The producer of Green Book has been defending the movie.
A couple of months on, and there’s still some dissatisfaction that Green Book took how the Best Picture Oscar at this year’s Academy Awards. As much as the film has earned acclaim, criticisms have been aimed at the film as to its handling of matters of race, the fact that a primarily white male creative team put the film together, and also the conduct of one or two of the people behind it. Spike Lee’s reactions on Oscar night to it winning still linger in the memory.
One of the producers of the film, Jonathan King, was speaking about the Green Book backlash at a panel on diversity and inclusion at Beverly Hills’ Milken Global Conference. And he’s defended the movie, arguing that they knew its audience.
“The audience for that kind of movie is largely older and largely white”, King said. “If you believe that older white people don’t need to be told to be less racist anymore because that’s an issue from the past, look around. Because they do. Occasionally you need to make a movie that is directed at older white people”.
He added that “are we going to get criticism because the director happens to be a white guy? Maybe. No director would represent the lives and lived experiences of those two main characters, because they were coming from completely different points of view”.
The film heads to disc over the coming weeks. More over at The Wrap, here.
