Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has joined that peculiar 21st century phenomenon: the kids’ movie with an all-white cast except for the villain.
As the title suggests, Miss Peregrine’s is set in a school for oddball kids with supernatural powers. Director Tim Burton has gotten some criticism for casting all these children, as well as Miss Peregrine and various supporting characters, with white actors—some 50 credited parts in all.
There is one part for a person of color in Burton’s movie, however: the irredeemably evil Mr. Barron, an eyeball-eating, pointy-toothed wight played by Samuel L. Jackson:
Asked about his casting choices by the website Bustle (9/30/16), Burton was unapologetic:
Things either call for things, or they don’t. I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct. Like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black. I used to get more offended by that than just…. I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go, like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.
Blogger DeLa Doll (10/2/16) hit the hypocrisy of Burton, self-proclaimed champion of outsiders, dismissing the importance of media representation for people of color:
It’s odd to me that someone who has been quoted as saying “I think a lot of kids feel alone and slightly isolated and in their own world” doesn’t see the validity and importance of diversity in the media. How do you think I felt as a young black girl, and even now as a young adult, who hardly ever sees people like herself cast in her favorite movies and shows?
Doll also noted the creepiness of casting one of the very few African-Americans ever appearing in any of your films as a cannibalistic monster:
The only time your films have called for any significant diversity so far has been when you needed someone to be the worst kind of evil? That’s not a good look, buddy.
As fellow director Melissa Hillman (Bitter Gertrude, 9/30/16) put it, by attributing his casting choices to what the material “called for,” Burton seemed to be saying that “the work itself somehow told him he needed to create a group of wonderful white people whose major threat is a murderous black man.”
But Burton seems not to be alone in feeling the need to convey that message to a young audience. The animated film How to Train Your Dragon 2 also featured an all-white cast of characters—except for the villain, Drago Bludvist, who is depicted as dark-skinned, hook-nosed and dreadlocked, and voiced by Djimon Hounsou, an actor from Benin:
In case that was too subtle, the film also features a titanic battle between giant dragons representing the good guys and bad guys—with the good and evil color-coded as white and black:
Another children’s film to use racial otherness as a shorthand for evil is Hop, a story about the Easter Bunny that mixes live action and animation. The only cartoon character in the film coded as non-white is, once again, the villain of the story: Carlos, an envious, treacherous underling who’s voiced by Hank Azaria with a Latin American accent:
But Carlos is not the only non-white character in the film: No, there’s also the human protagonist’s adopted Asian-American sister, an overachieving tween played by Tiffany Espensen, whose public humiliation is played for laughs.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can follow him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
I get what DeLa Doll is saying, but shouldn’t we be able to find characters relateable through their experience as opposed to whether or not they match our skin tone?
Isn’t that ultimately the issue, that we choose to judge based on skin alone? And now we judge entertainment on how much variety of skin there is? I mean, is this a non-issue as it relates to the big picture or is this really an extension of perpetual injustice?
Are you trying to say that there are no Black actors or actresses that could have played any role of the “good’ characters in the film or that only a Black man could play the evil guy in the film?
Not all. Wow, did I misrepresent my thoughts that much? What I mean at the end of my comment actually meant was that I cannot speak for black folk. I mistakenly assumed this would imply I’m a white guy so do not deserve to comment on what black folk should do or not do. Make sense?
And people are now noticing this? How racist is that?
Did you read the article? Some of us, like Tim Burton, have been noticing this since the Brady Bunch.
I saw the film yesterday, and the racial issue didn’t even occur to me. I love Jackson as an actor, and the color of his skin didn’t come into play at all. Now that the issue has come up, I’m not sure if that makes me ignorant or color blind.
Dang! Burton is so talented. But he is clearly a guy who has no idea what “black lives matter” means. And “blacksploitation” flicks have important socio/historical relevance much more complex than Burton implies. I feel but stupid for not noticing his lack of imagination for working in diversity and dumbfounded that he could go this far. As for Samuel L. Jackson, I don’t really get to say anything to that do I?
