Casting aspersions

You know that an issue is getting volatile when three producers of an upcoming movie have to write a letter to defend their (poor) casting decision (Letters, March 20).

First we hear about the past “cross-cultural” casting of Vivien Leigh, Linda Hunt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liam Neeson and Russell Crowe. But Leigh playing an Irish American Southerner was not such a stretch -- and Mammy was certainly not played by Lupe Velez! Hunt’s littleness and cross-gender stunt-casting outweighed her inauthentic ethnicity. And did anyone ask the British or Germans what they thought of inserting Paltrow and Neeson into their national stories? Finally, I would guess that no Illyrian or Thracian actors were available anymore to play Crowe’s gladiator.

Unfortunately, when it comes to race, Americans’ own experience with the “melting pot” has made them insensitive to real cultural and ethnic values and differences in other societies. But then, I’m sure the producers won’t object at all when Rob Marshall later directs the Steven Spielberg biopic and casts Denzel Washington to play him.

David Fears

Long Beach