Nolte: Andrew Garfield Says Straight Actors Should Be Allowed to Portray Gay Characters

Actor Andrew Garfield says straight actors (like himself) should be allowed to portray gay characters.

“I think it’s two different conversations getting conflated,” Garfield said in an interview with the Telegraph:

One is about equality of opportunity, and I’m completely in on that. Because we should want a world in which no matter your sexual orientation, your color or your heritage, everyone gets a fair whack. But the other is about empathic imagination, and if we only allow people to be cast as exactly who they are, it’ll be the death of it. So, the two separate conversations have to happen simultaneously. Because I’m not willing to support the death of empathic imagination. It’s what we need most as a culture, and it’s beautiful. It’s the only thing that’s going to save us right now.

You can see why, in 2022 America, a straight actor would want access to portraying homosexuals. What else is there to play anymore? Everyone’s gay. Every time I make the mistake of tuning into a contemporary TV show or movie, someone’s being gay.

Just last night, because he was a complicated genius and a fascinating man, I made the mistake of tuning into Netflix’s new documentary about Andy Warhol. Obviously, I knew all about Warhol’s homosexuality in advance, but this dreadful documentary, the latest piece of shit from producer Ryan Murphy, was only interested in his sexuality. Tedious doesn’t begin to describe it. I shut it off after 2.5 hours, and there were 3.5 hours left to go!

What I wonder, though, is why is this considered the one exception? Why is the only identity exception homosexuality? Why can straight guys play gay guys, but Aaron Sorkin caught heat for casting Javier Bardem as Ricky Ricardo? Apparently, Bardem was the wrong kind of Hispanic or something.

The whole thing is stupid.

Actors are supposed to play characters and roles different from themselves. To typecast them as who they already are is absurd. So what if a Jew plays an Italian or an Italian plays an Indian or an Indian plays an Irishman? As long as the portrayal is respectful, who cares?

Should Mickey Rooney be running around with cartoonish buck teeth and thick glasses mocking Asians in Breakfast at Tiffany’s? That’s a bit much. If you want to have fun with Asian stereotypes, hire a genius like Burt Kwouk. But the idea that there was something wrong with hiring a Paul Muni and a Luise Rainer to portray Chinese peasants in The Good Earth (1937), a respectful portrayal that never once veers into condescension or stereotype, is absurd.

This whole country is filled with fascist, virtue-signaling babies.

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