The #FixMsMarvel hashtag - with which Twitter activists are objecting to the casting of a Christian actress to play a Muslim character (and making other complaints that vary in their legitimacy) - is only the latest manifestation of yet one more "social justice" trend that needs to be called out for its outright nonsense.
No: you do not need to be Muslim to play a Muslim character. You do not need to be disabled to play a disabled character. You do not need to be trans to play a trans character. That's why they call it acting. The entire point of acting is to reach into someone else's experience and then portray it on the screen (or stage). Acting is not the art of being yourself.
This is not to say that Muslim, disabled, or trans actors shouldn't be encouraged to audition for Muslim, disabled, or trans roles. Everyone who's interested in a particular project should get a fair shot. But that's not what the above-mentioned bullies want. Instead, they want certain roles to be reserved for those who are favored in the progressive stack. This will lead to an epidemic of bad acting (just as similarly-motivated campaigns have led to widespread bad writing and bad art) -- not because excellent Muslim, disabled, or trans actors don't exist but because they don't exist in great enough numbers to fulfill the simultaneous demands for more "representation" for these groups.
Hollywood's remit is not to be a guaranteed jobs program for the "marginalized." Hollywood's central mission is to create quality entertainment for the masses. Right now, it's failing in that mission for a whole host of reasons -- chief among them its acquiescence to political pressures that have nothing to do with the cultivation of merit.
If you're an actor from an "under-represented" group and you're using your identity as a cudgel to intimidate your competition into vacating roles you think belong to you -- you are a cheater. I'm sorry, but that's the truth. Even if your dishonorable tactics succeed, you haven't actually earned what a bunch of scared, guilty Hollywood execs have given you -- and everyone will know it.
Instead, you should work to get these roles the old-fashioned way: by getting so good (and so confident) that no industry mogul can possibly ignore you. That means taking a bunch of shit jobs to build your skills and your resume -- and making friends, not terrified "allies." It doesn't mean looking for lazy shortcuts. That didn't work out well for those who rode the infamous "casting couch" -- and it won't work out for you either. Not if you want real respect.
Thus endeth another installment of my $.02,
Yes the idea that only someone from group x can play x is on the face of it, silly. Now there are exceptions of course. Having Mickey Rooney play an Asian in a rather offensive scene being one of them. Normally though, one would not (for instance) require the part of Tony Stark to be played by an actual billionaire genius. As you said, it's called acting.
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