There is only one ethical way to cast a play, musical or movie: pick the actor whose portrayal will most entertain the audience and realize the full potential of the script. Casting is not the place (if anywhere is) for political correctness, quotas, “diversity,” or affirmative action.
Ethics Alarms is full of discussions of this issue, most recently here, in the post just last week about how Disney decided it was offensive to cast seven little people as the Seven Dwarfs in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Hollywood and Broadway are completely confused and hypocritical in this area, because the people who run both places are 1) desperate to be seen as progressive and to signal their virtue at every opportunity, 2) terrified of being branded as non-woke, giving extreme activist groups representing various tribes and interests groups the upper hand in their bullying efforts, and 3) not very bright, frankly.
This is why a Samoan-African American actor was found insufficiently black to play folk legend John Henry, but a black woman was cast as red-headed fish-girl Ariel in “The Little Mermaid,” and the Founding Fathers ended up being portrayed by black, Asian, and Hispanic women and “non-binary” performers in the revival of “1776.” Tom Hanks now says only gay actors should play gay characters, but a director who refused to cast a gay actor as a non-gay character would be run out of the business. It is, as I have written here before, Calvinball.
All of which brings us to the head-exploding essay by Malina Saval, editor in Chief of Pasadena Magazine, titled “An Irish Actor Playing Oppenheimer Proves Once Again That Jews Don’t Count.”
She is angry and offended that the part of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, isn’t played by a Jewish actor in the newly released bio-pic, “Oppenheimer.” She huffs,
But in “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s hotly-anticipated biopic opening today, one Jew was one too many. The titular character is played by Irish actor Cillian Murphy, who was raised Catholic. And this was no accident. In an interview with the New York Times, Nolan admitted he wrote the film with Murphy specifically in mind. In other words, no Jewish actors were considered for the role.
Uh, no, you bonehead, “in other words,” the director thought, “Hey, Murphy looks like he could be Oppenheimer’s clone! He’d be perfect to play him!” And Nolan was right, as you can see above. That’s how sane and competent directors think; that’s why Spielberg didn’t cast Samuel L. Jackson as Abe Lincoln. It is irrelevant that Murphy is Irish and raised Catholic, and it is irrelevant to the choice of an Irish actor to portray him that Oppenheimer was Jewish. What is relevant is that Murphy strongly resembles the physicist and is a well-respected actor. It is called “acting,” after all.
Nolan wasn’t “admitting” that he was doing anything but what directors are supposed to do.
Then Saval writes—and let me say now because I can’t contain myself any longer: opinion pieces this incompetent and foolish should not be published by major media sources—this nonsense:
“One could even argue that it’s because Oppenheimer was in a perpetual state of identity crisis, constantly wrestling with the fact of his Jewishness, that a far more authentic representation of him onscreen can only be achieved through casting a Jewish actor in the role. But this does not seem to have occurred to Nolan.”
Sidney Wang is calling, as well he should, for seldom has his point been more applicable:
It didn’t occur to Nolan because the notion is absurd, and contradicted by the entire history of theater and film. To cite an obvious example, Jackie Robinson was less effective and believable as Jackie Robinson in “The Jackie Robinson Story” than the late Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed Robinson in “42,” and didn’t even play baseball in Little League as a kid. Then she blathers,
“But this is par for the course in today’s entertainment industry. And the casting of Murphy as Oppenheimer is yet another glaring example of how the collective Hollywood push for diversity, equity and inclusion when it comes to on-screen representation has almost entirely eluded the Jewish community. From “The Marvelous Mrs Maisel,” in which non-Jewish actor Rachel Brosnahan played Jewish comedian Miriam for the series’ five-season run (and won an Emmy for doing so) to Bradley Cooper’s upcoming Leonard Bernstein biopic, which Cooper directs and in which he stars as the famed Jewish composer (with the aid of a prosthetic nose), Jews are rarely cast in the roles of prominent Jewish characters.”
