Interpreting the Color

UNIVERSAL REMOTE

The Interpreter opens today and based on the reviews, it is supposed to be pretty good. Since there is nothing else out there to see, I'll probably be making a trip to the multiplex this weekend. Roger Ebert gave it a solid *** review and ended his write-up with a question:

I don't want to get Politically Correct, I know there are many white Africans, and I admire Kidman's performance. But I couldn't help wondering why her character had to be white. I imagined someone like Angela Bassett in the role, and wondered how that would have played. If you see the movie, run that through your mind.

In last week's Entertainment Weekly, the film's original writer Charles Randolph said:

I chose a white African because I felt that's a story that really hasn't been told. I think we've historically dismissed white Africans as racists. And I wanted to portray someone who loved her country... and didn't happen to be black.

Randolph's sentiment is very nice, to be sure. It also sounds like a bunch of baloney. Hollywood tests, tests, tests every movie they make to nth degree in order to miximize the number of people interested in seeing it. Studio bosses know that the bigger the star in the movie, the better chance the movie has to be a hit in theaters worldwide and, perhaps more importantly, a big seller on DVD. The reality is that there are more white stars than black. This is particularly true with women. So for the makers of The Interpreter to fall all over themselves trying to explain why their main character is white is more than a bit disingenuous. They are simply playing the game. If Halle Berry was a bigger star than Nicole Kidman (and she had agreed to star in the movie), the writers would have made the main character black. Immediately. Like over a weekend.

Roger Ebert knows this, which is why his idea of the great Angela Bassett starring in an $80 million blockbuster all the more preposterous. In a perfect world, Bassett would be a major movie star and Halle Berry would be a model that didn't talk. We don't live in that world. We don't live in a world where merit always wins out over celebrity. A more helpful suggestion by Ebert would have been to implore any readers that are truly interested in African politics depicted on film by black actors to seek out the recent masterpiece Hotel Rwanda. Otherwise he should just tell them to go see The Interpreter, eat their popcorn, and have a good time watching an above-average political thriller.