I agree that filmmakers and television producers need to be more aware of their casting choices and be open to more the diversity which is more reflective of America. I also think you may be reading more into some of your examples, especially when it comes to animated films. When it comes to black or white, irregardless of skin color, white usually refers to the light or goodness, and black represents the dark or evil. Look at The Wizard of Oz or any number of Disney or other films. Witches are usually dressed in black, so is Dracula – it’s not the skin color that shows evil, it’s the clothing. So you need to differentiate between the two. But maybe Tim Burton does too when it comes to casting, The superb M. Night Shyamalan film, Unbreakable, also cast SLJ as the villain, and Bruce Willis as the superhero, and I never read into that either. But still, you bring up some good points, and everyone should be conscious of how everyone is portrayed until the great day comes when it is no longer an issue.
The unbearable blackness of being bad
I agree with this article. If we lived in a world in which every one and every group was valued equally and we were all indifferent to color, then casting Jackson as the villian would make no difference; he would be just an evil man, not an evil black man. But that’s not the world we live in. The point of this article lies not in the criticism of a single film but in pointing out that a pattern exists in many films. Burton glosses over everything, and someone was correct to bring up BLM in this context. Yeah, of course all lives matter; that’s a truism. But if a a group is singled out for oppression (think Jews in Nazi Germany)–in this case black people–then it is absolutely correct to point that out. The All Lives Matter people hide behind a truism and ignore the reality of racism. Burton is doing the same thing. Anyway, I got tired of Johnny Depp a long time ago.
Non-white equals evil in nearly every action film ever made; you can’t flip prime-time TV channels without seeing people pointing guns at other people in their homes and firing away; and recently made TV dramas have heroes who inhale cigarettes deeply and blow out the smoke.
These day, it seems, even parents need parental guidance.
Normally I agree with much of what FAIR comments on, but dragging How to Train Your Dragon 2 into this discussion is off the mark.
First, the discussion as the bad guy being black because of dreadlocks: all the characters are Vikings, and have dreadlocks. All of the characters I saw were white, including the bad guy. He is scared, and his skin is somewhat grayed, and he is depicted as a dirty outcast, but not black. Since when does having a hooked nose = black?
Second, the battle between the “good Alpha” and the “bad Alpha” dragon is entirely depicted as being about age, not race.
Third, the hero of the piece is THE SMALL BLACK DRAGON. He beats the “Bad Alpha”. THAT IS THE THE VICTORY OF THE GOOD AT THE END OF THE FILM.
Do your homework a little better.
Well said! I wish I had read your reply before posting mine. It would have saved me the time
This is very significant, and not something to be played down. It is easy as a caucasian to brush off these claims because we are aptly represented and it doesn’t consciously mean anything to us because we are ignorant of what it would be like to be constantly ignored or misrepresented.
The same with other SYSTEMIC bias, there is not clearly one perpetrator or studio that is causing this racial bias (like police murdering citizens, these are not individual serial killers on monthly rampages, but we recognize an obvious bias against non-whites and low-income folk that must be, itself, annihilated), though with Hollywood you could say “everyone” perpetuates this…
This is a big deal, and it is manipulating the public mind, it is repeated over and over and will continue until we properly destroy the cause.
Given the serious problem with racial prejudice, I absolutely agree with the premise of the article, this casting is appalling.
If Samuel L Jackson and Djimon Hounsou didn’t find these movies insulting and racist, why should we? Why can’t we just enjoy a movie without always looking for racism? I’m non-white and I don’t require that a movie cast someone of my race before I can put aside my critical eye and relax. Sometimes a movie bends over backwards so obviously to show diversity that it’s pandering and fulsome.
Yeah, and some try to douse that type of criticism by saying that there’s no systemic racism. Really?!!
Really? Normally I am with you, but sometimes a color is just a color. While you cherry pick your examples, let’s not forget the hero dragon of HTTYD, Toothless, was black and is an equal to his white partner. Yes movies can stereotype, but your complaint is trivial when compared to current real issues like those facing BLM. While I have not read the book Burton’s movie is based on, was the color choice made by the author or Burton.
Sorry, but I also have to add that the whole premise behind HTTYD is getting past prejudice and seeing the good in each other. I can only imagine you were also livid when they chose black armor for Darth Vader in and complained then willfully disregarding that it had to been a white guy in that armor to make to write faux outrage. I wonder if it’s time to re-evaluate the fact checking of FAIR.ORG?
Sorry, that should have read …Darth Vader in Star Wars and willfully disregarded that it had to have been a white man in that armor to protest in faux outrage much like FOXNews.
Sorry about that. I should have responded on a computer and not the friggin iPhone. I sooo hate apple products.