(Image source: Facebook)
Despite its extensive and exhaustive search to find non-white actors to play in the live action remake of “Aladdin,” Disney is currently under fire for its decision to cast a white character.
On Tuesday, the Hollywood Reporter revealed that actor Billy Magnussen would be playing the new role of Prince Anders in the film. Immediately, people criticized Magnussen’s addition because he’s white:
Why did they add a white prince to #Aladdin? This is going to be a disaster 🤦🏻♂️ pic.twitter.com/0Hjrs2FNzT
— Jovanny Evans (@jobonito) September 6, 2017
Should #actor Billy Magnussen step down as 'Prince Anders' the newly created white character in #Aladdin? #Disney #Hollywood
— Jeetendr Sehdev (@JeetendrSehdev) September 6, 2017
Lol that's nice how white people will make up new jobs just to hire and pay another white person. Maybe one day they do that for poc too.
— Sandy SPX C7A (@skimcasual) September 6, 2017
so they "couldn't find" a middle Eastern Jasmine but they can add a completely new made up WHITE GUY https://t.co/YqYUQ8OLBF
— tori (@rotshayden) September 6, 2017
Y'all can't even let brown people have their own fake kingdom? https://t.co/r7TcGY9efO
— Nicholai Joaquin (@nicholaisays) September 6, 2017
Can. We. Not.
— Daddy Sock Monkey (@ravingsockmonky) September 6, 2017
Like, serious talk here. Fellow White people, it's okay to not be in literally everything. Seriously, it's FINE. https://t.co/H8H7ADKbJa
The AV Club wrote, “After an exhaustive global search to find actors to portray Aladdin and Jasmine in its upcoming live-action Aladdin adaptation and the hiring of a megawatt movie star to play the Genie, Disney looked over its cast list, thought to itself, 'something’s not right here,' and went out and got a blue-eyed, blonde-haired white guy.”
Vanity Fair claimed, “Still, creating a white prince role for the movie isn’t exactly great optics.”
The uproar over the latest character on the “Aladdin” cast joins the chorus of other complaints about Disney “whitewashing” “Aladdin.” Disney has been criticized for casting a “non-Arab” to play Princess Jasmine, even though “Aladdin” takes place in a fictional country. Even the nature of the movie itself was criticized as being racist. Quartz India wrote, “Just because Aladdin is casting a brown lead doesn’t mean it’s not racist,” adding, “the movie is inherently orientalist.”
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