If you’re tired of reading stories about ridiculous and unjustifiable cases of crossracial casting in Hollywood, please believe I’m equally tired of writing them. But until the phenomenon either slows or starts to make a bit more sense, I’ll likely find a long career in recording the actorly absurd.
So Stuart Gordon is shooting a film called Stuck, based on the 2001 Ft. Worth, TX case of Chante Ballard, an African-American woman who hit a homeless man with her car, drove home with him stuck in her windshield and conspired with her boyfriend to keep him there until he died and his body could be surreptitiously disposed.
Setting aside the fact that even my most macabre sensibilities wouldn’t really lead me to sit through a film based on that particular crime, I’m going to have to point out that Gordon’s film version of the events have changed names and settings to protect the guilty (presumably), which is fine. Frankly, I’ve never gotten the appeal of “ripped from the headlines” storytelling. It seems unoriginal and lazy, besides which, if I can follow a case on the news for free, why should I pay to watch a (usually poorly dramatized) retread unfold? That said, I suppose trying to camouflage your film as something “a little different from” or “inspired by” the actual events, rather than calling it a straight biopic removes the immediate reproach of an audience who clearly knows when you’re bullshitting.
But onto another problem of this “loosely based” project. It appears that Gordon’s name and setting changes have resulted in another baffling case of cultural creative license: the star here, whose name is now “Brandi,” is being played by Mena Suvari—Estonian in heritage, White in appearance. Apparently, in a recent interview with Premiere, Suvari explains her acquisition of the role and her appearance in it thusly:
“I think we just wanted to kind of establish Brandi as a particular kind of girl from a particular place. I think that we felt that it would be, like, Providence, Rhode Island, with a mix of cultures. That’s kind of what we were going for.”
This “particular kind of girl from a particular kind of place… with a mix of cultures” is further described in a Los Angeles Times piece as, ” nursing home caretaker with an appetite for Ecstasy and a drug-dealer boyfriend who can keep her supplied… a bewildered, white-trash victim of a single terrible decision but also a merciless angel of death…. She wears her hair in cornrows, maintains ghetto-fabulous nails and appears mainly in baggy hospital scrubs.”
Hmm. Suvari says that the decision to wear cornrows in the film was a joint one between herself and Gordon. Apparently, the characterization of someone as “white trash with ghetto-fabulous nails” necessitates a hairstyle commonly associated with the African American community… particularly when you’re playing a role based on an African American character.
I’m not going to go the route of complaining about how a Black actress should’ve gotten this role. While it would’ve been nice for a sister to get a check, I can’t rightly complain that this is yet another “meaty character” a Black actress has been denied. There’s nothing “meaty” about Ecstasy-fueled vehicular homicide in ghetto-fabulous nails. And if a Black actress had been cast here, Black audiences would’ve complained about yet another “negative racial stereotype” having cleared the big screen. Plus, let’s face it: if it had been given to a Black actress, it would’ve been given to Vivica A. Fox. And do any of us really need to see another Vivica A. Fox-in-cornrows and/or-ghetto-fabulous-nails role?
I’m more upset that one of my favorite slightly over-enunciating actors, Russell Hornsby (Gideon’s Crossing fans, stand up!), appears to be taking on the role of Suvari’s Ecstasy-dealing, burial-conspiring boyfriend. I always like to see him working, but c’mon, fam. Not like this.
Plus, if you’re gonna go White with this story, go all the way. After all, the Ballard case was a classic please-don’t-let-the-killers-be-Black one, anyway. We would’ve had no problem letting y’all take that one off our hands.
