throwing up the hands

The idea -- I think -- is that we want more representative theater and film not because it's ethical, or reparations for past sins, or because it's a good business decision -- the argument I like to put forward is that more diverse stores simply make better stories.

So I find it to be a bit counter-productive when works featuring white casts are re-made with minority casts, as though (a) minority audiences couldn't understand the lines when they're read by white people, or (b) the stories from one group are basically interchangeable with the other group (although maybe you need to tweak someone's day job here or there).

Photo-negative racial remakes argue simultaneously for an exclusionary and universal principles that I find unpersuasive -- even if they weren't mutually contradictory.

And then we get this:

Will Smith, Jay-Z team to remake "Annie"

Overbrook Entertainment partners James Lassiter, Ken Stovitz, Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith are partnering with Jay-Z to release movies.

One of the first projects they're discussing is a remake of the Broadway classic "Annie," in which the Smiths' daughter, Willow, 9, would star.

You know that scene in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when Paul Newman is kidding-but-not-kidding about seducing Katharine Ross on the bicycle while Robert Redford's sleeping, and then Redford catches them, and is all like What are you doing? and Paul Newman figures he might as well be honest and says Stealing your woman, and Redford scratches his ass saying Take her...take her and walks away?

Yeah, I'll kinda feel like that if they make a black Annie. Whatever, black Hollywood people.You're terrible.

[Of course, maybe they just need to make an all-minority Butch Cassidy because I CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT WHITEY IS SAYING.] (Happy February, America!)