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George Lucas retirement and equality in the film industry

So, in further support of the world ending this year, it would seem that George Lucas, the man behind Star Wars and Indiana Jones, is retiring from major films. Now, for some Star Wars fans this may actually be a relief – many are still scarred by Jar Jar Binks and the magical appearance of Hayden Christensen in Return of the Jedi – and to many others this won’t even cause a stir – mainly the people who have no idea who Binks is and only know what a Jedi might be from YouTube – but to me, a die-hard fan, this is sombre news. But, another thing emerged from the build up to this announcement during Lucas’ range of interviews in promotion for his new film hitting screens in the USA in the near future; Red Tails. The claim that ‘Hollywood won’t support black films’.

This comes from George Lucas’ apparent self funding of Red Tails, which follows the story of a squadron of African-American pilots who were kept grounded during World War 2 until the time that their country needed them. Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Terrence Howard, and Ne-Yo – with the exception of Ne-Yo, the actors have pretty solid CV’s, so why was Lucas funding the film on his own? According to Lucas, it was because studios were not willing to back a film with no major white star. Oh dear. Why is this? Do people really believe that the only people fighting in the wars of the 20^th century were white? I doubt it. So why aren’t there more films portraying ethnic diversity in the events that changed the course of history?

It’s both interesting and depressing to think that there still is this lack of faith in other ethnic groups in the entertainment industry. I’m willing to bet that most people would be able to name ten highly recommended white actors, but would have difficulty in naming black actors. Could you argue that there just aren’t as many reputable black actors? Idris Elba has won a Golden Globe for the BBC series Luther, Forest Whitaker won an Oscar for The Last King of Scotland, Don Cheadle was nominated for his role in Hotel Rwanda. The talent is there, but is it recognised? Are there films that promote black heroes or main characters universally, not just to minority communities? There were rumours that perhaps Idris Elba could have taken the Bond role, and there was a great opportunity to have a black actor play the role of the Green Lantern; a recent superhero film adapted from DC comics. But, as we know, Daniel Craig was chosen for Bond (and he is amazing) and Green Lantern had the usually hilarious Ryan Reynolds in what was a lacklustre and pitiful film. I’m not saying that having black actors in these roles would make the films better or worse, I’m just wondering why there seems to be a fear of having a black lead or a black majority. Is there really the fear that white audiences won’t see the film because they don’t feel it is ‘targeted’ to them, or more importantly, is this fear grounded in any way?

You can say that being politically correct sometimes gets in the way of entertainment, and that fear of offending people has every film, show, comedian and celebrity treading on eggshells, but this isn’t trying to exaggerate a real issue. For all I know, Red Tails could be absolutely awful (and I look forward to seeing it and sharing my thoughts with you), but the film deserves as much chance to be awful as recent white dominated endeavours like Green Lantern, the Twilight series (yeah I said it!) and most films coming out of the mind of Adam Sandler.