I read recently somewhere that Tom Hanks said he wouldn’t play the lead character in the movie ‘Philadelphia’ if it were offered to him again. ‘We’re beyond that now.’ I assume he means that a gay actor should have gotten the part.

While doom-scrolling a while back, I ran across a bit written by a person of South Asian extraction who claimed that if you are a yoga teacher and you are not South Asian, you are guilty of cultural appropriation. Oy. So is it okay for a person who, like me, is a basic American mongrel, to practice yoga but not to teach it? How about, to eat Chinese food but not to cook it? Must you consult Professor Google before you go see a movie to find out whether or not the stars meet your requirements for appropriateness? How about the supporting actors? Or the extras? Should they not be held to the same standards?

How far down this rabbit hole are we going to go? Are you okay with Jude Law playing Dumbledore? Come on, the guy is a complete muggle. With so many wizarding world actors looking for work… Seriously, the character of Dumbledore is gay. Does that mean that Jude Law must himself be gay in order to play Dumbledore? How about if he just had a gay weekend, would that make it all right? Okay, how about a gay thought? I know the answer to those questions, and it is… drum roll…

None of your business. Or mine.

Isn’t it kind of in the definition that an actor is a person who, for dramatic purposes, pretends to be something he isn’t? Tom Hanks and Jude Law got those respective roles because they are both gifted and bankable stars who could be depended on to do a great job and therefore help the filmmakers turn a profit by selling tickets.

When we argue about which actor is appropriate for which role, we are essentially arguing about who gets first billing in the toy department. Inner city kids who attend subpar schools still get an A+ in survival but they don’t get much of an opportunity to excel in anything else. Sure, there are the exceptional few who beat the odds, but what about the rest of them? Why are we okay with letting them struggle? Because I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, I was not exceptional. Not in anything good.

Prejudice is never okay, but it is always lurking. And while we are equal, we are rarely identical. How about, we try to treat individuals as individuals? And how about, instead of fixating on one another’s sexuality, ethnicity, race, gender preferences or any of those other superficial differences, how about each one of us, one day at a time, try and act a little bit less like assholes?

Worth a shot.