Wes Anderson continues to put out quirky and colorful award-winning films every couple years, but for Whoopi Goldberg, there’s a certain aspect of color that is blatantly missing from his films. The Oscar-winning actress hosted regular Wes Anderson film star Jason Schwartzman on her talk show The View, and kindly asked the actor to pass along her resume to Anderson after noticing that his films do not have "a lot of folks of colour".
This certainly is not the first time Anderson has been criticized for his lack of diversity in films. He is known for using the same actors over and over again, and even as Goldberg pointed out, Jason Schwartzman has been a primary figure in almost all of his films from Grand Budapest Hotel to Moonrise Kingdom to Rushmore. As the interview on The View started, Goldberg jumped right to her point, explaining that she loves all the Wes Anderson movies, but she does see one gleaming problem. She said:
So I noticed there's not a lot of folks of colour and I thought I would like to give you my resume to give to Wes Anderson and just to let him know I'm available. As you see, I've interned on The Late Show.
While Goldberg didn’t act angry or upset, she certainly meant what she said. And really wants to be in an Anderson film. We can see it. And from her resume, she is certainly more than qualified. The 59-year-old not only holds an Oscar, but is one over very few to hold the big four— an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony. And she wants the part so badly that she even went as far as to joke that full-frontal nudity is an option, if that’s what it takes. Here you can take a look at the entire interaction between The View crew and guests Jason Schwartzman and Adam Scott.
Schwartzman and Scott were both a bit flabbergasted. Schwartzman went on to share his own praise for the actress, and thank her for her contributions to the industry. Scott was just surprised at the entire situation asking, "Can’t you just hold your Oscar up and get anything you want?" To which Goldberg responded, "I wish that were the case!"
Goldberg has every right to call out Anderson. When I think back at his films, the only black actor I can recall is Danny Glover in The Royal Tenenbaums, and that was back in the early 2000s. Anderson is now at 8 feature length films since Bottle Rocket came out in 1996. That’s not a ton, but it’s enough that we should be seeing a bit more diversity in them. Not to say I don’t enjoy the recurrence of Schwartzman, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and more, but the addition of more talented actors/actresses, no matter the diversity, is certainly welcomed in our book.
