Elizabeth, Michael, and Marlon

[tazber]

Posted: 1/27/16 at 6:51am

There's a supporting character in my favorite musical, Romance in Hard Times, who is a black actor trying to find work in depression era America. The satire is that every time he lands a role he ends being replaced by a white actor.

 

His song is running through my head today with this news:

 

Joseph Fiennes to play Michael Jackson

 

I can't decide if this casting is totally tone deaf given current events, or just a bit if intentional absurdity. Or maybe a comment on Jackson's increasingly lightened skin. But given that the actors cast as Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor are pretty accurate it seems....odd.

 

As for the actual movie, it sounds like it's going to be something I'd like to see. I remember the stories about this supposed road trip and thinking "what I wouldn't give to be a fly on the window of that car".

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 1/27/16 at 12:14pm

Well said, Tazber.  This is clearly controversial and is going to endender a lot of discussion.

Jackson's racial persona and mask were sui generis matters of self-orchestration.   This casting decision requires very serious discussion about Jackson, the individual, not merely about Jackson, the African  American, and in particular about Jackson's idiosyncracies with respect to racial identity.   I can easily believe that Jackson himself would have been delighted with Fiennes playing him - for what's that worth - and what that's dramaturgically worth is certainly debatable and probably a question people could write lengthy treatises on.

To some degree - and no, I'm not suggesting anything approaching an exact parallel - it reminds me of Todd Haynes including Marcus Carl Franklin and Cate Blanchett among the several actors who played Dylan in I'm Not There.  

My own feeling is that it's very hard to know how to react to this casting without having any clear sense of the script and the film its makers are trying to make.  It might make sound dramatic sense for the Michael Jackson the filmmakers are trying to present to us.  And it might not.  Time might tell.

"But given that the actors cast as Marlon Brando and Liz Taylor are pretty accurate it seems....odd."

Here, Tazber I don't agree with you.  For the simple reason that Brando and Taylor were cisracial - if that's even a word - maybe it should be.   Jackson on the other hand is understood by a great many as quintessentially transracial - if that's a word.
 

Updated On: 1/27/16 at 12:14 PM

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 1/27/16 at 12:27pm

Awful and offensive casting. 

 

It it should have gone to Amy Poehler. 

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/27/16 at 1:01pm

I always thought Stockard in "Grease" resembled 1950s era Liz Taylor, but Fiennes as MJ? That's just batsh*t cray right there. 

 

 

 

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 1/27/16 at 1:01pm

Sorry for the multiple posts. iPad issues... 

 

 

Updated On: 1/27/16 at 01:01 PM

[hork]

Posted: 1/27/16 at 2:51pm

Especially since Ralph is the Fiennes with talent. 

[candydog2]

Posted: 1/28/16 at 6:12am

I've always thought that Stockard Channing looked a lot like Elizabeth Taylor!

As for Michael Jackson's casting? It's a tough one. It really is. Technically he was a black man, but at that point in his life his skin was very much white. So what's the alternative? Hire a black actor and use make up? Would that not be even more controversial? I guess it would in a way be a slightly more accurate representation of Jackson's life, but would people actually accept that instead?

[Gothampc]

Posted: 1/30/16 at 12:02pm

"I always thought Stockard in "Grease" resembled 1950s era Liz Taylor"

 

But Stockard doesn't look like that anymore.  People who see this will be thinking "Why is Joan Rivers playing Elizabeth Taylor?"

Updated On: 1/30/16 at 12:02 PM

[ArtMan]

Posted: 1/30/16 at 12:27pm

Tazber, You changed your kitty picture.  The last one always made me smile when I saw it.  He/she was so cute.