August 31, 2023

Our world in 2023 is filled with different cultures, and we are familiar with the individuals from these diverse nations. This is a wonderful connection and one of the reasons I loved growing up in Manhattan and being exposed to so many people from other countries. As a woman of color who had grown up in the 1950s, my exposure to what constituted American culture was exclusively White although at the time it wasn’t labeled as such. It also made no difference to me that the idea of diversity in culture was even necessary. However, I certainly agreed that economic opportunity in all industries should be open to all qualified individuals. This includes the entertainment industry, but something strange has happened in this century and I will probably be condemned for even mentioning it.

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I am reminded of a conversation my husband had with a Jamaican co-worker who had just returned from a cross-country vacation. He said he was shocked that once he left the northeast, he found that everybody he met in the country was White, that many were in low-paying positions like cashiers and housekeeping motel maids and, he added, they were really nice people. Demographically, America is still mostly White with Blacks a 13% minority and Hispanics now the largest minority at 18%. Considering these statistics, it should be quite remarkable that nearly every television and film now features Black actors in various roles. Commercials and magazine ads also invariably showcase persons of color. In spite of this proof of success, we are being labeled by the Left as a racist nation.

Hollywood and in particular Disney has found it necessary to remake former hit feature films but with more ‘diverse’ casts. Since these vehicles have not been successful, one has to wonder why they are continuing this failing effort. Simply remaking a former classic vehicle and substituting persons of color as leading characters is a disservice to the performer, who will always be compared unfairly to the former star. It is also clear evidence that originality is a scarce resource in coke-addled Tinseltown.

I’ve always thought that the most creative and original vehicle for the Black community that ever came out of Hollywood was The Black Panther film. Unfortunately, while the original was a blockbuster, the sequels were less successful without the Panther’s star Chadwick Boseman who passed away way too soon in August 2020.

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As poorly conceived as the diversity substitutions are in the film and television industry, the ones that really irk me are the ones made for adaptations of popular books. When one reads a favorite series of novels one creates an image in our minds depending on the author’s distinct description of the protagonist.

Hollywood used to try and match the star to a popular character in the book and thus we had Vivien Leigh as the perfect Scarlett O’Hara. Alas that was long before the diversity bug infiltrated the industry in the past decade of political correctness.

When corporate bigs in Disney and other major studios decide erroneously that the novel must reflect a diverse community instead of what the author has described, they then throw money around to dissuade the authors from protecting their creation.  I can’t blame the authors for succumbing to the millions in  bribes but wish they had the integrity to turn it down.

It was a real pleasure to see that Lee Child’s Reacher (overlooking the first version) in the Amazon feature series was almost as depicted in the entertaining series except for a few inches. Star Alan Richter is 6’2 not 6’5 as alleged in the novels. 

Two other authors of my favorite series have either given in to the pressure or simply don’t think much of preserving the images of their characters that we’ve cemented in our minds thanks to their precise  descriptions.

I’ve been a fan of C.J. Box’s Joe Pickett series about a Wyoming game warden and have read all twenty books. There’s a mesmerizing sidekick character called Nate Romanowski who is written as a blue-eyed, blonde pony-tailed Viking survivalist and ex-special forces vet who saves Pickett in just about every book and frankly he’s my favorite character. He raises falcons and consequently I’ve been obsessed with peregrine falcons — the fastest animal on earth. Two years ago, we spotted one feasting on something in my backyard in, of all places, Staten Island.