"A small, flat-nosed Jew" is how Nick describes Mr.Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby book. Does the man in the picture to the right look like he fits that description? Yeah, I don't think so. The man to the right is Amitabh Bachchan the Indian actor who play Wolfsheim in the newest Gatsby movie. I think what we have here is movie tokenism.Nearly all the characters in The Great Gatsby book are written as white. I guess it is okay for books to not have diversity but movies are similar television shows because they too have token characters. Wolfsheim plays an important role in Gatsby but he is not a main character so I guess the movie makers thought it would be okay to change his race. I mean the one physical aspect that Wolfshein is know for in the book is his nose. All though is he is not "flat-nosed" he does have a very distinct sniffer.
Making Wolfshein an indian shows some of the token character examples we saw on television. First, he is is an "authority minority". At his times in the movie he is always dressed in a suit and tie and he is also kind of like Gatsby's boss. He is the one who brought Gatsby into all of his money. Indian Wolfshein is also very sketchy and secretive, making him a "mystic minority".
Does this race change effect the movie at all? Why is it all right for books to not be diverse?
I had no idea that the actor playing Wolfsheim was Indian, and the points you make about him are really great. I think you're completely right about the filmmakers trying to "diversify" this movie. Since they can't really change the race of one of the major characters, Wolfsheim was chosen because he plays a small role in the novel. The "mystic minority" bit about him is really accurate too, since he doesn't appear in either the movie or the novel very much.
ReplyDeleteMaddy,
ReplyDeleteGood job blogging (in May!). This is an interesting observation. I wondered why the movie ignored the latent anti-Semitism in the novel, too. Watch spelling of character! Not sure he's mystical, but I think you're on to something regarding the shadiness of the character.