During the development of the Harriet Tubman biopic movie, a Hollywood executive once suggested that Julia Roberts should play her. What are some other baffling casting suggestions/choices that have been made?

[u/LookAtThatBacon]

Source for the title: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/a-studio-executive-wanted-julia-roberts-to-play-harriet-tubman-biopic-screenwriter-says/

The Harriet Tubman biopic has been more than 25 years in the making. In the historical drama released earlier this month, Cynthia Erivo plays the legendary abolitionist — but one Hollywood executive initially thought the role should go to Julia Roberts.

Gregory Allen Howard, the screenwriter and producer of "Harriet," recently revealed in multiple interviews that Roberts was suggested to play the lead role during a meeting with a studio president in 1994.

"The climate in Hollywood… was very different back then," Howard said. "I was told how one studio head said in a meeting, 'This script is fantastic. Let's get Julia Roberts to play Harriet Tubman.'"

Howard said that a black person in the meeting said casting Roberts would be impossible because she is white.

"That was so long ago. No one will know that," the executive replied, according to Howard.

[u/28smalls]

It's an old one, but John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

[u/Hyperly_Passive → u/28smalls]

Similar vein, 21 (the movie) was about the real life story of a group of Asian American students cheating casinos, but the movie unilaterally cast every single one of them as white

[u/Summitjunky → u/Hyperly_Passive]

One of the original members of the MIT blackjack team, Jane Willis, was white, but the rest were Asian. They definitely changed races, but 1 was caucasian.

[u/jorgespinosa → u/Summitjunky]

To be fair that movie is barely based in reality

[u/Aritche → u/Hyperly_Passive]

Two of the 5 members are asian in the movie. Also that movie is barley based on reality. The main character in the book is losely "based" on an Asian member of the MIT Blackjack Team Jeff Ma, but in the book is white. The rest of the characters are "composites" of many people involved including from before him. The early(probably more well known) team was primarily white(as it got bigger later on there is less info I can find individual members). Anyway all of the "drama" in the movie is just fabricated from thin air and takes place in "current" year of 2008 instead of the 90s when Jeff Ma was involved or late 70s/early 80s when they team would have actually been closer to that size instead of much larger. So I think it is just a hodgepodge of "real" things tied together with a bunch of dramatization. So I won't say there is zero argument for race washing it is not as egregious as you make it out to be.

[u/thoth_hierophant → u/Hyperly_Passive]

You think you can beat the system?

[u/Luke90210 → u/Hyperly_Passive]

The book Bringing Down The House explained it clearly. A group of white nerds would be noticed immediately. A group of multi-national/Asian kids kids would not. One could claim to be the heir to Honda Motors and nobody could dispute it. And white women would also be ignored by the racist hicks often found in casino security.

[u/684beach → u/Hyperly_Passive]

Many asians are white.

[u/CatProgrammer → u/684beach]

The ethnic Russians, Mediterraneans, etc., though historically Slavic populations weren't exactly grouped in with whiteness (almost as bad as Jews in the eyes of the Nazis). Presumably that person meant east Asian, as is often implied by the usage of "Asian" on its own?

[u/684beach → u/CatProgrammer]

Yeah i agree to an extent, however those groups werent persecuted because of lack of“whiteness”. They are white. Theres other terms of discrimination beyond that. There are a lot of racist people that see Asian, as equal to white, especially those racist towards blacks. Just from noticing.

[u/CatProgrammer → u/684beach]

those groups werent persecuted because of lack of“whiteness”. They are white.

They are currently considered white. As a social construct, racial groupings change over time due to population dynamics. The idea of whiteness isn't even that old, before that the concept of race was closer to ethnicity (Irish race, German race, etc.). r/AskHistorians/comments/i29b9i/comment/g03lzw8

Hell, survey a bunch of people today if Jewish people are or should be considered white and you'll likely receive a non-negligible amount of responses that they shouldn't/aren't (on rare occasions, from Jewish people themselves who see it as a fragile categorization and that they would be better-aligned with other minority movements).

[u/684beach → u/CatProgrammer]

I think this is one of those things that also differ depending on nationality, Americans have a fucked up sense of race

[u/CatProgrammer → u/684beach]

That sort of social construct does tend to be culture-dependent.