Dishonest cultural appropriation report further exposes corporate media

James Franco playing Fidel Castro has exposed a serious flaw in how news is being reported

A new movie about Fidel Castro begins production next week. James Franco has been cast to play the Cuban dictator. News media outlets have been trying to stir controversy by questioning if Franco should play Castro because Franco is not Latino.

Complaints about cultural appropriation are mostly silly at this point. Like when people on Twitter were mad at Gwen Stefani for having dreadlocks in a Sean Paul music video. I just can’t muster the energy to care about manufactured outrage.

But one news report in particular stood out to me this week. It features one of the worst features of corporate media: journalists claiming to know what an entire race or ethnic group thinks about a topic.

In their report on the Franco controversy, Axios uses the following headline: “The casting of James Franco as Fidel Castro sparks anger among Latinos.”

Now, if you clicked on the Axios story, you might expect that they’d have some way of proving they know what Latinos think about the new Castro movie. Maybe a poll or survey? Perhaps they did a focus group? At worst, you’d expect journalists to conduct enough interviews to draw a conclusion or two, right?

Axios offers nothing to substantiate their claim that Latinos are angry about Franco playing Castro. In fact, the writer only cites one person who is critical of the casting decision. That’s not even enough evidence to back up the headline’s use of the plural term Latinos.

The single source that Axios uses to represent millions of Latinos is Colombian actor John Leguizamo, who has been vocal about his displeasure. Leguizamo commented on Instagram, “How is this still going on? How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well? No more appropriation Hollywood and streamers!”

How odd for Leguizamo to complain about cultural appropriation. He hasn’t held himself to the same standard. His breakthrough role as an actor was as Luigi in the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie. The Mario characters are Italians, and Leguizamo is not.

But the bigger issue is how unethical some news media outlets have become. There is absolutely no way a journalist or editor can justify taking the comments of one actor as evidence of how an entire ethnic group thinks or feels. Unfortunately, this is all too common in corporate media. I’m part of a team that has created an entire think tank project to respond to the problem of news media misrepresenting people of colour.

It’s especially frustrating to see Axios get away with this stuff just days after Cox Enterprises agreed to buy Axios for $525 million. People should not be enriched by creating this type of media content.

I don’t know how or when we’ll see necessary changes to the news industry. But I do know that changes are needed. The sooner, the better.