There was a time, a little over ten or fifteen years ago, when it was considered completely normal for a white actor to be made up to represent a black characters. This was probably perfectly rational as the number of black actors was not always as high as it is nowadays. If you watch TV commercials, you could be forgiven for believing that the only race/sex combinations in this industry are black men and white women, after all. Besides, it is much easier for a white actor to put on black face than the other way round.

Now that society has progressed, blackface is a complete no-no. Famous actors who had put on black face because they were told to got smeared posthumously, such as Laurence Olivier for his once lauded role as Shakespeare’s Othello. Clearly, claiming that they only followed orders is not going to cut it.

With woke culture in overdrive, there is now a new trend, i.e. able-bodied actors pretending to be handicapped. A trivial example is given by a healthy actor being put into a wheelchair, pretending to depend on it. Where is the outrage of the paraplegics, though? Surely, if black-facing is a no-no, then only paraplegics should be allowed to play paraplegics.

Even more revolting are fake deformities. I recently watched the available four seasons of Cobra Kai, which is good entertainment. They have a temporary fake paraplegic, but it does not stop there. One of the main characters has, strangely enough, a (fake) cleft lip. On top, later on a minor character shows up that also has a cleft lip. In case you are now aware of this, this is a birth defect that is most commonly associated with maternal alcohol consumption. It is pretty rare, presumably because wahmen have to drink a fair but for this to happen. For instance, I only recall having seen one person with a cleft lip in my entire life.

Just for the sake of the argument, would it not be the logical conclusion that an actor with a cleft lip should play a character with a cleft lip? Besides, is not some kind of “cultural appropriation” by the screenwriter to have an actor pretend to have a cleft lip? I am getting pretty worked up by this, so much so that I feel the soy milk in my stomach churning. Events like this just make me ree REEEEEEE! It is truly revolting, and I am taking the liberty of being immensely offended on behalf of all people with cleft lips.

Quite frankly, I am puzzled by this phenomenon. In the spirit of representation of the most rare conditions, we can probably look forward to a few more years of TV shows full of homosexuals, transsexuals, pedophiles (well, that has been going on for decades), paraplegics, amputees, and so on, and so forth. It seems that the natural conclusion is to present an image of society in which only a minority is “cis-white”, or whatever bullshit term those people use.