Why would I need to look for loopholes?

Working *with* someone for a charity isn’t the same thing as working *for* someone and legitimizing his authority to govern and normalizing his behavior. I might work *with* some creeps for all I know. That doesn’t mean that I am an extension of them the way working *for* a leader’s administration does.

I don’t think anyone said Ivanka could never tweet it. Just that she unlikely grasped the connection to her own dad whom she works for and continues to shill for.

And there we go. The other spectre of white innocence. “If it’s something I did it’s not racism because I’m a good white person and good white people don’t do racism!”

If you can’t make an educated guess about this you have been paying way less attention to society and Hollywood, and Disney in particular, than I thought. And if you truly think that they cast him for the reasons you say, then I have a bridge to sell you.

And you’ve made that point and kept making that point, and when I said, meh, that doesn’t really make it better for me, your response wasn’t “Yeah, that makes sense, it’s messed up that they didn’t include another minority actor,” which is what you would have said if you truly believed, as you say you do, that the…

Why? Exactly what good comes from looking “at the positive side” of racism? Please explain. Donald Trump tried that with the protesters and it didn’t go well for him. You seem to think you’ve found the way to do it. I am here to tell you that you haven’t.

Which is all well and good if that “narrative benefit” is why they chose to make the character white.

You’re certainly allowed to see that. I’m not sure what value there is in labeling this “the least offensive” of an offensive practice, but you are free to spend your time as you wish.

Will Smith doesn’t have “al” in his name, so I don’t know what you’re talking about. And furthermore I feel like Al Pacino is way more beloved than Billy Magnussen and Billy Bush and probably even Billy Bob Thornton.

There’s definitely no one in the world attempting to stop you from giving it a pass, and I assure you you aren’t the first or the last person to give Hollywood a pass for stuff like this, so, you know, go for it.

That’s certainly something they are free to do, and I assure you I wouldn’t be surprised. It would probably be better, though, if they made efforts to increase diversity across all their properties. Though I guess spiting ElectricSheep on the AVClub by going back to no diversity is a noble response, too.

You say that as if telling them to go sit in a tanning salon would be somehow more acceptable.

Great point. Billy Magnussen is definitely a household name, and they definitely couldn’t have sold this movie on it 1) being Aladdin, and 2) starring Will Smith, one of the biggest actors in Hollywood.

What is that? The King and I?

Okay? Was the guy she spurned in this French tale Dutch?

There’s always one (million).

Well now I don’t say they are “denying” a Persian actor a job. No one is entitled to a job. Just that if they wanted to they could have given a Persian actor this job and they chose not to and I am making a note of that choice.

Are we counting Emilio Estevez?

Not really. What it’s trying to say is that oh boy we have this hugely diverse cast, when the truth is that this is pretty much the first live action Disney movie with any measurable degree of diversity at all, so it’s making grandiose claims without the substance to back it up, and without acknowledging its woeful…