Rush Limbaugh gets It Wrong- Says No To Idris Elba As Black James Bond

I'm ambivalent when it comes to Rush Limbaugh. He's very smart and often makes some very valid points, but sometimes he's just flat out wrong.

Apparently, Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominated all-round fabulous British black actor Idris Elba of "The Wire" and "Luther" fame, may some day step into the shoes of James Bond, replacing Daniel Craig, the current 007. But Limbaugh doesn't think a black man should play a fictional, mind you, character that was written as a white Scotsman in the Ian Fleming books.

 “James Bond is a total concept put together by Ian Fleming. He was white and Scottish. Period. That is who James Bond is, was." “But now [they are] suggesting that the next James Bond should be Idris Elba, a black Briton, rather than a white from Scotland. But that’s not who James Bond is and I know it’s racist to probably point this out.”

It's called creative license. It happens all the time in the film and theatre industry.  There's nothing wrong in thinking outside of the box. I was cast once, with the playwrights approval, in the part of a narrator that had initially been written as a male. It was simply switched to female without affecting the integrity of the play.  Nowadays, breakdowns for some tv and film roles are often ethnically and gender ambiguous. Whoever is the best for the part gets cast- male or female, black, white, hispanic or asian. I do draw the line when it comes to historical, real life characters. A black King Henry VIII, no, although some theatre companies have color-blind cast those kinds of roles. Which brings me to Limbaugh's ridiculous comparison.

Limbaugh went on to compare the casting to the idea of George Clooney and Kate Hudson starring as Barack and Michelle Obama in a presidential biopic. He also said Hollywood might as well cast Kelsey Grammer as Nelson Mandela the next time a film was made about the South African freedom fighter.

In theatre, whites have often been cast in black and Asian roles, unfair to those minority actors, but if whites can play blacks, asians and hispanics, they should be able to play white roles. As long as they're not based on real people. As far as I know, there is no real James Bond.

And yeah, Rush, it's kind of racist.

Source: The Guardian