Gerard Depardieu Plays Role of France's Cultural Icon, Alexandre Dumas, a Man of Color

French actor Gerard Depardieu's starring role in movie about French novelist Alexandre Dumas sparks controversy over why a white man is playing a black man.

The story of Alexandre Dumas, the famous French novelist, has made it to the silver screen, but not without its share of controversy. You see, Alexandre Dumas was a man of color. So, why is Gerard Depardieu playing him in the new film "L'Autre Dumas" or "The Other Dumas?" Dumas is the author of such famous novels as "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Three Musketeers." He was the grandson of a freed Haitian slave and a French nobleman. Still, that didn't deter the producers of the movie from enlisting Depardieu, France's busiest actor, from taking on the role. The blue-eyed, blond-hair actor had to darken his skin and don a curly wig for his starring role as Alexandre Dumas. Depardieu has reportedly called the hotly debated issue over his role as "ridiculous" and "unnecessary." Gee, are there no light-skinned black men who could have played this role?

So, am I to assume that Denzel Washington will play Marlo Brando in a movie about his life? Black actors are not chosen to play white roles, as far as I can remember. France's Representative Council for Black Associations also echo my sentiments. They have vehemently objected to Depardieu's role, saying black actors are not chosen to play white roles in French cinema. "It's very shocking and it is insulting," Patrick Lozes, president of the council, told the London Daily Mail. "It is a way of saying that we don't have any black actors who have the talent to play Alexandre Dumas, which of course is not true." He added, "In 150 years' time could the role of [U.S. President] Barack Obama be played in a film by a white actor with a fuzzy wig?" he added. "Can Martin Luther King be played by a white?"

Dumas, who was born in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, died in 1870. He was one of a handful of national cultural figures of color in France. I would venture to say that many people of color have no clue who this man is or even about his black ancestry. By casting a white man in the role to play Dumas furthers the notion that there is a mechanism of permanent discrimination by silence in our society.