The Shawshank Redemption

To be fair, it’s not as if racebending is completely limited to whites playing originally non-white characters. Perhaps the most famous example of a black man playing a white character is the casting of Morgan Freeman as the Irishman “Red” in the movie version of Stephen King’s novella “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption.” The script originally called for a white actor, and everyone from Harrison Ford to Paul Newman to Clint Eastwood was rumored to have read for the part. Then a senior executive at Castle Rock Entertainment recommended Freeman and the rest is history. While the movie did poorly at the box office, it is now considered one of the greatest films of all time, and Freeman earned an Academy Award Nomination for his performance. (In fact, Freeman was so good at playing Irishmen that he did it two more times; his characters in both Gone Baby Gone and Dreamcatcher were written as decedents of the Emerald Isle in the source material.) But before we shout equality from the rooftops, let’s remember why casting a black man worked for the studio and for white audiences: because the character of Red is a textbook example of the Magic Negro.