‘Orient Express’ Gaffe Reveals Media’s PC Obsession

Ready for some breaking news?

An overwhelming majority of the entertainment press tends to be liberal. I know, I know. The notion that a faction of a leftist industry covering a left-wing industry may actually be predominantly left-of-center is shocking.

Consider this as Exhibit A.

Rebecca Theodore is a journalist based in New York. She covers film and other forms of entertainment. Apparently Theodore has never heard of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express.”

I’m referring to the movie version, currently being prepped for a Nov. 10 release, as well as the 1974 big screen adaptation. She also appears unfamiliar with the numerous television versions as well. I’ll wager she never read the book, either.

The reason I can say this? Theodore sent out a Tweet scorching the new film’s cast assembled on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.

“Movie called ‘Orient Express’ – and I don’t see any Asian people on here.”

She’s right. The cast includes Johnny Depp, Judi Dench, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom, Jr. and Derek Jacobi. There’s not an Asian actor in sight.

Now anyone with even a passing familiarity with the source material knows the problem with this triggered outrage. The “Orient” at play is an eponym for the titular rail line of the murder mystery. It references the region the train traverses, but as far as the racial construct of the cast, it has zero bearing.

Christie had her Belgian Detective Hercule Poirot investigate a murder on a train car filled with American and European residents.

There is a desire among some entertainment writers to signal the social activist bent of their work. Sometimes, like in the case of Theodore, the rush to judgment becomes a face plant into a plate glass window.

Note: Theodore later protected her Twitter account.

For Theodore to lash out at something as spurious as racial misrepresentation is “reactionary,” to put it charitably.

Welcome to the New Normal.

Entertainment writers have been in full throat since November, feeling compelled to offer up their social viewpoints within their work. In a number of reviews for the film “Star Wars: Rogue One” writers saw fit to inject their impression on how the film spoke to President Donald Trump’s election.

Similarly, scribes pounded on the 1960s era hit “Hidden Figures” as a message to Trump’s America.

That writers with supposed industry wisdom would let their emotions eclipse common sense says plenty. Somehow it never occurred them that films which spent years in development, and had been completed and distributed before the election could not possibly bear messaging towards the Presidential result.

They didn’t let those details halt their messaging.

It’s in this climate that Theodore attempted to “speak truth to power.” Instead, she made an altogether different statement. With this mindset driving the media class around Hollywood it should only lead to more fun ahead.

@aggierican @FilmFatale_NYC NO SILVER PEOPLE!!! pic.twitter.com/sSD0ETERHL

— The Brickhouse (@Brick_04) May 3, 2017

Photo credit: squeezeomatic via Foter.com / CC BY