Academia, Bizarre, Society

New York High School Cancels Musical After Selection of White Girl For Lead Role

download440px-Victor_Hugo-HunchbackThe Ithaca City School District announced this week that the production of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” at Ithaca High School is cancelled. The reason is not funding or lack of interest or lack of talent. It is due to the fact that the student who won the right to perform the role of Esmeralda happens to be white. Her selection based on talent was denounced as racially insensitive and even cultural appropriation.  A Cornell professor applauded the students to force the closure of the musical.

 Students protested and sent a letter with a list of demands. The letter says in part:

The young woman who was cast in this role has hazel eyes, blonde hair, and is the epitome of whiteness. This is an unfair position to put her in. At best, this is cultural appropriation. At worst, it is whitewashing, a racist casting practice which has its roots in minstrelsy. It also reinforces the damaging narrative that only white power structures can save oppressed people, rather than people of color having the fortitude to do so themselves. It is in line with countless movies which portray white people coming into brown and black communities and saving them. We know from our history that it is people of color who have been at the forefront of social justice movements. This white centered narrative is inaccurate, damaging, and should never be reinforced on the stage of our beloved high school.

The controversy is reminiscent of the producers of Hamilton excluding white actors from applying for any roles in the production.

Obviously, students of color often play roles of characters who were white in original novels or plays.  This was an opportunity for the school district to show principle and courage and support the production.  The district could have simply said that this student succeeded on the basis for her talent and not the color of her skin.

Instead, the high school and District yielded to the protesters and canceled the production, issuing a statement that the cancellation was needed to be “more inclusive and culturally responsive” in their “efforts to eliminate institutional biases.”  Superintendent Dr. Luvelle Brown then thanked “everyone for their contributions as we delve further into complex conversations.” The conversation was actually not particularly complex. Nor was the response of the District.  It certainly was not complex for the student who has been told that an entire production was cancelled because she had the audacity to prevail on talent in a color-blind competition.

87 thoughts on “New York High School Cancels Musical After Selection of White Girl For Lead Role”

  1. Where I went to high school (1980’s) our colors were purple and gold. The wrestling team had these horrible sweat suits that they would wear that used the schools colors. My neighbor, who is a couple of years older than me got together with four of his friends and got a hold of five suits, afro wigs and painted their faces and went to school as the Jackson Five for Halloween. It was not labeled as racist and they made the yearbook. Teachers applauded it because it was just fun. I could just imagine the national controversy my neighbor would have caused today.

  2. The director should have declared Esmeralda as an Irish Traveller and avoided this whole mess.

  4. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

    Apparently, Dr. King must’ve woken up the next day and said, “On second thought, never mind. I must’a been drunk when I said that.”

    1. These leftists have a lot more in common with Bull Connor than Rev. King. What’s next? White kids get at the end of the cafeteria line?

  5. Reblogged this on The Inquiring Mind and commented:
    Despicable and shows just how far society has fallen. Talent is now a curse and colour is essential. This used to be called racism and prejudice. What on earth has happened?

  7. It’s a good thing they weren’t casting Snow White and the seven dwarfs. WoW could you imagine the uproar on that.
    The real question here is when is enough, enough?

    1. Cher, an Armenian-American, got to be both a gypsie and a Cherokee back before we ever heard of “cultural appropriation.” Those were the days…..

    2. Squeeky, you’re too young to remember the Sonny and Cher show, but Cher used to wear the most beautiful gowns onstage. Lovely designs, not the tacky Las Vegas-inspired feathery concoctions she adopted in the later stages of her career. She was a knockout before all the plastic surgery she had done.

        1. PCS, yes, I believe you are right. Absolutely gorgeous rags.
          I’m dating myself, but I recall at one point Cher was voted as having the most beautiful belly in show biz, while Carol Burnett was voted as having the prettiest back.

          1. CCS – Mackie did Burnett’s wardrobe, too. 🙂 Who can forget her curtain outfit from Gone with the Wind? 🙂

            1. Pure genius. Also love her turn as Norma Desmond. Humor in her vein with Tim and Harvey is sorely missing from primetime TV.

  9. I think Gypsies are considered “swarthy” or “Mediterranean.” I doubt that she was black, because Victor Hugo makes no mention of her having nappy hair, or having to wear hair weaves. And after centuries spent kicking around Europe, playing their mustache guitars, dancing, stealing babies, and engaging in petty crimes and prostitution, most Gypsies were probably not any darker than your average Italian.

