In an article turgidly tallying up the racial backgrounds of the actors appearing in Ridley Scott’s forthcoming movie Exodus, contributor to The Week Jonathan Merritt says that viewers will “notice one ingredient painfully missing: melanin.”
“The movie is populated by an almost completely Caucasian cast,” he laments.
Merrit goes on to make a rather, er, old-school observation. “[M]ost of the actors of color who have been cast were relegated to nameless roles,” sighs Merritt, “Exceptions may include smaller roles for Ben Kingsley, a Brit with an Indian father, and John Turturro, an Italian-American.”
Italian-Americans—not white? Mr. Merrit, the 1890s called: they want their conception of whiteness back.
