Scott Tibbs
The corrosive influence of identity politics in Hollywood
By Scott Tibbs, September 20, 2022
A few years ago, an actress who was openly "out" as a lesbian was attacked for being "not gay enough" to play a comic book character who was a lesbian. (See
here and
here and
here.)
It is, of course, absurd to demand a character who is homosexual be played by a homosexual actress. Actors portray things they are not. That is what acting is. It was even more absurd to say that an openly homosexual woman was not "gay enough" for the role. It also illustrates that militant homosexual activists are a cult: You not only must be homosexual to be employed, you must be the right kind of homosexual and we will judge your sex life.
This silly "controversy" It also exposed the lies of Leftists who claim "cancel culture" does not exist. If an actress is driven from a role by a howling mob demanding she adhere to a specific kind of lesbianism, that is cancel culture in action.
Notice, though, that the notion that a character can only be played by an actor or actress from the same "community" as that character only works in one direction. If anyone says that (for example) Ariel of
The Little Mermaid or Mary Jane in
Spider-Man should be played by a white redhead like in the source material, that person is demonized as a "racist" who is oppressing black actors and actresses. Both the company making the film adaptations and the actors themselves then claim a flood of "racist abuse," even if the "abuse" comes from a few cranks on Twitter who are just being trolls.
The inevitable response is "Why do you care about this?" Well, Leftists demanded that we care about it, and when we notice what Leftists are doing they then complain that we noticed it. This open gaslighting and hypocrisy should be rejected, and certainly not respected.
The reason this is important is that politics is downstream of culture, and whether you think they should or not, Hollywood has enormous influence on culture that bleeds over into politics and policy. Conservatives should not be afraid to point out the absurdity of extreme identity politics, and should not fear the whining that results from pointing out the absurdity. Identity politics is corrupting our entire culture and is Balkanizing our nation. For the sake of our national unity, we need to reject and oppose the extremism of this cult.
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