Idris Elba

Saturday Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 7/6/2019: Of Nike, MAGA Hats, Plays, Principals And All Manner Of Idiocy

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Good morning.

Commemorating one week without our Rugby, who shrugged off his canine coil Saturday last. It has been a weird and lachrymose seven days, full of reflex attempts to call him, look for him, start to out out food, and more. Worsts of all have been the chance encounters with our neighbors and his admirers, which have ended in everyone involved getting choked up. This is all exhausting, and not conducive at all to adequate focus on other matters.

1. The rest of the story...Marshae Jones, the woman who got her unborn child killed by starting a fistfight with a co-worker, will not be charged for the death of the fetus in the Alabama case I wrote about here.  I thought that would be the result. In the Ethics Alarms reader poll, over 50% felt that she should be charged:

2. Grandstanding idiot alert! Arizona Governor Doug Ducey received applause among those who do not appreciate gratuitous America-bashing and wokeness-groveling  when  he reacted to  Nike’s decision to pull its “Betsy Ross flag” sneakers (because Colin Kaepernick objected) by announcing that he would no longer support state incentives for the company to build  a plant in the Grand Canyon State. Two days later, Ducey arrived  at a 4th of July party wearing Nikes.

I wonder how he managed to forget to wear his Colin Kaepernick tee shirt?

3. Harry Truman’s best quote comes to mind. That would be, “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.”

Two British playwrights, Allen-Martin and Sarah Henley, have accused actor Idris Elba of misappropriating their work on  “Tree,” a play they worked on with Elba for several years. “Tree” will have its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival this month, but the aggrieved playwrights will not be at the premiere,

They complain that their role in the play’s development has been erased, and that their work is not being properly acknowledged. Elba and and the play’s director say Allen-Martin and  Henley withdrew from the project, and that the show that has evolved no longer reflects their work.

“This whole process has been terribly upsetting, and we’ve felt terrified about speaking out…People need to be better, especially people who inspire others,” the pair wrote  on Medium. Continue reading →

Black James Bond Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 70 Comments
Fleming's Bond (l) and Bond-in-Waiting Idris Elba

Fleming’s Bond (l) and Bond-in-Waiting Idris Elba

There’s really no denying it: some conservatives have persistent hang-ups about race, and it undermines their more rational, perceptive views on other matters. A relatively trivial but revealing example occurred in the aftermath of the Sony computer hack by North Korea (or Hacker X). One of the revelations was that Sony, which owns the James Bond franchise, was seriously considering re-booting the character, currently played by the estimable, but aging, Daniel Craig, with a black  British actor (be sure to mock anyone who calls him an “African-American), Idris Elba.

If you are unfamiliar with Elba, you should watch the British series “Luther” on Netflix. He’s terrific: athletic, sexy, charismatic and passionate, not to mention his  aura of cold-bloodedness and danger—in short, perfect for James Bond. But Rush Limbaugh, apparently seeking to retroactively validate the title of Al Franken’s book, “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot,” decided to use the threat of non-traditional casting to make liberal heads explode, his mission in life:

“That’s NOT who James Bond is, and I know it’s racist to probably even point this out: We had 50 years of white Bonds because Bond is white. Bond was never black. Ian Fleming never created a black Brit to play James Bond. The character was always white. He was always Scottish.”

It is hard to pack so much idiocy into five sentences, but Rush is up to the task. James Bond is a British secret agent: race doesn’t factor into the stories at all. We’ve had 50 years of white Bonds because that’s the conventional way of portraying the character, that’s all. Rush’s argument here is just “Everybody does it.” So what? James Bond movies are entertainment, and if an entertaining James Bond film can be made with Elba as Bond, and there is no reason in the world why not, then James Bond can be black. Continue reading →