[UPDATED] Michelle Rodriguez Says People Of Color Should “Stop Stealing All the White People’s Superheroes”

Say it ain’t so, Michelle Rodriguez. Turns out the Fast & Furious star is suuuper over all that rampant Hollywood colorwashing. Wait…what?

Here’s what Rodriguez told TMZ after they asked her if she’d be playing the Green Lantern:

I think it’s so stupid for everybody — because of this whole, you know, ‘minorities in Hollywood’ thing…But it’s so stupid, it’s like, stop stealing all the white people’s superheroes. Make up your own, you know what I’m saying? Like, what’s up with that?

It should be noted that the accompanying video is a sight to behold. There are potentially some layers here, including potential sobriety (or rather, uh, lack thereof).

But c’mon, Michelle, don’t play us like this. You don’t have to star in Green Lantern, but it takes a certain kind of blindness not to be able to see that the whitewashing of roles has been a long-accepted practice in Hollywood that’s run rampant for a whole lot longer than any attempts to get people of color in roles originally considered white. Think of it this way: There are a whole lot fewer cases like Michael B Jordan getting cast in Fantastic Four than there are Scarlett Johansson getting cast in Ghost In the Shell or all the good guys in Exodus being played by white people. No one’s stealing anything when PoC are cast in formerly white roles; they’re simply confronting that the way things have historically been doesn’t necessarily have to be how it stays — especially when that history kinda sucked for a lot of people. If the talking raccoons aren’t stealing roles then neither are the actual humans just vying for a spot at the table.

As for the “make up your own” argument — it’s hardly as if people of color aren’t present and working in Hollywood, making spaces for their stories. But it shouldn’t be a revolutionary concept to not expect every individual to do their own heavy lifting when it comes to being represented in the culture and media they’re a part of. Superheroes of color exist, obviously, and are being made and brought to the public, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t space within that whitewashed history for some change.

Not every person of color in Hollywood has to be a beacon fighting for the representation of their fellow minorities onscreen. But it’s pretty disappointing when they actively decry something that might actually make Hollywood better for a lot of people.

UPDATE: Rodriguez responded to her comments in a post on her Facebook on Saturday:

What do you think of her follow-up?

(via TIME) (Image via Jaguar PS/Shutterstock.com)

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