Lin-Manuel Miranda Apologizes For 'In The Heights' Colorism
Diversity Inc strikes again.
Diversity Inc. is useful shorthand for faux-diversity or forced diversity or the kind of diversity that feels like a corporate board stamped off on it, or like it’s meeting some kind of quota.
Okay, we have this movie about knights in Medieval England but do we have enough:
Female knights?
African American knights? (I almost said Black Knights lol)
Asian American knights? (I’m using American on purpose here)
Non-binary knights?
I’m being a bit tongue-in-cheek here, but it’s not outrageous in the least. For one thing, we had Kingdom Come: Deliverance, a historical RPG based on actual history rather than magic and dragons set in the kingdom of Bohemia in the early 15th century that was roundly criticized for not including more minorities, as though 15th century Bohemia was some multicultural smorgasbord a la Brooklyn.
Speaking of Brooklyn, the new Jon M. Chu / Lin-Manuel Miranda picture In The Heights is in theaters now and I’m hoping to go see it soon. It doesn’t take place in Brooklyn, but close enough, over in the predominantly-Dominican Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan. The movie is getting rave reviews from critics and audiences alike. 96% from critics and 95% from audiences on Rotten Tomotes.
The musical looks like just the thing for a fun summer outing, filled with song and dance and vibrant colors. I can’t wait to see it.
But before I do, I want to talk about Lin-Manuel Miranda’s apology on Twitter—an apology that’s directed at what I can only believe is a tiny niche of miserable activist types that are only happy when they’re bullying others, complaining about perceived slights and imperfections. Most people obviously love In The Heights. Its detractors only love the sound of their own voices, whinging endlessly into the void.
In any case, Miranda apologized for not casting enough Afro-Latinto actors in the film, and accused himself of succumbing to “colorism.”
“I’m seeing the discussion around Afro-Latino representation in our film this weekend and it is clear that many in our dark-skinned Afro-Latino community don’t feel sufficiently represented within it, particularly among the leading roles,” Miranda posted in a photo uploaded to Twitter.
“I can hear the hurt and frustration over colorism, of feeling still unseen in the feedback. I hear that without sufficient dark-skinned Afro-Latino representation, the work feels extractive of the community we wanted so much to represent with pride and joy. In trying to paint a mosaic of this community, we fell short. I’m truly sorry.”
This is a nice sentiment. It’s nice of Lin-Manuel Miranda to apologize for what he perceives as some sort of shortcoming in the work, for his apparent “colorism”. But it’s also kind of batshit crazy.1 Whatever “hurt” he’s hearing isn’t coming from the vast majority of moviegoers out there. It’s coming from a small pocket of online activists.
Meanwhile, there are plenty of films about black culture and black neighborhoods, from Friday to basically the entire Spike Lee filmography, that feature predominantly black actors and I have yet to see anyone in the Latino community call these out for “colorism”.
I just reviewed Judas and the Black Messiah recently, a movie with basically all black people and a handful of white FBI dudes in smaller roles. There were very few Latino characters in that movie. And that’s okay. There were very few Latino people in Straight Outa Compton either, a movie starring Corey Hawkins who also stars in In The Heights.
The problem with Diversity Inc. is that it demands that each creative work should include X amount of each skin color/sexual orientation/gender identity etc. But true diversity isn’t something we find in every story. True diversity is found in the wide array of stories from different cultures and peoples waiting to be told. Kingdom Come Deliverance tells a story of Eastern European people in the 15th century. It doesn’t need black people in it any more than Ghost Of Tsushima does—but an RPG about 15th century Africa would be fascinating!
If you set quotas and try to represent everybody equally in every film or video game, you end up not telling unique stories at all. You replace true diversity—which aims to represent genuine experiences from different cultures (not just skin colors!)—with Diversity Inc. which just checks boxes in order to ensure that everyone is “represented” generically.
In The Heights takes place in Washington Heights, a neighborhood that is 70.7% Latino, 17.7% white and just 7.6% black according to census data. Glancing at the cast of In The Heights we see it’s predominantly Latino with a smattering of black, white and Asian actors as well, including black actors in lead roles. No matter how sincere LMM’s apology sounds, the very act of trying to appease everyone and represent everyone perfectly in every production feels forced and insincere. Quotas rarely feel like genuine attempts at inclusion.
