What The Casting of Joel REVEALED TO US (VIDEO SCRIPT)

Oh! Would you look at that! It seems it’s Hoes past Mad!

____________

Readers, believe me when I say that when it comes to casting announcements -- especially for adaptations of properties rooted in geek and nerd related pop culture with pre-existing fan bases -- things can either go swimmingly, or drowningly.

And yes, I know that “drowningly” isn’t an actual word. But have you ever considered the fact that I don’t care? Because I don’t.

The property in question is Sony Playstation and Naughty Dog studios’ The Last of Us franchise, which -- if you didn’t know -- was announced that it was picked up for series order by HBO back in March of 2020; just as the current health and safety crisis gained a good footing in the US.

I made a video about it back regarding who my main choices for Ellie would be back when the internet seemed to collectively settle on Kaitlyn Dever, with my argument against that choice being that she’s too old

And then of course there was the want to cast Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Joel, in which upon discovering that choice I collectively asked the majority of the internet why the hell they’re constantly fine with mediocrity.

But that’s not the cast that we got for the HBO adaptation co-written by Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin and The Last of Us creator himself Neil Druckmann once it was officially announced February 10, 2021. It’s actually completely different!

And -- once you take into consideration everything that happened regarding how the announcement of Joel’s casting went down -- pretty revealing about how racism still plays a factor in situations like the one we found ourselves in.

I’m of course talking about people’s reception regarding the reported RUMOR of Mahershala Ali playing Joel, versus the official announcement of Pedro Pascal playing Joel.

Now the rumor article was released Wednesday February 10th somewhere around 5pm Eastern Standard Time, and predated Hollywood Reporter’s exclusive announcement of Ellie’s official casting by a bit over 2 hours.

/That announcement was the reveal that Bella Ramsey -- known for her breakout role of Lyanna Mormont, the Lady of Bear Island in Game of Thrones -- would be playing the Clicker-Immune Ellie in the series./

Now while this definitely disappointed people who rooted for Kaitlyn to win the part, the casting of Bella made sense. Despite her being 17 years old at the time of this recording, her youthful appearance makes her seem younger; closer to 14 years old like Ellie is in the first game, which the season will be majorly based on.

And while the website in question that released the Mahershala Ali bit The Illuminerdi did the responsible thing and properly labeled it as a rumor in the title and SEO metadata of the article, others followed suit with the same labeling, making sure to make it known first and foremost that this was -- in fact -- a RUMOR wherever they could specify it.

But as you could imagine, that didn’t stop certain people from sharing their outrage regarding the possibility of Joel being black.

So just to be clear: My stance on the matter is that if the character’s race, identity, or orientation isn’t tied to the character in any way, shape or fashion, then they can be any race, identity or orientation necessary.

That’s why I’m fine with Jill Valentine in the Resident Evil movie reboot being played by Black British Hannah John-Kamen, Leon Kennedy being played by Indian Canadian Avan Jogia, or Carrie-Ann Moss playing a queer gender-swapped version of Jeri Hogarth in the Netflix MCU shows.

And considering there’s nothing about Joel’s whiteness in The Last of Us that’s prominent enough in his character in the games that requires him to stay white in the TV show, I was fine with the possibility of Joel being black if the rumors about Ali were true.

But, it’s like I said earlier, Readers; not everyone felt that way. Despite every source that reported on it doing everything humanly possible to convey that this was -- in fact -- just a rumor.

The Last of Us Subreddit had a good chunk of comments regarding the speculation

/Such as, “I had a solid mental image of him being a tough bearded white dude” from a white dude using a Shaq pic as their avatar. People bringing up the tired “what if we cast a white dude as the black role” question that sets off the racism red flags. People who say “I’d say the same thing if the the character was originally black and they cast a white dude” as yet ANOTHER setoff for racism red flags, and so on and so forth/ (Various Reddit Comments)

But the ones I wanna focus on right quick, are some of the comments left on the actual Illuminerdi article that initially reported the rumor, who just didn’t even TRY to hide their racism in some of the comments.

/No. JOEL IS WHITE. How would black people feel if they made black characters white?/

The comedy in this reply pretty much writes itself, so I’ll just be moving on to the next one.

/I’m sorry, but no. Joel is a white guy. Yes, granted he’s a fantastic actor but this will ruin the series completely if they make Joel black/

(Looks around, then curiously at the camera) ...B-But you just said he’s a fantastic actor.