What? If any ethnic group in Hollywood has benefited by being cast to play characters with whom they do not share ethnic DNA, it is Jews. Speaking of “Lincoln,” Daniel Day-Lewis played him. He’s Jewish. He also played real life, racist, anti-Jewish nativist William Poole, aka. “Bill the Butcher,” in “The Gangs of New York,” and awfully “authentically” too. James Caan was Jewish: nobody seemed to find flaws with his portrayal of Sonny Corleone. Kirk Douglas was Jewish: he played Spartacus and Vincent Van Gogh in acclaimed performances; he also played Doc Holliday. Harvey Keitel is a Jew: he recently played Adolf Eichmann. Joaquin Phoenix won an Oscar for playing Johnny Cash; Melissa Gilbert played Helen Keller in “The Miracle Worker” (I guess a blind and deaf actress would have been more “authentic”); Kevin Kline played Lincoln’s War Secretary William Stanton (and was about a foot taller than Stanton, whose ancestors were Quakers) in “The Conspirator”; Lawrence Harvey, who was also British, played Texas icon William Barrett Travis in “The Alamo;” Eli Wallach stole multiple Westerns playing Mexican bandits—all of these actors were Jewish, and I could go on for pages.
Jewish actors are ethically estopped from complaining about “non-authentic” casting, which is an anti-artistic, bigoted concept to begin with. However, Saval’s rant does have value: it illustrates as well as anything I’ve seen yet how logically and ethically unsupportable the current politically correct casting mania has become.
Ethics Alarms 
Why not Samuel L. Jackson as Oppenhemier?
“I’ll tell you how to make this motherfuckin nuclear bomb. You need two motherfuckin subcritical masses of motherfucking uranium-235 and then push them together really fast with motherfuckin explosives!”
I’d be more likely to see that version than the current one.
Casting Bill Murray as FDR was only slightly less ridiculous.
The guy who wrote the screen play for “Hyde Park on Hudson” launched his career writing plays for the London stage which made fun of Americans.
A couple of reaches there, Jack, although Joaquin Phoenix’s mom was Jewish, so he technically qualifies, Melissa Gilbert was raised by an adoptive mom who was Jewish but was never given a Hebrew name nor the ritual bath known as a mikveh, which she would need to formally convert (her natural mom was not Jewish, so she doesn’t qualify as Jewish from birth). Oh, and how did you leave out famous Jewish convert Liz Taylor as Hellenic Egyptian ruler Cleopatra?
That said, perfect ethnic casting has never been achieved. Mel Gibson played William Wallace, liberator of Scotland, and I don’t think he has a drop of Scottish blood. Patrick McGoohan was Irish-American, with no English blood, yet he played Edward I Plantagenet in the same movie (actually the Plantagenets were Normans, but let that pass). Anthony Hopkins, a Welshman, played all kinds of roles from Irish-born C.S. Lewis to Dutch Abraham van Helsing to Spanish Zorro (he played the original Don Diego de la Vega in The Mask of Zorro, passing the mask and the sword to Antonio Banderas’ Alejandro Murietta). Charlie Chan, Chinese-American detective, has NEVER been played by a Chinese man, and was famously played by Swedish Warner Oland (complete with tinky-tinky accent), and, to cap it all, Japanese secret agent Mr. Moto was played by Hungarian Jew Peter Lorre.
Ah yes, then we get to the attempt by the recent Rings of Power to represent all the real world in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, with a black/Latino elf (in a relationship with a human woman who’s actually Iranian by birth), a black dwarf princess, black hobbit leader, and a black queen of the famously Northern European Dunedain. I am convinced that was fan-baiting, so they could claim criticism was racist, and not directed at the unlikeable leads, terrible writing, plot holes, and underwhelming costumes and props. But they had REPRESENTATION, so that conquers all.
Over the last few years, I’ve been wiki-ing actors and actresses. They seem to come out of nowhere and be wildly famous these days without me having ever heard of them. It is absolutely uncanny the two things seemingly the vast majority of actors and actresses have in common. Number one, they are children of divorce. It seems as if every single actress is the child of divorce. All the fathers seem to have left the family when the actress-to-be was two or three years old. Maybe abandonment issues create people who crave attention and applause. Number two: Nearly every person in show business seems to have at least one Jewish parent, and usually one who works in show business. Is this a surprise? No. The Jews created Vaudeville and then Hollywood. And most of them have been more than happy to stay behind the cameras, because, as John Dillinger said when asked why he robbed banks, “That’s where they keep the money.” But if a Jewish kid can act, “Great. Have at it, kid.”
So, if this chick’s complaint is there aren’t enough Jews in Hollywood, she’s clearly nuts.
“ They seem to come out of nowhere and be wildly famous these days without me having ever heard of them”
That’s just called getting old, I’m afraid.
