Film-making is an interesting kind of industry. On one hand, it’s simply business and its main goal is to earn money. Like any other business, it needs to adhere to the demand and offer its products accordingly. On the other hand, it has adopted a secondary role of a kind of social guru with the potential to educate and define what is supposed to be the norm in society. It is a hypocritical duality because the industry gets rich by reproducing the societal status quo and only proceeds to preach once it gets to the big league and its profits are guaranteed. It is a toxic tendency which fortunately always backfires as profits will always be generated by the Demos.

The current mainstream A-list entertainment is not democratic. It is controlled by loud gatekeeping minorities trying to persuade the general audience that they are oppressed. There are quotas which need to be met when making a movie. Nowadays, every movie needs to target absolutely everybody in order to be acceptable. It is a spiral perpetuated by the fear of being cancelled, it's like the emperor's new clothes and it is absolutely hypocritical because it only reaches as far as the money goes. Touch the money and all values are thrown away.

DUMBLEDORE TURNS HETEROSEXUAL FOR THE MONEY

The case that proves this is Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore. Dumbledore is gay and it is integral to his character. It defines his relationship with Grindelwald and it is important to the story. It is not self-serving but essential to the plot and to the main conflict. Despite that, Warner Bros. opted to cut out the scenes defining Grindelwald and Dumbledore's relationship in order to get the film released in China claiming that "the spirit of the film remains intact". Except that it doesn't. It completely devaluates the gravity of Dumbledore having to confront a person he loves. Shame on you Warner Bros., so brave, don't ever lecture me on values again.

"MEN DON'T LIKE STRONG FEMALE CHARACTERS"

Do you remember the Charlie's Angels movie directed by Elizabeth Banks? It was the answer to the "sexist" environment that is the contemporary Hollywood. Ironically, it depicted men as either straight and creepy, controlling, manipulative and downright evil or gay. The film was marketed as "not for straight white males". The film bombed. Banks blamed the movie's poor performance on men. I wonder why men did not go see it. Apparently, men don't like female-led action movies and strong female characters. Does Banks know that prior to her attempt, there were two successful Charlie's Angels movies and a TV show loved by both women and men?

I must confess that I found Captain Marvel boring and stupid and I have antipathy for Brie Larson. I found Rey from Star Wars boring and I don't intend to watch Terminator: Dark Fate. But that doesn't mean that I hate strong female characters, I just hate badly written characters without any flaws and capable of doing anything. I liked Daenerys Targaryen (before the forbidden seasons) because she proved her strength and resilience and deserved her rise to power. I liked Hermione because she was clever and worked hard to achieve her level of capability. And above all, I love Éowyn's epic moment in the Lord of the Rings.

When the Witch King says "you fool, no man can kill me" and Éowyn takes off her helmet, flips her hair revealing she's a woman and responds with "I am no man" and kills him, it is such an iconic, cheer-worthy moment. It works so well because Éowyn is a well-written character. She is vulnerable to sadness, hurt, rejection and fear. She needs to endure all of this to become strong and earn respect and at the same time she doesn't need to sacrifice her feminity. Éowyn is my counter-argument to the claim that men don't like strong women.

WHITEWASHING AND DIVERSITY

The biggest hypocrisy in Hollywood is the controversy surrounding what is called "whitewashing". Whitewashing is for example Jake Gyllenhaal and Gema Arterton playing Persian royalty despite not being Persian themselves. It is Tilda Swinton playing the Ancient One in Doctor Strange, a character depicted as an Asian man in the comics. Apparently, this is unacceptable. It is however non-problematical when a black actor plays a character who is originally white - Snow White, The Little Mermaid, Perry White in Man of Steel, Lex Luthor in Superman & Lois, MJ in Spider-Man, Iris West in the Flash and Zack Snyder's Justice League. 

Red-haired characters are "blackwashed" most frequently in Hollywood despite being more of a minority in American society than African-Americans.  African-Americans make up 13% of the population, while gingers only make up 2-6%.

The peak of the hypocrisy are historical characters. It is offensive for John Wayne to play Genghis Khan, but "the Controversy Over a Black Actress Playing Anne Boleyn Is Unnecessary and Harmful" according to Meilan Solly from smithsonianmag.com in reaction to the casting of Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn. And Jimi Famurewa from digitalspy.com implies that a person is racist for saying that "Homer in the Iliad repeatedly describes Achilles as 'blonde' and 'golden-haired" in reaction to a black actor David Gyasi playing the famous greek warrior Achilles.

I have even come across the claim that "when a white character is cast as Black there ain’t thing taken aware or erased from the character, there is no harm done. However, when a Black or Poc character gets whitewashed harm is most definitely being caused". If this isn't hypocrisy, I don't know what is.