A politically correct critique by a colleague of James Franco’s casting as Fidel Castro, announced last week, made it clear how misconceptions and misinformation drive vigilant impulses on social media.
John Leguizamo criticized the fact that James Franco played the former dictator in the film “Alina of Cuba”, lamenting the discrimination suffered by Latin actors, who have difficulty in finding work and are replaced by Americans in Hollywood productions.
“I have no problems with Franco, but he is not Latin”, wrote Leguizamo on Friday (8/5) on his social networks.
The protest reinforces the fact that Leguizamo sees no problem in Franco’s return to acting, after being denounced for abuse and prosecuted in 2019, on charges of sexual exploitation of young women attending his acting classes. The process was resolved last year and he is slowly starting to resume his career.
But James Franco has Latin blood and a genealogy closer to that of Fidel Castro than John Leguizamo himself, born in Colombia.
Franco’s great-grandfather arrived in the United States from the island of Madeira, a Portuguese colony off the coast of Africa, and spoke Portuguese.
There is only more. Fidel Castro’s father was born in Spain and his mother was born in the Canary Islands, which is the closest country – and a boat ride away – from Madeira.
If it depended on a genetic relationship to play the former dictator of Cuba, Franco would be hired immediately. After all, their families were originally from the same region, at a distance of only 498 km.
Despite this, Leguizamo even called for a boycott of the film, because Franco was not Latin enough.
“How is this still happening? How does Hollywood continue to not only exclude us, but also steal our narratives? Enough of Hollywood and the appropriation of streamers! Boycott! It’s over! Plus, this is a really hard story to tell without magnification., what would be wrong! I have no problems with Franco, but he is not Latin! “, wrote the actor on his Instagram.
“Alina of Cuba” producer John Martinez O’Felan countered the attack without mentioning Franco’s past, complaining about what he called a “blind attack”.
“A guy like John Leguizamo has historically been regarded by Hispanics as one of America’s best Latin-born actors since the 1990s and I have always admired him. But his comments are culturally ignorant and a blind attack with no substance in relationship. to this project. “O’Felan told The Hollywood Reporter.
Fidel Castro’s own daughter, Alina Fernández, stepped in to defend Franco.
In addition to boasting that “the project is almost entirely Latin, both in front of and behind the camera,” he told Deadline: “James Franco has an obvious physical resemblance to Fidel Castro, in addition to his skills and charisma.”
“I think the whole cast is fantastic,” he added, citing actress Mia Maestro (“The Strain”) as her mother, Natalia “Naty” Revuelta and Ana Villafañe (“New Amsterdam”) as the protagonist, who it is herself
“Alina of Cuba” is directed by Spaniard Miguel Bardem (“Incautos”) and a screenplay written by Puerto Rican José Rivera (“Dários de Motocicleta”) and Cuban Nilo Cruz, the first Latin Latin winner of the Pulitzer Prize – for comedy ” Anna in the Tropic “(2002).
The plot is based on Alina’s memoir and tells the extraordinary story of Fidel Castro’s daughter and a Cuban socialite, born in secret in Cuba three years before her father took power in the country. She didn’t find out who her daughter was until she was 10 and fled the country as a dissident in 1993, disguised as a Spanish tourist.
Faced with the backlash of his protest, Leguizamo spoke again. He recorded videos on Stories insisting that he “has no problems with James Franco”, especially after discovering the actor’s family’s Portuguese colonial past, and tried to justify his outburst of him.
“I grew up in a time when Latins couldn’t play Latins in movies. Where Charlton Heston played Mexican, Eli Wallach played Mexican, Al Pacino played Cuban and Puerto Rican, even Ben Affleck played Latin in ‘Argo ‘and Marisa Tomei played the Latina women, “he said.
The detail is that he has not commented on the latest Hollywood practice of choosing the Spanish (i.e. European) couple Javier Barden and Penélope Cruz as Latin Americans. In fact, Barden has just played an illustrious Cuban: the musician and comedian Desi Arnaz in “Introducing the Ricardos”. This is not a reminder of the era of Charlton Heston and Eli Wallach. Barden was nominated for an Oscar 2022 for his portrayal of him.
Source: Terra
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