    But, Blacks like to think that blacks were the original Egyptians, from whence the word gypsy, and take credit for building the pyramids, etc. Falsely. Therefore, Ithaca is simply pandering to them.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. The Romani I observed in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia were a bit browner than the majority population but not by much. They come from India and so are mostly Indo-European by origin. I’ve met plenty of Inja Indians who are darker.

    2. Blacks want to be Arabs and appropriate Arabic names, culture and history because sub-Saharan Africa is a sh*tshow. They’re too stupid to recognize that the achievements of the ancient Egyptians, Persians and Greeks had nothing to do with black Africa, except perhaps using them as slave labor.

        1. Hmmmmmm, I don’t know. Intelligent people come up with plausible lies. Stupid people come up with ridiculous, easily disproved lies.

    3. I’m wondering who was cast to play the Hunchback. Did he have a hunchback? If not, isn’t that some form of discrimination or “cultural appropriation” under the current “rules”? — getting someone who doesn’t have a physical disability to play someone who does? Gotta be pretty tough for an actor with a hunchback to land a roll as anything other than the Hunchback of Notre Dame

  10. High school students making a racial power-play is not surprising. It is the adults who bear responsibility for their gutless capitulation.

    1. I tend to agree, but do you really think these “kids” thought of this on their own or are they just mirroring their parents wishes?

      1. Jim22 – you could have a teacher behind it, but more likely it is a “woke” older student with lots of testosterone and followers. Someone else thought the part was theirs by birthright and did not get it. Girls don’t scare the administration as much as males do, so my guess is a male was leading the pack.

        The reason they decided to do a different activity is that the director dug his or her heels in and said if you are going over my head I am not casting someone else. Full stop. So, they will get the band to put something on in the spring.

  11. A guy stood up in the front row of the audience and said loudly: Where da White women at?

  12. Wait a minute. The Hunchback of Notre Dame is set in Paris, France in the late middle-ages. Esmeralda is French. However, she is also a Gypsy. So she may or may not have a dusky complexion. Regardless. How is this cultural appropriation?

    1. Gypsies aren’t dark skinned. Their actual ethnic name is Roma and they are thought to be originally from Romania. Eastern European peoples (e.g. Melania Trump) usually have brunette hair, white skin and brown or hazel eyes. Definitely not dark or dusky.

    2. Mike Groesbeck – even for an adaptation (it was a book first) it would have to be in French and the Hunchback has to be a real Hunchback. Esmarelda is the least of their problems, besides she could have been stolen by Gypsies. 😉

    3. She lived with the Gypsies because she had been kidnapped by them as a baby. The book is excellent. The Disney movie belongs in the dustbin for Disneyfying a tragic novel.

  13. You gotta wonder at what point sh*t like this can be considered a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
    The whipped school administrators probably found themselves in a ideological SWJ trap, where there were no winning moves.
    If they let it go on with the selected actor, they would have had a clusterfk of criticism and tweetstorms.
    If they caved and recast the lead role, then they would have had cries of capitulation and mollycoddling.
    By not letting it happen, they only have to defend a non-event.

    1. Good illustration Gary. Since this argument is poor to begin with, we can crack open a beer and watch it unravel with all the rest of this nit-whittery going on right now. Just hope this nonsense doesn’t drag us all down the drain with it.

  15. It’s called “acting” for a reason. Plus, there are darker makeups, wigs, etc. which would have made her look the part. The original book was written in French, so doing an adaptation in English is “cultural appropriation,” These kids are idiots and need a wack up the side of the head.

    When I was directing, I used to cross-cast all the time. It was good for both the actor and the audience. And you always cast your best people.

    1. “And you always cast your best people.”

      But, but, but, meritocracy now constitutes “…institutional biases” per the Ithaca School Board or whatever milquetoast agency responded to the snowflake whinging. This is the result of chronic overuse of participation trophies. The SJWs no longer care about the endeavor being a reflection of the best talent at hand, this is about people expecting rewards because they mistakenly believe the parts are “written for them.”

  16. Color blind casting is now racist if a white person gets a role.

    Okay, I guess that’s a sound argument. Great to know there won’t be any shortages of snowflakes coming through our educational system.

  18. Pocahauntus stepped over the line with her cultural misappropriation once again when someone pointe dout she’s too light skinned to be using four letter words. So that is the Cherokee Tribe and BLM. One more and it will be a class action suit.

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