“Stop the apologizing,” Bill Maher said of the controversy. “You’re the guy who made the founding fathers Black and Hispanic! I don’t think you have to apologize to Twitter.”
“I mean he’s a Latino making a Latino movie with a Latino cast. Not good enough. Nothing is ever good enough for these people. They’re like children. We don’t raise our children right and it’s reflected in the media. No one ever tells their children, ‘Shut the fuck up. Sit down. Listen to your elders. Stop bitching.'
“People are going to have to stand up to these bullies, because that’s what it is, bullying. It’s ‘I can make you crawl like a dog and I enjoy it.'”
He’s not wrong. The controversy began during an interview between director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) and the Root’s Felice León. “What are your thoughts on the lack of Black Latinx people represented in your film?” asked León.
“In the end, when we were looking at the cast, we tried to get the people who were best for those roles.”
What ghastly old-fashioned ideas! Chu should also apologize for the lack of Afro-Latino people in Crazy Rich Asians while he’s at it.
Filmmaker Numa Perrier latched onto the interview and helped fan the flames. One can’t help but think that some of these people are less concerned with the actual representation in the movie and more concerned with getting attention. Take the attention a major motion picture is getting, that its celebrity stars and director and producer are getting, and siphon a bit off for yourself with some drummed-up controversy.
“Light-skinned or white-passing people” is a pretty serious accusation given what we know about the evils of whiteness these days. White-adjacent people are basically one shade off from being consumed by whiteness altogether! Remember, all that really matters is skin color, and meticulously dissecting just how dark or light everyone’s skin is . . .
Of course, this is the kind of accusation/confrontational journalism that gets you hits. León has gone on to do interviews including this one with NPR’s Ari Shapiro. Vox mentions her interview in its heavily-editorialized “explainer” of the controversy. She’s gained some notoriety for leveling this critique at Chu and Miranda and the film, largely at their expense, and maybe she’s sincerely bothered by the lack of Afro-Latino people in the picture but maybe also it’s just the way we do journalism these days. Punch up, punch down, just so long as we’re punching. So long as we’re getting hits.
Light-skinned black author Rebecca Carroll is quoted in the Vox piece (oh I’m sorry should I not mention the exact shade of her skin? I thought that’s what we’re supposed to do now whenever we talk about anybody and just how white or black they are). Anyways, Carroll is the author of “Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir” which doesn’t sound as interesting as “Surviving the White Gays” but beggars can’t be choosers. “Everyone talks about the need to have ‘difficult conversations’ about race, systemic racism, racial and cultural representation, and then as soon as it feels slightly difficult, folks who have the option to opt out, opt out,” she told Vox’s Aja Romano (a writer we’ve had the pleasure of discussing at diabolical before, and who I’d trust to neutrally explain this issue as much as I’d trust a serial killer with a cleaver to watch over me while I slept).
If you want to “do better” and learn all about “colorism” by all means dredge your way through the Vox piece. I find it useful in understanding why Matt Yglesias left Vox for greener pastures. It’s also useful in understanding the kind of people who are this deeply unhappy about a vibrant Latino musical being made—a musical that clearly adds to the panoply of diversity in filmmaking, just not in the exact way these people—who will never be happy, never be satisfied, never have enough blood to feed on.
“All of this may make In the Heights a bittersweet film in the end,” Romano writes, “— a reminder that when there’s so little representation to be had, the stakes become high for everyone potentially impacted by that representation.”
So little representation to be had? I mean, why even bother when a film like In The Heights isn’t enough? Face it, Romano: You live for this shit. If Diversity Inc. actually won, you’d be out of a job.
What do you think, dearest readers of mine? Is this yet another contrived nontroversy used to elevate cynical activists masquerading as journalists? Or am I off the mark, and In The Heights really did do wrong by not casting more Afro-Latino actors despite its enormously diverse cast? Let me know.
I’m happy to see LMM use the word “Latino” instead of “Latinx” which is such a ridiculous insult to the Spanish language and to Spanish-speaking people it makes me angry every time I see it. This is what I refer to as woke American socio-colonialism at play, forcing Anglo-centric language politics onto an entire massive portion of the world where this kind of politics is altogether foreign.
I assure you, Erik. As a Black man, many of us are not wailing in agony over not being represented in this movie. Only ones who are wailing belong to a very small but vocal minority.
"whinging endlessly into the void," I feel like you're channeling your inner Sandor Clegane. Great piece.