And 92% of the UK population is white. Therefore by your logic it's perfectly acceptable to exclude ethnic minority britons based on this fact alone. Nice.
Not really. For one, you're wrong. According to the 2011 census, the number is actually only 87.1%. For two, I was wrong. The population of Japan is 98.5% Japanese. White people are so scarce in Japan, we don't even register in their 0.1% "other" category. And yet, I've still seen white people cast in (Japanese voiced/acted) anime and movies when appropriate. The Death Note movie, for example, cast a white actor to play the fake L that appeared on TV to announce the Interpol investigation of Kira. Beck (the anime, not the singer) cast a large number of white and black voice actors, all ex-pats, to voice white and black characters. Hell, there was a monster of the week in Kamen Rider OOO that was played in human form and voiced by a black actor.
The Japanese population is less than a tenth of a percent white, but yet they're better at casting white actors in appropriate roles than Hollywood is at casting Asian actors in appropriate roles.
What's nationality got to do with it? The buzzword being thrown about in the OP isn't "americanwashing" after all. People are objecting to a casting decision purely because of the race of the actor. That's where the parallel to Elba potentially being the next James Bond came from. It's exactly the same racist bilge that was thrown around when that idea was mooted.
My point.
Your head. Probably intentionally on your part, no less.
James Bond is not a role where his race matters. Any ethnicity could play James Bond. I pointed out that Idris Elba was actually British because it shows that he's more accurate to the books than Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan, let alone George Lazenby, who is Australian or Barry Nelson, who was not only the first actor to play Bond, but also an American. My point, as you're so happy to ignore, is that if a Scottsman, an Irishman, an Australian and an American can play James Bond, why can't Idris Elba?
I think he'd be great, personally.
Well, we can definitely agree on that. Idris Elba is pretty awesome.
Quite. But I wouldn't say there's ever a case for considering ethnicity in casting decisions.
I strongly disagree. I've already made my case with Ghost in the Shell, so I don't feel the need to repeat myself, but this is the kind of excuse a university used to excuse
casting a white man to play Martin Luther King Jr.There's no reason to consider race for James Bond or, since we're talking Idris Elba, Heimdal, but a white man playing Martin Luther King Jr.? If culture or race are an important part of a story or character, then colorblind casting doesn't work. It would be like casting a guy from Wales to play Othello, despite the character being a Moor and a Muslim being a very important part of the play.
I wouldn't particularly mind a black actor being cast as James Bond, but I think it would be better to have an original IP.
So, in other words, you want a separate, but equal version of James Bond for black people.