This is a good example of why we should heed Holmes's admonition to "think things not words." Blackface is not offensive merely because it involves white men portraying black men - it is offensive because of the way in which white men portrayed black men in minstrel shows. There's nothing inherently wrong with white people playing nonwhite people. Ben Kingsley can play Gandhi, and Depardieu can play Dumas.

No-one cares about a wig, and I see precious little evidence of any blackface on Depardieu. It's not like Charlton Heston playing a Mexican with a face full of shoe polish.

That said, the number of big-name stocky light-skinned French actors of African heritage is probably pretty small.

I dreamt today that Charles posted a sound file of someone impersonating HIM (blackvoice?) and prank-calling Raquel Welch.

Gerard Depardon't.

Am I the only one who thinks Dumas looks like Don King?

Keister: I want to see Charles in the starring role in the Newt Gingrich Story.

Should I cancel my one-man play about Charles?

How can anyone be upset by this?
Was anyone upset when Ben Kingsley played Ghandi? How is this different?

I've got to admit, I'm a big fan of Dumas' works and I never had any idea of his race. I always figured he as a Gascon like D'Artagnan.

I agree, I don't think this counts as blackface, but if I were a black actor, I'd be pretty pissed that such a plum role went to a white guy.

Charles, I'm guessing your linked photo is of François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture, but the URL of it has his last name spelled 'Toussant'.

@15: i learn something every day

Napoleon did the same with Dumas father so theres really nothing new under the sun here.

The french have always tried to erase Blackness from their nationality.

@11 People were upset about Kingsley playing Ghandi. As I recall, one group of Hindu extremists claimed it was blasphemy to represent Ghandi on screen at all, though they would have accepted a glowing ball of light as a stand in.

As for this film: Seth Rogen wasn't available?

Patrick Lozes, President of the Council of Black Associations of France, branded the move 'extremely shocking and insulting', saying that Dumas's African heritage was deliberately being ignored for commercial reasons.

Since Dumas was less than one-quarter black (his paternal grandmother Marie-Cesette Dumas, was a Creole of mixed French and African ancestry) and more than three-quarters white and French, it would seem much more representative to have him played by a white Frenchman.

Anyway, thanks for that post. I loved The Three Musketeers -- and thought Richard Lester did a great job with his movie adaptation in the '70s -- and didn't know that about Dumas.

If I were a black actor I would be relieved that I wasn't cast in a shitty movie nobody was going to see.

Geesh, nobody raised much of a fuss when he played a Nazi sympathizer who ended up not turning in a Jewish theater owner ...

You guys need to get a life. He's played a lot of much worse characters before.

He played an Italian peasant in "1900"...anyone pissed about that? C'mon, let's hear it!

I've never understood why Depardieu is famous, I've never felt convinced by any character I've seen him play. He does bear a resemblence to Dumas so at least he's got that going for him.

Doesn't anyone remember Anthony Hopkins playing Othello? He wore way more black makeup than that:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pT_NAJZ9…

I was going to say that no one complains when Fred Armisen portrays President Obama, but I guess people did.

A terribly large number of white northern-european men have portrayed Othello, which, on the face of it, seems at least more offensive, if only to the plot.

What drives me bonkers is the wig Depardieu wears. It screams Daltrey, not Dumas.

@21 Since Dumas identified, saw himself as and was seen by white french society as a Black man, the just and most appropriate way to honor him would be to represent him as he was and saw himself.

But just and appropriate behavior are not something that western european states like france (which still has colonies, now called overseas territories, with majority Black populations) have ever been inclined to do.

White french elitists (as they always done) don't really seek to honor him, the only thing they want to admire is the work, and if they could erase his name from it they would,but since they cannot honor the work without honoring the man that created it, they need to whiten him and make him look as them as much as they can to fully claim him as 'true' french.

They cannot cope with the fact that some of the most quintessential literary works of france, recognized worldwide by young and old alike were created by a man who was and asserted himself as a Caribbean Black man. It kills them to recognize this. But the truth can never remain hidden forever.

@15. I stand corrected.

I hear a lot of think that piss me off here.
1) Dumas was fond and pround of his haitian grand mother and this part of his heritage but his writing seems to me pretty well rooted in a very classical French culture. Sorry, but to me the shade of his skin seems irrelevant.
2) in France, depardieu seems to get all the big parts and to me - and most of the Time plays depardieu. Not a big fan. I guess he just is the most bankable one and the local film industry is just desperate for money. That is a shame.
3) as far as france being such a racist Country, please Côme ans Check out the Young crowd. We do mix, my american husband was just amazed to see how common and well accepted it was to see people of all sorts of skin colors holding hands in the street.
4) yep, we don t have any great french black actors of african descent yet, a lot of excellent ones of north african descent and they do get the leading part. It s only a question of Time i d say.
Just to share...

Oh and just for good measure, The last Goncourt award ( that's THE litterary award in France) went to Marie N'diae... Both very French and very black ;-), so give us a break please...

@minderbender:

Ben Kingsley could play Gandhi because he is half-Indian and resembled the late Mahatma, and he was GOOD. A white man had no business playing him, and still doesn't.

@alarbus:

Nobody is pissed off at Armisen because Armisen is biracial like Obama, too.

@French voice:

It isn't the fact that there are no excellent black French actors. You don't have the balls to promote them so that they become better actors, and that they compete. I don't doubt that the younger generation mixes, but I'm not as worried about them as the people who are in power right now keeping them from getting jobs. Literary prizes are one thing; depiction in films is yet another.

@Roma: You've never seen a photograph of Alexandre Dumas? I have. Several, in fact. He could not have been played by a white, blond Frenchman. I've known blacks who are green eyed and dark skinned.

In his day, Dumas' ancestry was constantly thrown up in his face so much by French whites that he began to use it as a weapon against them. Just because Depardieu and Dumas both had blue eyes doesn't qualify Depardieu to play the writer. A wig, but no nose prosthesis? And the wig, I agree, makes him look like Roger Daltrey. Dumas' hair was what blacks call nappy. If anything, it resembled Don King's hair in certain respects.

The film explores the possibility that a white French collaborator actually wrote Dumas' famous works--in other words, that he had no real talent or creativity. At least one of his earlier novels, which dwells on a biracial hero from Haiti, forms the basis of his later "The Count of Monte Cristo." So they blacken him in the grave still. It's not like he's Stephen King. You can find that novella, the only time Dumas writes about his biracial heritage, here http://cadytech.com/dumas/work.php?key=1…. It's called "Georges."