I don't really care about race swapped characters in many cases. However two things really jump out at me here.
One. This is ahistorical. It wouldn't be a big deal if it was a local play but as part of a historical reenactment on a big screen it just feels like the point isn't the story, the point is the race swap.
Two. Any other circumstance of similar comparison would be called "cultural appropriation." They can't have it both ways. I don't care about cultural appropriation, we should all be borrowing from each other. The ahistorical element would be less important if the inverse circumstance were also unremarkable.
I don't really care about race swapped characters in many cases. However two things really jump out at me here.
One. This is ahistorical. It wouldn't be a big deal if it was a local play but as part of a historical reenactment on a big screen it just feels like the point isn't the story, the point is the race swap.
Two. Any other circumstance of similar comparison would be called "cultural appropriation." They can't have it both ways. I don't care about cultural appropriation, we should all be borrowing from each other. The ahistorical element would be less important if the inverse circumstance were also unremarkable.
Yup. If it was a colorblind restaging of a play updated to 2021, sure, or a one-woman monolog.
But this is rewriting history in a way that nullifies history.
It'd be like casting a Muslim woman as Catherine Of Aragon. It's willfully fraudulent and antihistorical.
Wouldn't expect "...starring Tom Hanks as Martin Luther King Jr" to go over well. Only British actors of African descent can play MLK...
"...starring Tom Hanks as Martin Luther King Jr"
This is a good example of what I mean.