Re-writing History Revisited

My blood is boiling.

I am halfway through the current Showtime offering A Gentleman in Moscow. I read the Amor Towles novel of the same name that the series is based on (I would say rather loosely) several years ago. It has been so long I am not sure if I can say this Showtime rendition sticks to the book or not. But nothing offensive jumped out at me while reading the book, and this series is atrocious, so I doubt if it follows Towles novel too closely.

How do I hate thee, let me count the ways.

Accents. Ok, ok, I get it regarding the difficulty in being true to the dialect of a country regarding language and accent. It is a pain in the butt for actors, directors and even producers. I am not sure how many films have been so dedicated to authenticity that they painstakingly train actors to deliver their lines in the dialect of the region. However, not only does Gentleman reject the Russian accent, but its producers also make everyone speak with a British accent! Imagine watching a period piece about the British Royal Family in post-World War I London with all the actors donning a Russian accent. Would that not be jarring? And certainly inauthentic. I for one believe this takes away a lot of the “feel” and “soul” of the period. Russian is a very powerful language. Even if the actors were not speaking Russian, but speaking with a Russian accent, an audience would still get the proper gist of it.

A few years ago, HBO also released a Russian story, Chernobyl, and made the same fateful decision to forgo the Russian-ness of it all and inserted British accents into all of the actors. For yours truly, it had the same negative effect. How can you have a “cover your ass” sort of argument between scientists and Soviet officials without a Russian accent—not only without the hard, guttural, pronunciations of the Russkies, but instead with the soft, almost affectatious, lyrical accent of the Brits? No way.

My paranoid shrew-self cannot help but think this just might be due to a general disregard for Russians. It is as if they don’t even deserve to have their history taste of Russianism. This may be a stretch, but it feels rather disrespectful to me. But hold that thought, it gets worse.

A Gentleman in Moscow takes place in pre-World War II Moscow. The series begins in 1917 and ends in 1952 (if you consider what happens an “ending.”) The newly born Soviet Union is still struggling deeply in a Civil War during early years of that time-span. Yet the Metropol Hotel is still as elegant as the finest hotels in New York City or Paris (as time progresses into the future—as Russia gets a better foothold on its economy, this elegance becomes more viable). The guests of the hotel also seem to be of the ilk that Lenin was very aggressively trying to rid the country of. It all seems rather out of place—a bit too stylish for that period in a war-torn country. Although maybe this whole thing is indeed supposed to be a fairy tale, and maybe it is not necessary to believe this is Russia in 1917, that these are Russians, and this is a Russian/Soviet story. To hell with history. Let’s just make it all up. Which brings me to the most egregious violation of all.

There is indeed a policy now in Hollywood that people of color, and other marginalized ethnic actors, be cast in roles that do not fit their color or their ethnicity. This was done, albeit the other way around, for decades in old “unenlightened” Hollywood. Remember all the films that had white actors playing Chinese, Indian, or Middle Eastern characters, or whatever other culture the film called for? If you go back far enough, white people would paint their faces black and play black people on stage. None of this was very savoury, and the practice of casting Caucasians to play ethnic roles eventually stopped (or at least slowed down).

Now we are doing the same thing but reversed, and it is considered the “thing to do”—however, there is a twist. People of colour (or other marginalized actors) are not playing “white characters” (ala the musical Hamilton, which is still a bit funky but if the idea is executed well can be quite excellent) they are playing roles that the writers of the film have fictionally created for them. For example, in A Gentleman in Moscow, black actors are playing black Russian aristocrats. These characters are dining and mingling with the gentry in the hotel as well as being developed characters of high position essential to the story—with absolutely no indication that this just didn’t happen in 1917 Russia. There was not a black person to be found within 500 miles of Moscow (probably), certainly not in the positions their characters are playing in the series.

Why am I upset? Am I a bigot? No, I don’t think so. My objection is that what is happening here is a re-writing of history for the benefit of the cultural DEI insanity that we are now experiencing. And it is amazing to me that people think this is a good thing. How about wiping out black history by depicting a time of gross persecution and rejection with images of blacks on equal status to those in the upper classes? (Russia did have a few people of colour, but they were typically seen more as a curiosity rather than people to persecute.) According to A Gentleman in Moscow whitey was pretty nice to people of colour during that time, see how they act like one big family, the people of colour all have high positions in society, they are dining together, leading great causes and are all friendly with all the white folk.

If I were black, I would be pissed. This sort of thing (and this series is not the only example of this) whitewashes (no pun intended) the discrimination present at the time throughout much of the world. Although there were few, if any, blacks in Moscow during this era, if there had been, I doubt if they would be treated any differently than they were in other parts of Europe—i.e., not as equals[1]. History is history, and it is our duty to keep it as accurate as we can even if it is distasteful, sad, and discriminatory. If you must hire minorities in film to give them equal opportunity—which I have no problem with—then do it in such a way that you do not change history to accommodate them.

I am waiting for the film that comes out with people of African descent hired as slave owners in the American south, and the enslaved people being played by whites. That’ll be the day, when I cry.

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[1] It is interesting to note, that although there was no black aristocracy in Russia during the time of the revolution, the new Soviet regime made it clear there would be no discrimination in their new country based on colour or ethnic background. Considering how Russia is made up of many ethnic varieties, this was a true departure from the typical European, and American, of course, position dealing with marginalized cultures.