Dealing A False Hand

My dear friend Sofiblu updates me on music I should know about, so I was excited when I hit the theatre today to catch a screening of 21, and the opening scene featured one of her picks, MGMT’s “Time To Pretend.”

This is our decision to live fast and die young,
We’ve got the vision, now let’s have some fun.

MGMT- Time To Pretend
(Buy Oracular Spectacular)

However, it’s ironic that Time To Pretend is the song choice considering the controversy surrounding the film. The story is based on a real-life MIT blackjack team who beat the odds and raked in millions of dollars at the casinos. The movie version is led primarily by Caucasian actors, like Jim Sturgess, with Asian-Americans playing supporting roles. Problem is, the real MIT team and was led by Jeff Ma and consisted of mostly Asian-Americans. I know movies are “loosely based” on the real story, but that’s quite a liberty to take on casting. Hypothetically, if the real-life team was headed by an African-American or a Latino-American, would studios have taken such liberties? Does having an Asian-American male, in a leading dramatic role that has nothing to do with a historical period, and everything to do with a damn good story, signify the film will tank in the box office?

Studio executives need to take a risk. The bottom line is the bottom line, but give the audience some credit that they’ll shell out money for a good story regardless of the skin color of the lead actors. That kind of honesty would be refreshing, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.