and possibly willfully) the imbalance of power involved in the censoring and adjustment of history for people of color.
The common complaints of such critiques are that there are simply more talented white actors and that actors’ jobs require them to put on a new role which may include a new race. These critiques, however, are completely ignoring (and possibly willfully) the imbalance of power involved in the censoring and adjustment of history for people of color.
Very interesting and poignant observation. Clearly the norm of whiteness permeates Hollywood in a major way. Recently though, there have been questions raised about this premise. If we must select a Latino actor to play a Latino character must we neglect actors of color for traditionally white roles (think Shakespeare). Does the same value hold for this reversal or is something else at play here?
ReplyDeleteThe something else at play here is the fact that predominantly, white people have power over representation in the U.S. Similar to the initial reading, representation is really just a projection by the most powerful people to depict others. There is no need to worry about people of color taking white roles because white people are represented as full fledged human beings in their characters and are depicted as the norm anyway. The point is less about the accuracy and more how it depicts the power distribution in representation, this is a particularly good example because the director will fictionalize a real person and sees no issue with is. So in places where the powerful are silencing the less powerful in society, it is necessary to give a voice to their achievements, the reverse is less necessary because the power is already in their hands.
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