Will the next James Bond be played by an actor of color? Friday’s debate on Chris Cuomo’s NewsNation show “Cuomo” was completely derailed when The Nation’s Eli Mistel went head-to-head with conservative commentator Scotty Nail Hughes.
Cuomo pulled the pair from opposite sides of the political spectrum together to discuss a new report british news channel According to one industry insider, “the next James Bond will not be white.” Ariel was also mentioned as a white character in the Disney remake “The Little Mermaid” that was recast as non-white.
“And I thought it was a little bit more of an odd fit,” Cuomo went on. “But if you were going to play on the global stage, wouldn’t it be him, and if it’s for the US, wouldn’t it be Latino? And if it’s for the world market, wouldn’t it probably come from Bollywood ?I mean, why is it expected that he has to be a black actor?
“I don’t think there’s any expectation that he should be a black actor. The idea is that he’s been white for six iterations and has no problem opening it up to other people,” Mistle responded. “The idea that you just suggested that whoever plays him is doomed to fail either tells me you haven’t seen Timothy Dalton James Bonds or you haven’t seen the last James Bond ‘No Time To Die’ which was terrible, or you haven’t seen the wonderful performances given by people like Reggae-Gene Page… They have perfect accents. How? The idea that anyone black is doomed to fail, this Thing’s definition of why it’s time someone was black James Bond. Just to prove you wrong.
hughes jumped in,You are completely misrepresenting what you said. I didn’t call anyone black. I said someone! And I’m a fundamentalist. I love Sean Connery. I said anyone. And we’re only talking about black characters. We are not talking about any other actor to take this spot. And every character that has been changed has been blackened. So there’s a reason people are saying it’s going to be a black guy who’s going to replace him.
And that’s when the back-and-forth altercation started, as the volume turned up and they started talking over each other to explain their points.
“Every character that has been replaced is as black as global history?” Mistle said.
“Have you seen a Hispanic replacing a white person in one of the recent movies?” Hughes asked.
She replied, “What recent movie are you talking about? Of course, we have a lot more opportunities given to Hispanic actors. We’ve seen that given more opportunities. But once I saw Kenobi, One of whose leading persons was an AAPI actor, so it is happening…”
Hughes cuts him off. “But it’s the placement of old original characters over diversity. It’s not diverse. It’s just one area that’s getting it…”
“Is this an argument that there aren’t enough opportunities for white people in Hollywood?” Mistle asked pointedly. “Are you going with it?”
Sensing that the debate was going downhill fast, Cuomo tried to calm them down and eventually decided to end it altogether. “I appreciate the points on both sides,” he said. “You’ve given the audience a lot to chew on and let’s just let them do that.”
