© AFP / Geoff Robins
Cranston, best known for his role in Breaking Bad, plays a quadriplegic billionaire in his new movie 'The Upside' - a Hollywood remake of the 2011 French film 'The Intouchables.' The casting of Cranston as a disabled character has ignited passionate social media debate, however.
While some are claiming that choosing an able-bodied actor deprives actors who are really disabled of opportunities, others say that Cranston was chosen for his top-notch acting ability and was therefore the right person for the role.
Comment: There is no room for a meritocracy in the upside-down world of SJWs.
On Twitter, some pointed out that the "only" roles disabled actors could be considered for those portraying disabled people and therefore they should be the ones getting those roles.
Comment: If they are good enough actors, they will get cast. It's really that simple. Being disabled is not a qualification.
Others argued that Cranston's proven acting chops are likely the reason he was chosen - not to mention the fact that Hollywood producers want to cast high-profile, "bankable" actors.
Comment: Film studios want to make money?!?! That's just part of the oppressive capitalist system. According to the radical leftist ideology, films should be doing whatever they can to court those on the intersectional hierarchy. Hiring a wealthy white man, regardless of his competence, is entirely in violation of that imperative. This is the world that postmodernists want to create.
Some on the anti-Cranston side shot back, however, saying the reason there are few disabled actors at Cranston's level is because they are not given opportunities. Others though, said it would be too time consuming for a person who was genuinely quadriplegic to play the role.
Cranston himself defended his decision to take the part, saying that an actor's job is to portray other people. "If I, as a straight, older person, and I'm wealthy, I'm very fortunate, does that mean I can't play a person who is not wealthy, does that mean I can't play a homosexual?" he said.
Filmmaker Dominick Evans, who is also a disability inclusion advocate, told RT that casting non-disabled people in disabled roles causes a "considerable amount of harm" to disabled people.
"Most non-disabled people are afraid of becoming disabled and non-disabled people are primarily writing films about disability, so if you're coming at it from a place of harm and fear to begin with, it's probably not going to be an actual, accurate representation of what disability is and what disabled people's lives are like," Evans said.
Comment: This person is making no sense with his statements. It's easy to see how some people live in a different reality when they talk like him. What matters is the content of the film, not who plays what role. You want a disabled actor to play the role, get one that's a good enough actor to get cast. It's as simple as that.
Media commentator Gina Loudon told RT, however, that it doesn't necessarily matter who plays what role, so long as the right issues get attention. Movies like 'The Upside' "bring awareness to the issue of disability" and "as long as [disabled people] are depicted in a realistic or positive light" then it's a "good thing," Loudon said.
Actors have faced backlash in recent years for playing characters who belong to minority groups to which they don't belong. In 2018, Scarlett Johansson dropped out of a movie in which she was going to play a transgender person after considerable outrage, while Emma Stone faced criticism for playing the role of a character who was supposed to be part-Asian in the 2015 romantic comedy 'Aloha.'
My Left Foot
An alternative to the general run of "triumph over the odds" biopics, My Left Foot is the true story of Irish cerebral palsy victim Christy Brown. Paralyzed from birth, Brown (played by Hugh O'Conor as child and Daniel Day-Lewis as an adult) is written off as retarded and helpless. But Christy's indomitable mother (Brenda Fricker) never gives up on the boy. Using his left foot, the only part of his body not afflicted, Brown learns to write. He grows up to become a well-known author, painter, and fundraiser, and along the way falls in love with nurse Mary Carr (Ruth McCabe). There's no sugarcoating in My Left Foot: Brown, a heavy drinker, was by no means lovable. Day-Lewis and Fricker both won Academy
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