Castings 2020

A Dim Light for Bright: Minorities Aren’t Monsters Logan Lurry Ever wondered what it would look like to see racism masked in mediocre fantasy?

There is no need to look further than the horrid film directed by David Ayer that is Bright. This movie (if you can call it such) takes place in a fictional world where mystical creatures such as orcs and elves mingle with humans as if it were commonplace. You would think the set-up for a great story would be relatively easy. However, just like Ayer’s previous attempt with Suicide Squad, this film falls flat, mostly due to the sour portrayal of minorities in the film.

There is no easy way to tackle fantasy when your name isn’t one of the following: J.K. Rowling, Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, and Stephen King. There always seems to be the issue of making the characters within the film seem relatable despite their unhuman features.

Filmmakers have found their way around that by giving them human like qualities, voices, and more specifically, smacking your favorite [white] actor behind the prosthetics. In Bright however, that way of humanizing the orcs and elves felt more like a white supremacist fever dream than anything else. Think that sounds a bit harsh, do you? Well please, allow me to enlighten you.

Bright is essentially about an L.A. cop, played by Will Smith (I’ll talk about this casting later) who is forced to buddy up with an Orc cop, played by Joel Edgerton. Edgerton’s Orc character is the first cop of his kind to join the police force. I find that by placing the setting in Los Angeles, and making light of the police hostility, Ayer is attempting to echo that of the L.A. Riots of 1992, but in an oh-so terrible way. The L.A. Riots, as many know, is the explosion of years and years of racial injustice forced upon the black community by the almost completely white police force. Black officers got even more hate during the time and were seen as traitors by the black community for putting up, and even participating at times. It appears David Ayer wants to piggyback off that, but it just falls short with the rest of the movie.

This is just the first inkling that establishes Orcs as not just the African American community, but the Hispanic community of Los Angeles as well. When we first see Will Smith’s character, Daryl Ward, he’s enjoying his life with his wife, whose white (go figure).

Once he exits the house, we get a glimpse at the ONLY other black people of the film. In a very stereotypical fashion, we see them partying on the front yard of the house next door as if it were a hip-hop video from 2007. All drinking beer and partying, which you should know, it’s still the morning in this scene. Oh did I mention, Smith’s cop character is also trying to move out of this neighborhood.

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