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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Post-racial America / Darth Obama

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56Comments

  4. 4.

    El Tiburon

    When I saw it, it looked like one of the Sith Lords from SWTOR.

    Looks like a perfect Photoshop morph of a Sith Lord from Star Trek and Obama.

    If you don’t see Obama here then wow.

  5. 5.

    danimal

    And how do we know that Satan (or Obama) isn’t a Sith Lord, hmmmm? If I were a Sith Lord, I’d work on my Jedi Mind Meld skills while commanding the most powerful military available.

    Just thinking aloud. Carry on.

  7. 7.

    Domino

    Isn’t Mark Burnett a christian fundie? Think I remember seeing someone post how he and his wife think that classes that educate children about the bible should be available in every public school.

  11. 11.

    The Thin Black Duke

    The problem isn’t that “Satan” allegedly looks like Obama, the problem is that he’s the only person of color in a herd of melanin-deprived, blue-eyed dudes from the Aryan Brotherhood.

  16. 16.

    Ash Can

    Let’s see — the actor plausibly resembles an older Obama, and is the only darker-skinned cast member in a series about Bible stories which is being produced by people who believe study of the Bible should be compulsory in American public schools.

    Nothing about this production passes the sniff test. The History Channel needs to be nuked from orbit for what it’s become.

  17. 17.

    weaselone

    @El Tiburon:

    Looks like a perfect Photoshop morph of a Sith Lord from Star Trek and Obama.

    I’m going to have to take your nerd card for that one. Just hand it overly peacefully. Don’t make me call in the Wookie.

    @danimal:

    And how do we know that Satan (or Obama) isn’t a Sith Lord, hmmmm? If I were a Sith Lord, I’d work on my Jedi Mind Meld skills while commanding the most powerful military available.

    Because he hasn’t force choked John Boehner, John McCain, or the Turtle.

  20. 20.

    cat

    Uh… Is it to soon in the thread to say who ever thinks Obama and the actor shown in the photo look alike have a hard time telling other minorities apart and what that means about their racial sensitivities?

  22. 22.

    Anya

    It should be called the fiction channel not the History Channel. What a fraud. Also, too, what everyone else said — fuck them for casting a black/brown person as Satan.

  23. 23.

    Mark B.

    @cat: These are probably the same people who think that Chris Tucker and Kevin Hart are the same person.

  24. 24.

    Ben Franklin

    Then there is the substance of Holder’s claim: that the specter of fewer law-enforcement personnel on the job is self-evidently a reason to fret. For the sake of argument, let’s grant that federal prosecutors will indeed handle 2,600 fewer cases in the fiscal year 2013, as one government projection maintains. Far from being endangered, Americans may well find their safety enhanced as a result of this particular cut, as prosecutors must be more selective in whom they target. Maybe in this brave new sequestered world, Justice Department resources will be expended on fewer costly, dangerous follies like the hypervindictive campaign against internet pioneer/genius Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide in January facing 35 years in prison for the crime of downloading a lot of documents from JSTOR. (Holder has since defended the Swartz crusade as “a good use of prosecutorial discretion.”) Imposing some frugality on prosecutors could be a blessing in disguise.

    In an editorial published just before the sequester went into effect, the New York Times identified the Coast Guard’s diminished capacity to carry out drug-interdiction missions as one of the budget cuts’ many supposedly grim consequences. But again, this seems an outcome that’s worth cheering: federal drug prohibition is an obvious, unmitigated disaster, a fact which many national politicians must fully recognize by now but are unwilling to do anything about. So if it takes some unprecedented Washington gridlock and confusion to make a dent in curtailing the massive prohibitionist regime—eh, we should take what we can get. The same logic applies to the cuts affecting the DEA, which will lose $166 million under sequestration. That’s $166 million less with which to raid medical-marijuana dispensaries, spread propaganda, and otherwise enforce drug prohibition. Baby steps.

    http://www.vice.com/read/reasons-to-love-the-sequesters-massive-budget-cuts

    There’s always the flip-side. Sequestration has it’s bennies.

  25. 25.

    GoodGuyGreg

    Bryan Fischer was going on about this today on the AFR Clown Town Hour – more or less suggesting this was divinely inspired – like no matter how hard they tried, “Satan” always looked like this. Pretty funny stuff.

  27. 27.

    Djur

    @Anya: From the pictures I’ve seen, the actor is pretty light-skinned, too — they had to black him up for the role.

    There’s a little bit of a resemblance, depending on the picture. The general proportions of the two men’s faces are similar, and a few features are as well.

    What’s interesting is that Satan there has thick, purple-looking lips, which I have noticed is a recurring element of Obama caricature even though he doesn’t have lips like that. I think there’s enough of a resemblance there that the guy can be said to kind of look like a caricature of Obama.

    I doubt it was intentional, but the racial politics of the miniseries sound awful.

  29. 29.

    Violet

    @John Cole: Check Rosie’s crate or Tunch’s lair or that room that belongs to Zsa Zsa. One of them knows where the mustard’s hidden.

  31. 31.

    Anya

    @Djur: The casting and the darkening of the skin color of the actor just show the producers’ lack of insight into their own racist believes. I bet they believe that they’re good christians who love everyone regardless of skin color or ethnicity.

