This week on Zach on Film – Ridley Scott isn’t sorry that he cast white actors in Exodus. We look at that from both sides of the argument.
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Articles Referenced in This Week’s Episode
- New James Bond movie will have unlimited ticket at one movie chain
- Ridley Scott isn’t sorry that he cast white people in Exodus
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4 Comments
http://www.moviepass.com For $30 a month you can see one 2d movie a day. It works out to $360 a year.
Don’t be too pessimistic about the timeline of seeing real diversity in movies. Five years ago we didn’t expect marriage equality in the next twenty-five years. Change comes in fits and starts, but it seems to be accelerating.
You’ve been talking a lot about diversity in cinema lately, which I think is very bold and important. However, I can’t help but notice you haven’t included the voices of any women or people of color in your episodes on this topic. This omission (unintentional or not) is one of the root causes of the lack of diversity; if the discussion around diversity is still dominated by white males (even well meaning ones), then no real progress can be made.
I hope the next time you decide to broach this subject, you’ll make the effort to include a more diverse panel. All of your comments (especially Matthew’s) were very insightful, but I can’t help but feel like the absence of voices like Ashley or Rodrigo is a glaring omission in this discussion. At the end of the episode, you talk about what people can do to solve this problem; well there’s no magic bullet, but you guys are in a position to give minority voices a chance to speak, and this is the second episode on the topic where they have been absent. So put your money where your mouth is!
As always, I enjoy everything you guys do! Thanks for another great discussion.
It was interesting to listen to your discussion of diversity a few days after it was uploaded, because in the interim Viola Davis accepted a Best Actress Emmy and spoke directly to this issue in her speech. She said, in part, “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity.” I agree with Matthew that diversity is lacking in modern big-budget cinema. I also agree with Stephen that the only real possibility of driving change is to hit the studios in their wallets.
What I think needs to be added to this discussion is the idea of class. As discussed in other episodes of the podcast, and even in this one with talk of the $100 Spectre pass, the act of seeing a film in a first-run theater is increasingly becoming a luxury. Generally speaking, people who can afford luxuries tend to be more socially and politically conservative, and less likely to value things like diversity in casting or stories about marginalized people.