Oh, how I love Denzel in Much Ado! Just brilliant in the role--he's hilarious in the trapping-Benedict scene with Robert Sean Leonard, and then unexpectedly yearning when he asks Beatrice if she'd have him as a lover/husband.

Accepting the equation of casting him for bestial qualities (beyond his ability to play bestial--the implication is clearly something inherent here) is further than I'm comfortable going.

I did not read that in the comment.

The character in the play is a commentary on colonialism and slavery, and I think there's an argument to be made for putting that commentary up front and in the viewer's face.

ut I have a major disconnect getting to anything past "other." Accepting the equation of casting him for bestial qualities (beyond his ability to play bestial--the implication is clearly something inherent here) is further than I'm comfortable going.

To be more clear, I think Taymor is using the fact that he's the only black person in the cast to contrast him, and designate him as other in relation to the rest of the white cast. In short, she's exploiting his blackness.

Knowing her visual sense, I wouldn't doubt that some of that choice is an aesthetic one, a question of palette. Though casting a black man in that role (intentionally? thoughtlessly?) exploits cultural history that has more to do with Being Black than Being Caliban.

and I think there's an argument to be made for putting that commentary up front and in the viewer's face.

That was the turnaround I had on the issue.

The problematic effect has to do with what I read as you calling Djimon bestial, to be precise.

I'm sorry, ita, I wasn't properly understanding your objection, though I hope I addressed it in a roundabout way.

"Beastial" was an adjective modifying "Caliban." I'm not sure how it could be construed to refer back to Djimon, but that's not what I intended.

As an explicit endorsement of that part of the logic of the casting, Hec.

I'm curious how you felt about the casting of Maori as Uruk Hai in LotR?

Not just the Maori Uruk Hai casting--pretty much every non-white cast member in the trilogy was cast as evil. It was not good.

Not just the Maori Uruk Hai casting--pretty much every non-white cast member in the trilogy was cast as evil. It was not good.

I'd concur, though I'd say that the racism is right there in Tolkien.

I don't know - I'm not insensitive to the issue at all. I'm still boggled that people can't see the blatant anti-semitic caricatures in the Ferengi and the Goblins in the Potterverse.

From her comments, I don't know that Taymor has thought through all the implications of her casting. I'm curious to see how she will deal with those issues in the movie. Whether she will use the casting of Djimon to dig into the issues of slavery and colonialism or whether it was a shallow dip into her own biases.

I'd say that the racism is right there in Tolkien

That *so* doesn't have to be brought forward in the movie. Jackson was willing to mess with enough shit. He could have had Maori hobbits or dwarves or white Uruk Hai quite simply. That's on him, and not on JRR.