    This is what they said about the claim that the Satan character looks like President Obama:

    “Both Mark and I have nothing but respect and love our president, who is a fellow Christian,” said Downey, the “Touched By an Angel” actress who is married to Burnett. “False statements such as these are just designed as a foolish distraction to try and discredit the beauty of the story of the Bible.”

    ETA: from TPM

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anya: “who is a fellow Christian”? Which is relevant how? I think the actor looks more like Obama than himself in the pictures at the link.

  34. 34.

    Fair Economist

    I don’t think anybody has trouble telling the actor (in costume) apart from Obama. But there’s definitely a resemblance. He could certainly be Obama’s uncle.

    Along with everybody else, I don’t think a passing resemblance between a villain and a political figure is of much import, but having the bad guy be the only non-white in an (anachronistically) Aryan cast is very bad and very revealing.

    I miss the old History Channel before they went fundy. These days it seems Sundays is all “Search for Noah’s Ark” nonsense – not just Xtian-slanted documentaries but breathless analyses of biblical stories long known to be just false.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @Fair Economist:

    the only non-white in an (anachronistically) Aryan

    What are you talking about? Everyone KNOWS that all the good guys in the Bible were blond and blue-eyed, just like Jeebus.

    Didn’t you hear all the kids in the show singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” in Aramaic?

  38. 38.

    Comrade Dread

    I didn’t see it until someone pointed it out to me. I’m not going to take offense mainly because I see worse than that every day when I go out to the intertubes to see what the wingnuts are thinking.

    I doubt it was intentional, but the racial politics of the miniseries sound awful.

    The actor who played Samson was black… which… okay, doesn’t help at all, given that Samson was known for getting angry, slacking off, and partying with hookers rather than fulfilling God’s intentions for his life.

  39. 39.

    Heliopause

    As with all the TV stories I’ve seen on this today the focus here is on Obama. Forget Obama for a minute, folks. What does it say about a TV production when most of the characters are pretty and cuacasian-ish except for the one who happens to personify evil and he is played by a middle-easterny, muslimy actor? Sure, you might have expected this out of a 1950s biblical epic, but c’mon, it’s 2013.

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Comrade Dread: I doubt it was intentional, but the racial politics of the miniseries sound awful.

    I don’t think it was intentional, either. Tweety says Burnett’s an Obama supporter, and it’s not like he and his wife did the make up, but looking at the cast, this seems like kind of a throwback to the pale Jesus movies of the ’70s. Newsweek did an interesting cover a few years back, a twenty something Palestinian with scraggly hair and a scruffy beard over the words “Is this the face of Jesus?” I kinda think it was.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    Probably the only Biblical movie to have an ethnically plausible cast is Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew since he took pains to cast the most Mediterranean-looking people he could find in Italy. The actor who played Jesus was half Spanish and half Italian.

  45. 45.

    GregB

    All us white ‘Merkins need to know is that the anti-Christ is going to be some swarthy ferriner. Most likely A-freekin or perhaps Araby looking.

    Nothing like our dear White Jesus.

  47. 47.

    Pamela

    @The Thin Black Duke: That was my first thought. I think the choice to make Satan a black person, reflects intransigent cultural stereotyping and deep fear. I personally would have Satan resemble Dick Cheney.

  49. 49.

    ruemara

    I can’t be the only black christian who wonders how a saxon wound up being the son of god in palestine. As you can tell, despite my devoutness, I was not a favourite at the VBS.

  50. 50.

    Pamela

    A couple of African American Jehovah Witnesses came to my door, handed me a flyer with Jesus on the cover. Jesus is white as snow, with hair that looks styled and blown dry. It was a weird juxtaposition and made me wonder if it was offensive to the people delivering this message.I guess not :-)

  53. 53.

    dr. luba

    @kc: Because “The Learning Channel” was taken.

    Seriously, how many cable channel names still reflect content? MTV? A&E? Fox News?

  54. 54.

    pattonbt

    Wouldnt the devil look like the epitome of perfection (for the time setting of the play)? The devil would not “look” evil, he’she would “look” pretty (or pious or upstanding or wise, etc.). So you would think they would make the devil look better than Jesus (who should look somewhat like a hippie of the time) and the rest of the cast. The devil wouldnt be scary “looking” at all. It would be a figure that would draw worship easily for superficial reasons.

    And I dont care if people take shots at politicians when creating fiction, so if there is a resemblance to Obama, whatever. But given my opinion above on the best way to represent the devil and the fact all the good guys are basically white and the bad guy darker, I think there is something wrong here.

  55. 55.

    Herbal Infusion Bagger

    Anyone comment on Michelle Shocked apparently joining the Westboro Baptist Church yet?

    That’s she’s changed a lot since she toured with Billy Bragg back in the 1980’s.

  56. 56.

    Annia

    Are you all kidding! The lip shape, the liver tone of the lips, the nose with its three separate shapes and round nostrils. Cut and paste some shots from an image search of Obama worried, and there it is – add thirty years and no skin care and there you are.

    Given the oddly widespread belief among some groups of chrstians that Obama is literally tthe Antichrist, it can’t be a mistake.

  57. 57.

    Annia

    Are you all kidding! The lip shape, the liver tone of the lips, the nose with its three separate shapes and round nostrils. Cut and paste some shots from an image search of Obama worried, and there it is – add thirty years and no skin care and there you are.

    Given the oddly widespread belief among some groups of chrstians that Obama is literally tthe Antichrist, it can’t be a mistake.

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