A constant barrage of political correctness

This morning I was watching a Scott Adams (Dilbert guy) livestream. One of the viewers asked him what he thought of Ellen Page, who had come out as trans and now goes by Elliot Page. Basically he said he doesn't care and he supports anyone who wants to live life on their terms. I mostly agree with that, and afterward I looked up Ellen Page out of curiosity. The first article I find is this by Daily Mail:

Daily Mail said:

'If a non-trans person played a trans character there would be uproar': Umbrella Academy fans react to news Elliot Page will continue playing female role in Netflix show after announcing he is a transgender man

On Tuesday, the actor revealed that they now identify as a transgender man called Elliot
Elliot, writing on Instagram, said: 'My pronouns are he and they'
Netflix will allow him to continue on in his role as Vanya Hargreaves, a cisgender lesbian, in The Umbrella Academy
Many fans lauded the decision saying it's 'what he deserves'
But others were confused and called it unfair, when cisgender actors have been lambasted for even considering transgender roles
Halle Berry and Scarlett Johansson both stepped away from trans roles after receiving backlash

I had seen something like this before, two weeks ago.

CNN said:
Sia defends casting a nondisabled actor to portray a person with autism in her upcoming film 'Music'
In one post, the singer expressed her "fury" over the issue, calling on people to watch her film before making a judgment. Sia also wrote that she spent three years researching for the film, which she described as "both a love letter to caregivers and to the autism community."

The controversy sparked the use of hashtags #NothingAboutUsWithoutUs and #ActuallyAutistic on social media and continued the conversation about the portrayal of disability in the media without including representation and the voices of those who actually experience life as a person with disability.

In response to criticism that the film excludes "disabled and neuro diverse actors" from their own narratives, the singer said she cast "thirteen neuroatypical people and three trans folk" as doctors, nurses and singers, not as "prostitutes or drug addicts."

"I hired plenty of special abilities kids. I'm willing to be misunderstood because I think this movie does more good than harm," she said in another reply.

Then I go to Reddit to watch some Livestream clips.

At least some of the comments on the situation maintained humor.

"As a mute person I am unable to speak. Therefore they should remove just chatting from the site completely before I send my offend lawyer at them.

I guess they have to rebrand their site name as I also have tourettes and its offensive that they make fun of my twitches when I type in the url."

Anyways, one of the things that I've been wondering about is the depth of beliefs people have. I can't imagine many blind people being upset about the term "blind playthrough." Yet so many people who tout inclusiveness felt compelled to effect a corporate change. Naturally Amazon wants to look as PC as possible, so there's no issue there. But are these reformists coming from a genuine place, or just getting these opinions from osmosis? Why even want total inclusiveness?

This phenomenon is actually quite old, dating back to when Black Face was allowed. We'd see white people painting their faces black to play their roles without even considering casting real black people to play those parts, and through that could insult them without them having any sort of input. Plots that won't cast the genuine article have higher odds of being unsympathetic towards them.

Essentially, they have the idea that they cannot find someone with these traits who's otherwise good enough for the part, that someone with more star power would bring in more revenue than casting someone for their merits and authenticity.

This becomes an odd split over how it's taken. Either:
A) They hire some nobody who can do the part purely over their authenticity with the trait.
B) They hire someone with star power to bring in box office seats, or simply because in spite of not having that trait they otherwise have the talent to bring something to it.

We've seen for example with movies like "What's Eating Gilbert Grape" the actor Leonardo Decaprio play a surprisingly convincing retarded person, and same with Tom Hanks for Forrest Gump. These two brought amazing energy into their respective characters, and recasting them purely because of how they aren't actually retarded would have strongly changed both films.

Meanwhile, star power reflects a lack of willingness to take risks, creating gate keeping practices that practically force familiar faces into these roles. As we've seen with shows like Breaking Bad (RJ Mitte) and American Horror Story (Jamie Brewer), casting someone with a disability to play a disabled character, while a bit like tokenism of function, does bring a certain air of authenticity towards their behaviors. While someone like Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys could study crazy people in order to learn how to behave like them, that isn't as genuine as the twitches and shit you'd see from a legit crazy person, much like we've seen by contrast out of Mel Gibson in the 1997 film Conspiracy Theory.

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