How can one fantastic actor...be responsible for ruining the ENTIRE series?

Not the showrunners, not the directors, not the writers of the bitch, but 1 FANTASTIC ACTOR?

(Laverne Cox “Gurl”)

But my favorite one out of the bunch HAS to be this one, that only consists of 3 words.

/Total horeshit. Sources?/

Listen... LISTEN

Considering what I had to live through regarding everybody believing EVERY pop culture website under the sun talking about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s casting in the third MCU Spider-Man movie without any credible sources whatsoever

I don’t wanna hear a GOD DAMN thing about a confirmed RUMOR regarding the potential casting of a black actor as a white character!

I refuse! I’m too tired. The CAUCASITY of it all!

Now I wanna draw your attention to the time these comments were posted. Because I screencapped these comments from the article during the early morning hours of February 12th, 2021; DAYS after not only it was reported that Maherhshala Ali turned down either THE role or A role

/But after it was officially announced by Deadline that Pedro Pascal of The Mandalorian and Wonder Woman 1984 officially accepted the role of Joel in HBO’s The Last of Us; over 5 hours after the rumor of Ali being up for it initially dropped./

Now considering the rumor regarding Mahershala Ali and the conformation of Pedro Pascal’s casting, I was able to piece together that as far as how Druckmann and Mazin wanted to handle the series for television versus how it was handled in video game format, they wanted to take certain aspects of it in a different direction since it’s been made INCREDIBLY obvious that they want to cast Joel as a person of color for the HBO series

/As a matter of fact Mazin actually confirmed this in an interview he had with MUST WATCH regarding the first season still being true to the first game while also exploring elements with the narrative that the game didn’t have a chance to./

So if one of those aspects they want to explore in the HBO series is making Joel a person of color considering the casting rumor of Ali and the official casting of Pascal, then why all the disdain for Ali when he was ONLY rumored versus damn near nothing but praise and multiple “This is the way” posts from the same peanut gallery when an EXTREMELY talented, yet somewhat white-passing person of color gets it?

Do they REALLY care about the actor resembling the likeness of the character? Or -- even though a person of color was what the show writers were aiming for -- do they just not want to see a black actor portraying the character?

Make no mistake Readers; I’m extremely happy that Pascal will be playing Joel for HBO’s adaptation of The Last of Us. And the fact that Neil Druckmann is transcending his own creation in order to provide a broader audience a deeper and more enriched narrative in the form of altering aspects about the original in order for it to translate to a different medium is a decision I wish others are able to make one day.

But the reaction that came from this significant group of people complaining about an unconfirmed RUMOR regarding an actor possibly playing Joel for a TV adaptation under the guise that it might break their immersion of what they’re used to seeing in the video game, says a lot about how far we still need to go.

Because while some might’ve been able to disguise their racism regarding the IDEA of casting Ali as Joel vs the ACTUAL casting of Pascal by saying they just wanted someone who looked like Joel does in the video games, the bait that was the rumor has already been taken by the ones that love to find new ways of saying “I’m not racist, but.”

/The follow-up articles reassuring fans of the games that Ali passed on the role -- as if to say “don’t worry, guys; he’s not playing Joel” -- were definitely proof of that fact./

If anything, what occurred during those hours on February 10th 2021 regarding the live-action state of a video game character that already had announced plans to be explored in a way that wasn’t done so in said games, proved to be one of the greatest experiments regarding the double standards that exist when it comes to race and racism in pop culture I’ve seen in awhile.

Double that with the phrase “Common Sense Ain’t That Common” -- a mantra that is CONSTANTLY proving itself more accurate as time goes by -- regarding what the writers said regarding how they wanted to handle the HBO series, and finding the best talent for the job without the restriction of ethnicity holding them back to do it

And the result -- as you can see -- will always be a select few of racists willing to play stupid games, in order to win stupid prizes.

Which is a shame. Because The Last of Us is SUCH a good game!

But, I digress, Readers. Your homework assignment for the day:

Write in the comment section below what YOU thought of the discourse of the rumor of Ali versus the actual casting of Pascal as Joel for the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us.

Or, if you feel like sharing with the rest of the class, an instance you can recall when racists found themselves showing their ass after falling for some race bait -- unintentional or otherwise.

No, the Trump administration doesn’t count; that’s too easy of an answer...