Rainy day fun in the gauzy summers of my youth often meant endless games of Clue. Nobody wanted to play as Mrs. White—Mrs. Peacock, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mr. Green and Colonel Mustard are the more colorful characters. So if a glut of older kids joined us at the board, I got stuck in the part of the maid: Mrs. White, according to our edition of the Hasbro classic, was a rosy-cheeked, hennish biddy in a black dress and white apron, dusting a sideboard.
If Clue wasn’t a staple of your childhood, first of all, well, sorry: It’s a simple but riveting race around the game board to find out who killed Mr. Boddy, a guest discovered dead at Mr. Black’s mansion—in which room: billiard room, ballroom, conservatory? And with what weapon: rope, revolver, lead pipe? The women among the possible suspects include the dangerously alluring Miss Scarlet, a Jessica Rabbit lookalike and possibly a high-class call girl; and the glamorous widow and society dame Mrs. Peacock, who may or may not have killed her late husband.
But Mrs. White—according to a suite of tributes and remembrances in light of her reported death/replacement (some more respectful than others)—was a battlefield nurse during World War II and, we know now, a governess at Mr. Black’s mansion. Mrs. White homeschooled her replacement Dr. Orchid, an East Asian-looking plant toxicologist and adopted ward of Mr. Black. Of the ensemble only the late Mrs. White, merry as Mrs. Claus in her thankless, traditionally female roles of nurse, maid and governess, could conceivably have been justified in killing Mr. Boddy. Maybe he had it coming.
Dr. Orchid’s been called “a feminist coup,” but she’s also a racial caricature and a videogame designer’s idea of a career woman. Those tempted to take to Twitter indicting Hasbro’s racial insensitivity should remember the 1985 film version of Clue, starring Tim Curry, that re-canonized the game. No tone-deaf attempts at an inclusive upgrade to casting can undo its campy irreverence.
Hasbro will release the new Clue sets in August, but don’t worry: The original is still out there.
