Film Directors’ Peculiar Choice: Teaching Children That Nonwhite = Evil

Film Directors’ Peculiar Choice: Teaching Children That Nonwhite = Evil

By Jim Naureckas
Oct 4 2016

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children has joined that peculiar 21st century phenomenon: the kids’ movie with an all-white cast except for the villain.

As the title suggests, Miss Peregrine’s is set in a school for oddball kids with supernatural powers. Director Tim Burton has gotten some criticism for casting all these children, as well as Miss Peregrine and various supporting characters, with white actors—some 50 credited parts in all.

There is one part for a person of color in Burton’s movie, however: the irredeemably evil Mr. Barron, an eyeball-eating, pointy-toothed wight played by Samuel L. Jackson:



Asked about his casting choices by the website Bustle (9/30/16), Burton was unapologetic:

Things either call for things, or they don’t. I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct. Like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black. I used to get more offended by that than just…. I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go, like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies.