I WAS A HUGE FAN of Armando Iannucci’s political satire, The Thick of It. No one with a love of politics could fail to appreciate the sheer Machiavellian brilliance of the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker (played by the inimitable Peter Capaldi). As a political satirist, Iannucci’s genius is indisputable. When it comes to his handling of Charles Dickens, however, not so much.
A towering figure, Dickens created some of the most memorable characters in English literature. One of the most beloved of these is David Copperfield – generally agreed to be a fictional rendition of Dickens himself. What, then, should we make of Iannucci’s decision to cast Dev Patel in the title role of his film adaptation of Dickens’ novel, The Personal History of David Copperfield? However else Dickens perceived his autobiographical hero, I’m pretty he sure he never saw him as black!
It is openly acknowledged that Patel got the role thanks to what is known throughout the British film industry as “colour-blind casting”. When asked to comment on his “bold” choice of an ethnic Indian for the role of Dicken’s indisputably English Copperfield, Iannucci responded:
“I didn’t see it as a bold choice. I just felt, why are we not doing this? Although it’s set in 1840, for the people in the film, it’s the present day. And it’s an exciting present. It wasn’t a conscious reaction to Brexit, but the conversation has gone very insular in terms of what Britain is and what it doesn’t want to be. I wanted to celebrate what Britain actually is, and it’s much more of a carefree, enjoyable, humorous kind of zesty, energetic place.”
Conscious or not, Iannucci’s reaction not only sums up why “Leave” beat “Remain” in 2016, but also why Johnson and his Tories crushed Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party last December. Just parse the director’s astonishing statement: “the conversation has gone very insular in terms of what Britain is and what it doesn’t want to be”. It is difficult to imagine a better encapsulation of the cultural elite’s ingrained sense of superiority.
“I wanted to celebrate what Britain actually is”, says Iannucci. No, you didn’t, Armando, you wanted to celebrate London, or, at least those parts of London you enjoy visiting. But, as the very Malcolm Tuckerish Dominic Cummings, observed to all those gob-smacked “progressives”, aghast at Johnson’s historic victory: “England is not London!”
And David Copperfield is not black. To cast an actor of Indian ethnicity in this role is an act of extraordinary cultural disrespect. In spite of acknowledging that Dickens’ novel is set in the 1840s, Iannucci seems utterly oblivious to the consequences of him inflicting the “colour blindness” of the 2020s on Dickens’ art. When the cinema screen is filled with images of people in period costumes, the presence of Patel cannot help but distract the audience from Dickens’ story. At the back of every cinema-goer’s mind will be the incontrovertible fact that, in the 1840s, nobody who looked like Dev Patel could possibly have had the good fortune of David Copperfield.
Unsurprisingly, Patel himself is unwilling to acknowledge this. Interviewed for NME, he commented: “In past [filmed] iterations [of the novel] I haven’t seen myself represented on that screen. I definitely didn’t think it would appeal to me or speak to me, but Dickens is a truly universal story. I see Dickens on the streets every time I go to India, and it’s relevant to America too.”
Except, of course, such considerations were very far from Dickens’s thoughts when he wrote the novel. In the 1840s, the sub-continent more-or-less belonged to the East India Company, whose depredations were the stuff of Foreign and Colonial Office reports, not popular literature. Wilkie Collins’s The Moonstone, in which India plays a central role, was not published until 1868.
Not that such considerations appear to bother Patel. “I’m from North West London,” he told the NME’s Nick Reilly, “and the idea that we’ve spun a version of this film that allows kids from there to find a face they can relate to is really exciting.”
And there you have it! In this post-modern, anti-racist, positively-discriminating and ‘colour-blind’ world, treating the work of a nineteenth century English artist with care and respect is nowhere near as important as giving immigrants’ kids “a face they can relate to”. Never mind the children of the peoples who have lived in the British Isles for centuries. Why should they be allowed to enjoy a film adaptation of one of their culture’s great novels without the intrusion of faux sociological imperatives? What possible objection could they have to Iannucci’s determination to promote the “carefree, enjoyable, humorous kind of zesty, energetic place” their homeland has (allegedly) become?
Even if Iannucci’s first instinct was to cast a white actor in the Copperfield role, I’m not altogether sure that the extremely woke members of the British actors’ union, Equity, would have let him. I strongly suspect British film, television and theatre directors have quietly decided to make a virtue-signal out of operational necessity. Encountering black “Little Johns” in Robin Hood, or, even more spectacularly, a black Inspector Javert in the television adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that when Iannucci observed “Although [The Personal History Of David Copperfield] is set in 1840, for the people in the film, it’s the present day”, he was alerting us to the fact that offering a Tuckerish “fuck off!” to Equity’s insistence on “colour blindness” would be most unwise. Nobody wants to be the victim of another Hachette job!
Not that these arguments will cut any ice with the woke denizens of New Zealand’s cultural scene. For these fearless enemies of white supremacy and all the other racist relics of the imperial age, every part of the Western Canon is fair game.
You could ask them: “How would you react if NZ on Air agreed to fund, and TV One agreed to screen, an historical drama about the 1845 Ngapuhi attack on Kororareka (modern day Russell) in which the actor cast as Hone Heke was a Pakeha?” They’ll just say: “That’s different. Casting a Pakeha in the role of such a celebrated Maori warrior would be a racist affront to the whole of Maoridom.”
“But, wait a minute”, you might object, “what do you think casting Dev Patel as David Copperfield is – if not a racist affront to every inheritor of Dickens’s towering cultural legacy?” “Uh-uh,” would come the reply. “That’s not racism. It’s impossible for a colonised people to be racist. You need to check your white privilege, mate.”
To which Iannucci’s incomparable Malcolm Tucker would undoubtedly reply: “Fuck, fuck, fuckety-fuck me!”
And he would be right.