A lot of people have forgotten about this, but a years ago, Tim Burton said that he doesn't cast black people because race has nothing to do with the context of any of his movies.
I think this happened after Beetlejuice 1988. Black people were casted as football players in the afterlife. That makes sense. Most football players are black. We figured out decades later why that's problematic with the Kaepernick situation. Entertainment is all black people are allowed to have so when an entertainer has a political opinion it's easy to tell them to shut up. "Dance, monkey! Dance!" narrative.
But with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice having that soul train scene after he said it, the context tells me that black people are allowed to exist in Tim Burton's aesthetic if they are not stereotypical singing dancing caricatures.
A lot of (white) people will argue that Tim Burton isn't racist because he casted a Latina to play Astrid. The problem with that is a lot of Mexicans in the United States come here and are subjugate the next darker people black people to try to gain white favor. They passed that down to the next generations, as well.
I don't know what is in that Latina's heart. I haven't seen any racist statements from her. What I'm saying is that since we know that black and brown solidarity is not the popular narrative, especially after what we saw with this election of Cubans and Latinos for Trump, Tim Burton is still pushing a racist narrative.
Without the context of Tim Burton statement, the soul train reference is actually really cute and enjoyable. But with the context of that statement with the soul train narrative, "fuck you, you fucking racist" is what comes to mind.
And to talk about that movie that no one remembers that people barely watched where he casted Samuel L Jackson as the bad guy - based on Samuel L Jackson's statements about working with Tim Burton on the movie it was very clear that he casted the most popular black man he could think of to try to deflect the statement. Samuel L Jackson said that it was very clear that Tim Burton has never worked with a black actor before.
Hiring Samuel L Jackson to be the villain in a movie is not racist. Hiring Samuel L Jackson, cuz he's the most popular black actor at the time, to be the villain in a movie -and you've never hired black people before, and you haven't hired black people since - as main roles when you have made no acknowledgment and apology for your past racist statement is what's racist.
Black Tim Burton fans definitely exist without his consent. I'm not a Tim Burton fan. I'm a Beetlejuice fan. I can do the franchise with or without him, and that looks like what might happen if he doesn't go forward with a Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. The studio that rejected him for 30 plus years on a second installment are now pushing him for a third installment. Go figure. They'll definitely do it without him if he doesn't make a move within the time that they want him to.
And in a hundred years, people will redo Tim Burton's movies, and they will cast them all with black people as the main roles to spite him!
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