Though no fan of Sean Penn's politics, he had some choice words for the current trend in casting. Regarding his role as Harvey Milk, he commented:
Today, almost certainly, I would not be permitted to be cast in that role. We’re living in a time where if you’re playing a gay lead character, you would have to be a gay man. And there have been these casting issues. In terms of finding the balance — you have a period of evolution that certainly has an opportunity for people who have had less opportunities to move forward, that has to be supported.
Yes, it has progressed far enough that a Hugo Chavez cheerleader is having second thoughts about identity politics. Here's the key quote:
And yet, in this pendulum-swinging society that we’re in, you wonder at some point if only Danish princes can play Hamlet
That's both funny and illustrative. However, it isn't true. We have seen plenty of off-type casting in these cases. Anne Boleyn has recently been played by a black actress. Lancelot was played by a black actor. The atrocious Mary Queen of Scots (2018) was filled with anachronistic casting. It was entirely okay, even commendable, to have black and Asian actors portraying historical figures who were white, but it was racially insensitive for a white actor - Hank Azaria - to merely voice a fictional Indian-American cartoon character, Apu. This is a one-way street. Sean Penn is on the wrong side of that street or he would, even now, not have protested.
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