Cranston told the L.A. Times that he dropped plans to direct his own production of The Foreigner, a 1984 play that sends up the KKK.
“It is a privileged viewpoint to be able to look at the Ku Klux Klan and laugh at them and belittle them for their broken and hateful ideology,” says Cranston. “But the Ku Klux Klan and Charlottesville and white supremacists — that’s still happening and it’s not funny. It’s not funny to any group that is marginalized by these groups’ hatred, and it really taught me something.”
Cranston says he had been laughing at the play for decades and he had to confront the fact that his white privilege allowed him to laugh.
“And I realized, ‘Oh my God, if there’s one, there’s two, and if there’s two, there are 20 blind spots that I have … what else am I blind to?” Cranston says.
Of fuck off Bryan. And to think, I was just about to watch Breaking Bad from the beginning again!
I’m kidding of course. I’ll watch it anyway.
I might just have to rethink all the films I ever laughed at. I just about coughed up a lung laughing at Mini-me when I saw Austin Powers. Was that because of my height privilege?
Cranston cannot be that stupid can he? Has he never heard of satire? Irony?
People have been disempowering racists and racism through comedy since Moses was in short trousers.
Naturally, the L.A. Times reporter didn’t think to ask Cranston what a director of colour could bring to The Foreigner that he himself couldn’t. I for one, would have loved to read his answer.
