If they wanted to really show diversity they would have picked a mixed race or middle eastern guy as the lead. It's frankly insulting that Hollywood still thinks throwing in an african american lead suddenly makes the movie "diverse". There is more to this world than white and black people.
You're right. It's not insulting though. But you've brought up a point which I've brought up before as well. Think about every it's time for a black James Bond thread. The thought never even enters into people's minds that if there is no longer a white british James Bond, he'd automatically be black. There is nearly double the amount of Indian/Pakistani people in the UK than there is black or even Asian. They've been there for longer than a century because of British rule in India. Yet they pale in number to black British in forms of media/culture. Not that this is a bad thing, but I think it's related to the dominance of American culture in the globe. Historically, the US has had a dominant majority white population, a sizeable minority black population, and smaller numbers of Hispanic, Native and Asian Americans. Now, Hispanics. primarily Mexican/Mexican Americans make up almost 18% of the US population and yet are underrepresented in almost all facets of American culture, whether it's sports, media, music, film, literature, television. Asian-Americans are also the fastest growing to where they are now about 6% of the total population.
I'm actually against forced diversity because people might complain. While it's nice to have a diverse cast, I usually would want to go for whoever would fit the role. I also tend to stick to historical versions of characters in my mind.
But back to my point. Whenever it comes to diversity, people bring up casts are all white and then usually the only minority becomes an African-American person. That's how diversity is supposedly achieved. In almost every diversity thread, that is how it's judged. I'm not complaining about there being more black people in films, television, anything. If anything, we'd need more black people plus others. What I've felt is that people still tend to think of diversity in forms of culture only in black or white. Cast is too white? Cast someone who is black, whether it's in games, movies, books, even sports. And before someone jumps off at me, I'm not talking about taking away black roles.
I'm excited as hell for this Star Wars film. I don't even know why reactions to it are verging on racial. John Boyega was solid in Attack the Block, he's going to be great here.
