“la belle idée” of colorblind casting

In an interview some years back, I recall Morgan Freeman stating in what seemed a somewhat self-aggrandizing critical voice regarding African American actors, that he doesn’t just go for African American roles, such as Nelson Mandela in Invictus, a free black man in Amistad, a black soldier in Glory. He didn’t limit himself and that’s why he has worked a lot more than his counterparts. At seventy-seven years young, we should all applaud him for still being in the ring.

It appears that this philosophical approach is working for him. He’s come up in the character ranks from playing a chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy to God in Bruce Almighty, stopping along the way to interpret the role of POTUS in Deep Impact (1998, before Barack Obama and therefore post racial America—I’m totally kidding). Other “colorblind” roles he starred in are as a detective in Se7en, a CIA Director in Sum of All Fears, a colonel in Dream Catcher, and Acting POTUS in Olympus Is Falling.

As we probably all do, I watch movies for various reasons. If it’s about a musician, especially classical, I will watch for the music. I enjoy biopics, particularly if they are about musicians such as Ray Charles, Etta James, or Tina Turner. I love great futuristic and science fiction films, action films with actual story lines, and great character driven dramas such as Secrets and Lies. “Based on a true story” will likely get my attention as well. If these films feature people who look like me, i.e., African Americans, so much the better. So, looking for something lightweight on Netflix the other day, I came upon The Magic of Belle Isle from 2012. Seeing that it stars Morgan Freeman, my interest was piqued.

I found the movie to be just the type of filmic distraction I was searching for—easy entertainment: Monty Wildhorn, a burned out, disillusioned, disabled, ‘decorated’ alcoholic novelist moves into a home for the summer on Belle Isle. It took no time for me to realize that the story could be a plausible one if the main character, Monty, played by Freeman, had been type cast. “Monty” Wildhorn (I’ve yet to meet an African American ‘Montgomery’) is by all standards and measures a “white” man.

Monty ‘rides’ into town chauffeured by his nephew, Henry, played by Keenan Thompson, also African American. If there were other ‘black’ folk in the film…well, you get my point. As the two cruise the streets to the summer home to be occupied by Monty, they notice the neighbor up on her roof watering it down with a hose; there has been a recent fire across the river. They slow down to check her out. Henry makes a comment alluding to her ‘mate-ability’ and Monty peers up and grunts agreement. The forty-something woman and her three daughters will become Monty’s inspiration to write again.

Yeah, right.

My skepticism of this opening scene is not because African American men aren’t attracted to European American women. African American women know all too well that some are. It’s the language that’s not authentic. There is no ‘blackness’ in it. Not even ‘seddity’ blackness.

It was not difficult to believe that the middle girl, Finnegan, played by Emma Furhmann, became attached to Freeman’s character (just the right amount of crotchetiness), or that the mother, Charlotte, played by Virginia Madsen, invited him over for dinner; he was a well-known writer and just about everyone on the island knew of him. But it was the type of books he wrote—Westerns—and especially the title of his most well-known and for which he received a prestigious award—The Saga of Jubal McClaws—that, for me, just didn’t ring true. Wikipedia defines a Western as:

… a genre of various arts, such as film, television, radio, fiction and art. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the later half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Many feature cowboys, bandits, lawmen, soldiers and American Indians...

“Stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century…” That would be the last years of Slavery and the first decades of “Post-Slavery”. Do African American men write Westerns? I’m sure they do. I don’t personally care for Westerns, either on the page or on the screen (Blazing Saddles’ satire and raunchy humor makes it an exception). Nevertheless, if they do write Westerns, I would imagine that their protagonists/heroes would be Slaves or newly freed ones, or even an historically “free black” (oxymoron) man, not the good ol’ boy “cowboys and Indians”. The historical novel, The Known World, by Edward P. Jones, comes to mind.

We do indeed learn that Jubal McClaws was drawn as a ‘white’ man, as revealed by the character played by Boyd Holbrook (European American) who wishes to purchase the film rights to Jubal McClaws so he can play the lead. “You’d make a fine Jubal”, Monty tells him. Frankly, I don’t know of any African American writers, man or woman, whose leading character is a European American. If you can enlighten me to the contrary on this subject, I’m always down for learning something new. And I don’t believe Justice Clarence Thomas writes fiction, let alone Westerns.

Finally, there’s chemistry between Monty and Charlotte. Is he an attractive enough man? Absolutely, although men don’t have to be attractive, young, or even ambulatory, to get the ‘girl next door’. Monty recognizes Beethoven’s sonata, dubbed the “Pathétique”, when Charlotte plays it for him after their ‘seminal’ dinner, a defining moment in their relationship. He says something to the effect that if he could hear music like that coming from her place at night, he’d sleep with his window wide open. What’s more romantic than a Beethoven sonata? How appropriate as a metaphor for romance. Having lost the ability to walk and the use of his left arm due to an automobile accident at the age of twenty-five, Monty dreams one night, window open, that they are dining picnic-style beneath the stars near the riverbank. He can walk again. They dance. They embrace. They kiss.

When Charlotte returns home after a long day’s absence settling divorce matters with the girls’ father, she joins Monty for a few moments on the porch as the children sleep, when he asks her to sit “a spell”. There’s the tension of mutual attraction. She rises to take leave, then approaches, bends and kisses him sweetly on the mouth. But the summer is coming to a close and he is leaving, as was always his plan. A few days later they see him off. They miss him but such is life. A few months later, Charlotte receives a letter from him, apologizing for not having written earlier. He writes that he found the perfect place to write, a quiet little town with magnificent views. It turns out that he has bought the house next door that he lived in for the summer with the money he received for selling the rights to The Saga of Jubal McClaws. They are surprised to see him when he rolls his chair onto the porch. It ends in a happy reunion of smiling faces.

So I ask, is a romance between a wheelchair- bound, aged, hard-drinking, has-been African American novelist and a considerably younger, refined European American mother of three likewise daughters possible? Yes. Is it probable? Maybe. Is it plausible? No. Not in these circumstances. I was unable to suspend my disbelief. The dramatic situation created by casting a ‘black’ man in a ‘white’ man’s role is at best an idyllic one.

Morgan Freeman is a consummate actor, although some of the roles he chooses belie that fact. I appreciate what he brought to this role. Robert DiNero or Michael Douglas couldn’t have played it any better. But what I kept thinking throughout the movie was that he played a ‘white’ man exceptionally well. The colorblind casting in this case worked to the extent to which it was capable. Yet the lasting impression for me is one of whitewashed inclusion and fairytale diversity.

My favorite character in the film was the Yellow Labrador Retriever named Ringo.

Afterthought: Perhaps good ol’ Monty was thinking of colorblind casting when he told Luke he’d make a fine Jubal. Hmm….