You can get yourself in trouble by telling the truth in Hollywood. Just ask Michelle Rodriguez of “Fast and Furious” and “Machete” fame. Early Saturday morning she was asked by TMZ if she was going to play the Green Lantern, and her response prompted enough backlash by oversensitive online babies that she apologized on Facebook hours later.
TMZ: Michelle, are you going to be the Green Lantern?
Michelle Rodriguez: **Laughing ** That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
TMZ: Really?
Michelle Rodriguez: Yeah. I think it’s so stupid for like everybody because of this whole minorities in Hollywood thing…
TMZ: Well, it’s been all over the internet.
Michelle Rodriguez: But it’s so stupid, it’s like, ‘Stop stealing all the white people’s superheroes. Make up your own. You know what I’m saying? What’s up with that?”
Comic book fans are still laughing at how Marvel writer Dan Slott slimed them as racist for having a similar opinion over arbitrarily changing Peter Parker’s race. How long will it be before Mr. Slott starts lecturing Ms. Rodriguez on the importance of turning Guy Gardner into “Lady Gardner,” or John Stewart into “Jane Stewart,” or Kyle Rayner into “Kylie Rayner”?
The kind of people who couldn’t sleep at night until a Ghostbusters reboot with an all-female cast was announced obviously started hounding Ms. Rodriguez’s social media accounts because hours later she was posting a sleepy-eyed apology to her Facebook page:
Hey guys, I want to clarify about my comment yesterday. I stuck my foot in my mouth once again. I said that people should stop trying to steal white people’s superheroes. I guess it got taken out of context because a lot of people got offended or whatever. I have a tendency to, you know, speak without a filter — sorry about that. What I really meant was that ultimately at the end of the day there’s a language and the language that you speak in Hollywood is ‘successful franchise.’
I think that there are many cultures in Hollywood that are not white that can come up with their own mythologies. We all get it from the same reservoir of life, the fountain of life. It doesn’t matter what culture you come from. I’m just saying that instead of trying to turn a girl character into a guy — or instead of trying to turn a white character into a black character or latin character I think that people should stop being lazy. People should actually make an effort in Hollywood to develop their own mythology. It’s time to stop. Stop trying to take what’s already there and try to fit a culture into it. I think that it’s time for us to write our own mythology and our own story. Every culture. That’s what I really meant, and I’m sorry if it came off rude or stupid. That’s not what I meant. So, cheers.
When Ms. Rodriguez apologizes for speaking without a filter, what she really means is “I’m sorry for telling the truth.” She laughs at the thought of playing Green Lantern because she knows that she has the creative and intellectual chops to play a new hero — one who will etch out her own special place in American culture — instead of some Green Lantern derivative that is created to appease online diversity activists.
What is more respectable: Michelle Rodriguez playing “Letty Ortiz” in the “Fast and Furious” franchise, or Michelle Rodriguez playing a female Green Lantern knockoff because Warner Bros. dropped the ball with its 2011 attempt? While it is sad that someone like Michelle Rodriguez must apologize to online babies for speaking the truth, it is refreshing to see an artist in Hollywood whose unfiltered self values originality over uninspired diversity.
Douglas Ernst Blog 