Doubtless true, but I think it’s the rapidity with which they come and go that’s so striking. People in Hollywood used to have forty-year careers. Humphrey Bogart, John Wayne, Betty Davis, Jimmy Stewart. These current “stars” come and go in a few years.
Not Tom Cruise!
And not Sir Ian McKellar either, but they are the exception rather than the rule now.
They were always the exception; there are a few less now. Most of the biggest stars of the silent era didn’t make it past their thirties. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are outliers: by mid-career, Joel MacRae and Randolph Scott were relegated to B movies. Jimmy Stewart’s last major role was in 1970, when he was 62, and it was hardly a major release—a so-so Western comedy with Henry Fonda.
With few exceptions, audiences don’t turn out for the stars anymore, they turn out for the brands. Although with franchise fatigue starting to finally show after years of unfulfilled predictions, maybe the pendulum will start to swing back.
I think that’s right, I also think the star bench is unusually thin right now. It’s also hard to tell whether it’s the star or the franchise: would a MI movie score without Tom Cruise? Cruise has certainly had some bombs recently (like “The Mummy”) Who qualifies today as a bankable star? I would usually make a special effort to see any Denzel Washington movie—but he’s getting old. I assume a Meryl Street movie or a Helen Mirren movie will be worth seeing, but aren’t directors the draw now? I’ll always see a Tarantino film, usually Spielberg and Scorcese.
Yes, I doubt Oppenheimer would be as big right now without Christopher Nolan at the helm. And Barbie would probably be seen as just another franchise toy commercial without the involvement of Greta Gerwig.
If that!
There were plenty of Jewish entertainers to come out of vaudeville also. The Marx brothers, for example. All of The Three Stooges were Jewish except Curly Joe DeRita, the last Stooge to be born, the last Stooge to be a Stooge, and the last Stooge to die.
As for William Wallace lots of famous Scotsmen weren’t Scottish. Robert de Bruce was also not Scottish (he was French, hence de Bruce). The Stuart kings were descended from Robert fitz Alan, the hereditary Steward of Scotland and a Breton (fitz Alan).
De Brus is how I saw it spelled. De Balliol, LaMont, the list goes on and on, a lot of Scottish noblemen and a lot of English noblemen had French backgrounds. I remember a lot of that was spelled out in the beginning of the book The Steps to the Empty Throne.
At least Newsweek published a rebuttal piece: https://www.newsweek.com/demanding-jewish-actors-play-jewish-characters-insult-good-art-opinion-1814587 Both these articles are part of their “Debate” section with pieces that represent opposite sides of a particular issue, so it looks they are at least making an effort to be neutral and let various viewpoints be represented.
That “rebuttal” is incredibly tortured, to put it mildly. It’s all about Jewish self-hate. Not really a rebuttal at all, just more lefty cant.
Does that mean that Jewish actors cannot play non-Jewish characters? Because I’m not sure they’d take that trade. They may be willing to sign off though if this works the same way for BIPOC/LGBT folks (“art” if they play someone who’s not what they are, “oppression” if it’s the opposite way).
In all seriousness though, that was an amazing good choice to play Oppenheimer.
I mean, the explanation is in the job title.
*actor*. The job of an actor is pretty straight forward. Depending on the level of involvement the story requires of the audience, to minimize the amount of imagining and detail filling the audience has to do on trivial details so the audience can expends its energy on imagining and detail filling in the places the story-teller wants to take them – then an actor that looks the part is already one area the audience isn’t worried about.
Murphy looks the part.
Can anyone tell me if there’s an allusion to Truman telling him off when he got all wishy washy about nuking the Empire of Japan’s home islands?
Yes!!!!
Yes, I’m right about actors?
Yes, you can tell me if there is or isn’t such a scene?
Or Yes, there is indeed such a scene?
All three. There is such a scene!
Excellent. It increases in my likelihood of seeing in theaters then.
Me too, though I am no longer a Christopher Nolan fan after “Dunkirk.”
What particularly did you not like about Dunkirk? Too artsy and innovative for a war movie which should be played more straight?
No. It didn’t have a single moment that showed the amazing scope of the rescue. It looked like about five boats were involved. It desperately needed a shot like the famous one in “The Longest Day,” with the horizon suddenly filled with allied ships. Little about the logistics…it reduced a miracle to a family story, or something. “Mrs. Miniver” did Dunkirk more justice.
I was bitterly disappointed in it.
Understood.