American actor Anthony Mackie, involved in seven Marvel comic-based projects (Avengers: Finale, Ant-Man, Falcon and Winter Soldier, and others), blamed the creators of the cinematic universe for racism.
In a conversation with artist David Diggs, Mackie said that almost all the crews of these projects “consisted of white specialists.”
“I have seven Marvel films on my account, and I really felt uneasy that every producer, every director, every stuntman, every costume designer, every personal assistant, every person (on the set - RT ) was white ”, Said the actor.
At the same time, Maki considers the Black Panther film directed by Ryan Kugler to be the most “racist” project of Marvel in 2018, which received three Oscars (for costumes, soundtrack and work of the production designer) - although the project team mainly consisted of black professionals. The roles in the tape were played by Chadwick Bowzman, Lupita Niongo, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira and others (Anthony Maki himself did not act in the film). Screenwriters included Ryan Cougler and Joe Robert Cole. One of the producers of the picture was Nate Moore.
According to the actor, such an approach to the selection of members of the film crew is also “offensive”.
“It seems to me that this is a more pronounced manifestation of racism than ever. After all, if you can recruit blacks only for a film about blacks, then it turns out that they are not good enough when you work with predominantly white cast members? ”, The artist suggested.
Anthony Mackie called on Marvel to take a closer look at the selection of actors and other professionals.
“I urge Marvel to select the best candidates. Even if you have to decide in advance that these will be two best women, two best men - it's okay. I don’t mind if such a dynamic is established over the next 10 years, because this way a new generation will begin to form, whose representatives will have something to put on their resume in order to be able to work on further projects, ”said Maki.
He emphasized that dark-skinned specialists should take part in projects even at the stage of origin, “so that you do not have to apologize for the stupid decisions that seemed like such to everyone except yourself.”
- Shot from the film "Black Panther"
- © kinopoisk.ru
Cinema under supervision
American stars of show business began actively speaking out on the topic of discrimination against black people in the film industry in late May, when an African American, George Floyd, was killed by police officers. Artists accuse entire companies of infringing on the rights of African Americans. The priorities of the film and television industries as a whole were also criticized.
Last week, more than 300 black artists signed an open letter addressed to the entertainment industry. In it, artists accused Hollywood of "supporting the white race", discrimination against African Americans, as well as the dissemination of stereotypes that create a misconception about their lives. According to them, white filmmakers allegedly control all the stories that appear on the screens and criminalize the image of black people. Also, according to the authors, despite the “invaluable cultural and economic contribution” of black specialists to the industry, they are rarely given high positions.
Director and screenwriter Steve McQueen, who shot the Oscar-winning film “12 Years of Slavery”, accused racism of British filmmakers and television people. According to him, industry in the UK lags far behind America in terms of representation of racial and ethnic minorities.
So, McQueen is unhappy that the main part of the film crews in the UK are white professionals. He emphasized that this was “blatant racism”.
Accusations of racism also touched on a number of projects, including the cult film Gone With the Wind. The tape was temporarily removed from the HBO Max video service catalog after the publication of the column by director and screenwriter John Ridley. Last week, the film became available online again, but now it is accompanied by additional materials explaining the historical context.
For reasons of “political correctness”, video services were forced to refuse broadcasting and other projects. Netflix, BBC and BritBox excluded Little Britain from their libraries, while Hulu and Amazon Prime removed four episodes of Studio 30. In addition, Hulu removed several episodes of The Clinic from the catalog, in which scenes were also discovered that “offended the senses” of black people.
Also last week, the creators of the animated series The Simpsons said that from now on, white actors would not be voicing the color characters of the project. According to Variety, in recent years the series has often been criticized due to the fact that Hank Azaria voiced the Indian Apu Nahasapimapetilona. Earlier this year, the actor announced that he would refuse to work with this character.
A few more white artists decided not to voice the colored characters anymore. Among them - Mike Henry ("Family Guy") and Kristen Bell ("Central Park").