Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/20/hollywood-exec-wanted-to-cast.html
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Not that different. Sorry.
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Hollywood being what it is, I’m sure that executive kept on getting promoted. Who knows, he may still be working today.
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‘It was so long ago. No one is going to know the difference."
Sadly, this is true for some portion of the population.
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im gonna take a guess here: although hollywood is stupid about this stuff (especially with asian characters for some reason) they aren’t THAT stupid to take this seriously which was why it was immediately shot down. My guess is that executive who suggested it was a dumbass who didn’t know who Harriet Tubman was and assumed that because they didn’t know about her that no one else would recognize her name either.
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I don’t know if its true as i haven’t seen the movie yet but i saw online that the movie was embellished with a fake black villain that’s chasing Harriet in the stead of her white owners. Has anyone seen the movie because i’m curious if this is true or if it was someone spewing made up things about it?
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Looking forward to the movie, but I have to admit, I wish they’d gotten Octavia Spencer to play Harriet Tubman.
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This is what a friend had sent me. Again i don’t know if any of this is true so i’m curious to get thoughts from someone that has seen the movie:
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Wait – they created a fictional menacing Black character for the film whose name is Bigger Long? (IMDB and Wikipedia confirm, yes)
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jesus. if thats true, this might be worse than the julia roberts thing (at least someone had the wherewithal to point out that was stupid when it was suggested)
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That’s… really something.
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Was it dumbassed, though, assuming the executive’s priority was not artistic or historical integrity, but ticket sales? Would a movie starring Julia Roberts as Harriet Tubman have made money in 1994? Unfortunately, I am not 100% confident it wouldn’t.
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Not according to this:
always under the threat of Gideon* and the initially villainous yet later-on protective watchful eye of Walter (Henry Hunter Hall, memorable and chameleon-esque), a slave hunter taken by Tubman’s determination and unique connection to God.
* The heir of the plantation she escapes from
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I have long felt that the worst movie idea would be Scarlett Johansson in the life story of Rosa Parks, but this works too.
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While that is bad you clearly haven’t heard about digital James Dean. He’ll be costarring with a dog in a movie about Vietnam. You know, that awful war that happened after he died.
As for the Harriet movie… I kinda wrote it off when the giant cardboard cutout had her holding a gun and looking like she was about to raid Nakatomi Plaza. That said, I do hope they included Harriet Tubman forcing congress to grant her wartime pension.
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The Comcast thing is bullshit.
Comcast wants to drop channels like Pets.TV and Cars.TV, owned by Allen.
Comcast wants to drop them because Comcast is paying to carry them and nobody watches them. They’re crap.
Allen is arguing “you can’t drop them because I’m Black. You’re trying to get rid of black-owned channels! Racist! Civil Rights !!!11!one”
Comcast is pointing at channels like BET and Own that people do watch and shrugging.
EDIT: The issue going before SCOTUS is the legitimacy of the racial-discrimination lawsuit brought by Allen. It’s pretty damn clear Allen is playing the race card to force Comcast to carry utter shit.
If Comcast wins, the precedent it sets will allegedly make it harder to file racial discrimination suits, as the plaintiff will have a higher burden of proof that it is a race-based issue, and not simply a business decision. Which… seems logical to me.
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I thought part of what i posted was BS, something about some of those points seemed pretty questionable. Which is why i was asking for thoughts, i’m particularly curious to hear from someone that’s actually seen the movie. Thanks for posting the info.
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I’m not really even shocked by this revelation.
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Interesting – from the sound of it, there’s apparently a character in the film with the very unfortunate name of Bigger Long, but according to this and other reviews, I’m not seeing anything about him being any sort of major villain or character.
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