Stonewall comes out tomorrow and people are pissed.
My Facebook feed has been full of complaints about the Stonewall movie ever since the trailer came out.
The most common objection to the film (or at least the trailer) is that it focuses on the fictional story of an attractive, square-jawed blonde guy.
This is supposedly problematic because the real heroes of Stonewall were a diverse collection of drag queens, lesbians, transgender individuals, and ethnic/racial minorities.
But here we have these diverse historical figures relegated to bit roles while we focus on a classically handsome white male.
My response? Of course it stars a white guy.
Hollywood is dominated by white males. That’s how we get ridiculous moments like Matt Damon explaining diversity to Effie Brown on Project Greenlight. (Effie is also the only person in the room who isn’t a white male.)
More importantly, hunky white guys sell movie tickets.
That’s at least what Hollywood thinks:
Diversity in Hollywood 2013
Diversity in Hollywood 2013
In the U.S., ethnic minorities make up only 17% of lead roles in theatrical films, and 75% of lead actors are male.
Sure, you may have a unicorn film like Precious, but most minority-led films are perceived as too risky to receive any major studio backing for release.
Take Dear White People for example – my over-educated minority friend circle went nuts for that film. People talked about that movie for months and saw it multiple times.
But guess what? It got released to 393 screens and only made $4.4 million. Dear White People was perceived by the studios as too niche to be successful outside of an elite urban/college demographic.
Perhaps it was empty speculation, perhaps they were right. We’ll never know.
Stonewall is about a hot white guy who finds himself.
Stonewall doesn’t look like it is meant to be a serious, historically accurate documentary. This looks like a campy coming-of-age story that just happens to be set during the Stonewall Riots.
This is akin to how Taylor Swift isn’t addressing anything in Wildest Dreams beyond being a pretty white girl on vacation.
What about colonialism or the ongoing exploitation of the continent? She (and more importantly her fans) do not care.
It’s all about the zebras, man.
And selling movie tickets.
Similarly, Stonewall is the story of a pretty white boy finding himself.
The larger historical significance of the riots is just a way to make a dull coming-of-age story more colorful… without actually adding any real color.
We do need more diversity on screen, but the outrage seems misguided here.
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