We all know the basic concept of the Oreo – someone who’s black on the outside, but white on the inside. What you may not know is that there really are a lot of intricacies involved in becoming, being and living a fulfilling life as an Oreo. The bi-weekly feature, “Oreos A – Z” will help keep you up to date and on your best Oreo behaviour.
D is for Don Draper
Oreos love Mad Men
Cuz sexy suits, and hot, repressed white dudes
Were so popular back then.
In a fantastic Oreo move, I was recently in a debate, where I was arguing heavily for the fact that Mad Men simply cannot have prominent characters of color on the show. It simply wasn’t done at that time. You know how like in movies set in the present there are no black people in say New York City.
What say you? Obviously, there are some limitations with period pieces. But why can Shakespeare get away with it?
And Denzel gets the fancy cuffs, too! Much Ado About Nothing? More like Much Ado About Rrrrarrrr!
Why does it make more sense to filmmakers that a black guy can be the politically powerful Don Pedro, but not say a regular Joe in a movie about wizards or vampires or being cursed by an Olson twin to have a creepy tattoo cover your whole face? Do you think non-traditional casting takes from or adds to the cinematic experience? Would Sex in the City have been ruined if one of those girls was brown in some way? Wow, was Sex in the City really my go to film for that question. Weird!
For more Oreo: A-Z Click here!
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The Oreo Experience 
I prefer multi-ethnic casts. I want to see the spectrum of humanity that I actually live with represented on screen. So Denzel can play Don Pedro and Idris Elba can play Heimdall and the world won’t fall apart. And if movies/tv decided to cast women in roles other than love interests or airheads, that’d rock too.
I advocate the ‘colorization’ and ‘feminizing’ of our media as often as possible. White men have been done to death, they’re boring. Let’s move on.
Well, I think its about the story you are trying to tell. Obviously Mad Men the way they tell it is not really the best place to include a ‘Black” character. However if you want to tell the story of say a 1960’s Ad agency in Jamaica or maybe somewhere in Africa. then well I am sure there would be plenty of roles for brown skin peeps avaialable.
Being pissed about not being included in period pieces about white people is silly. I mean if you are telling a story about certin pockets of the world at a certain time, than no, you are not gonna find a black face there. But when you widen your sccope and realize that maybe interesting things happen in other parts of the world than this is really not much to be pissed about at all.
As for not including brown peeps in contemporary film… I believe the girl in that beastly movie was brown and NPH is openly gay. so I give it a pass.
and yes Sex in the City would be different with a black friend, Just like Waiting to Exhale would have been to different with a white friend… just the way it is.
By the way, Shakespeare does have a play about a prominant black guy… But its kind of a downer 🙂