The race-neutral casting of Nolan’s Odyssey was inevitably deplored in some quarters. But there is nothing progressive about it. Most of the non-white actors – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.

Can you imagine if a film adaptation of the Epic of Sundiata had white actors ? The whole western world would stop spinning.

I really wish all those senseless racial tensions of the US had not spilled over to the rest of us.

Nobody in France would bat an eyelid if a movie had white only cast, as nobody would bat an eyelid if a movie had black only cast.

I think that the point is simply that the casting failed at the implicit goal of being in some way progressive (and was probably a marketing stunt). Who cares if French people would be fine with a homogeneous movie? It was made in America.

French filmmakers have been criticized within France for white-only casting going back to at least the 1980s. By the time that sub-Saharan African, Arab and Southeast Asian faces were a normal feature of French city streets, white-only casting struck many as tone-deaf and stuck in the past.

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