January 30, 2020
Cross-cultural portrayals seem to
be big news these days. A straight actress got slammed for portraying a gay character.
A non-Asian actress at the St. Louis Muny got slammed for playing Tuptim in “The
King and I”. A non-Mexican author is getting hate mail for writing about the travails
of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. A male author wrote a book from a woman’s
standpoint; someone I know loved it until she found out it was written by a
man.
It sounds like people are just
looking for reasons to get mad, but let’s face it: A lot of the bad feeling comes
from decades of people in America being overlooked, no matter how talented they
were or how great the art they produced, just because they weren’t white or straight
or male. That has left scars. (And some readers have said that the book about
immigrants perpetuates unpleasant Mexican stereotypes.) So people get angry
when they feel that the work of straight white people is still being chosen over
other people’s, even when the quality of the work is the same.
I wish everybody’s work could be
appraised as if the artist were anonymous. (Like “The Masked Singer”, except
that actors would have a hard time pulling it off, unless they had “Mission Impossible” masks.)
Then, if a man effectively empathized
with a woman’s plight, people could admit that the story moved them, no matter
who wrote it. Etc.
Would people find less to object to if they didn’t know who produced the work?
