I don't do anything on my blog to acknowledge Black History Month, which is a bit of a shame. I certainly could. I mean, it's only February 3rd, so I could even do it this year. If we are looking for precedent with other themed months, look no further than Pride Month in June, when I watch one pride-themed movie each week.
Why don't I do this in February to celebrate Black creatives and films with Black subject matter? I mean, this is certainly something in my thoughts, at least as much as issues related to pride.
I think part of it is that I've just recovered from my big end-of-year push, and I don't really want to be getting myself back into a big month-long project -- even just one viewing per week -- right after I've freed myself from watching the films from the previous year. I want February to be a bit loosey goosey, where I watch whatever I want, whenever I want, both new (to me) movies and rewatches. Heck I'll watch a few actual new movies as well. Gotta start 2026 sometime.
But I thought the least I could do was use a spot at the beginning of February to address the latest controversy regarding race-related casting, sparked this time by that douche-nozzle Elon Musk.
I'm only going off a headline here because I don't want to dignify Musk's comments by actually reading the article. But apparently the thing is that Musk thinks Christopher Nolan has "lost his integrity" by casting a Black woman -- Lupita N'yongo, to be specific -- as Helen of Troy in July's The Odyssey.
Please.
What he thinks he's saying, or at least wants us to think he thinks he's saying, is that Helen of Troy was blonde and that any representation of her should acknowledge that.
What he's really saying is much more sinister:
A woman known as essentially the most beautiful woman of all time could not possibly be Black.
Please.
I don't know why these people want to keep coming out against any form of "woke" casting. It's the same people who said that Ariel in The Little Mermaid couldn't be Black and that there was no such thing as a Black Targeryan in the Game of Thrones spinoff.
Can't we just, like, stop?
And when I say "we," I certainly don't include myself in that group.
I'm not going to dignify Musk's comments any further by actually offering him an explanation about why Helen could have dark skin. I understand some people have dignified him in this way.
It's not even worth it to do that, even if you have a "good" argument. The argument doesn't need to be "good." The only argument needed for race-blind casting is that people in any audience want the opportunity to see themselves in characters they see on screen. We got over a long time ago the idea that there might be Black people in the upper crust society of a show like Bridgerton, when of course we know that is not historically accurate, and to keep having this argument about any new character who comes up for cinematic representation, maybe for the first time in our modern era, just sullies us all.
There are only a few characters I think it does not make sense to have played by a Black woman, or not without the very casting being part of whatever your confrontational, satirical aims are with the film. Just a few off the top of my head:
1) A slave owner! Probably not a good idea to have a Black character owning Black slaves.
2) Eva Braun! We don't have to pretend there's a world where Hitler would have been married to a Black woman.
End of list.
As if we needed any more reasons to talk about what a complete and utter piece of shit Musk is.
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