The first trailer for Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women has dropped and it’s quite possibly the most ambitious crossover event in history this side of an Avengers film.
You’ve got Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird), Emma Watson (Harry Potter), Florence Pugh (Midsommar) and Eliza Scanlen (Sharp Objects) getting up to no good as the March sisters:
There’s Laura Dern (Big Little Lies) as Marmee March and Meryl Streep (too many good things to count) turning up the sass as Aunt March:
And of course, you’ve got Timothée Chalamet (Lady Bird) and his perfect, wind-swept hair as Theodore “Laurie” Laurence:
With enough star power to light up a continent and an overwhelmingly talented cast who’ll likely be fighting each other for Oscar glory when the film drops on December 25, Little Women isn’t just a stacked movie, it’s a goddamn cinematic event.
But as good as the film looks, not to mention the sizzling onscreen chemistry from Saoirse and Timothée, one can’t help but notice the film’s, uh, whiteness for lack of a better term. In fact, you look at the cast for Little Women and there’s a grand total of zero people of colour in there. There were more than just white people around during the 19th century. Just saying.
There’s no doubt that the cast and crew for Little Women are more than qualified for the gig, but there are plenty of talented people of colour out there in Hollywood who could’ve easily slipped into any of the roles in the film.
Before folks start harping on about the source material not featuring people of colour, film adaptations of novels take creative liberties all the time to the benefit of the final product and this is no exception. A producer for the film, Robin Swicord, even said that this version of Little Women will be “focusing more on themes than narrative,” which makes the lack of people of colour even more glaring.
We’ve seen more than enough all-white period dramas come out of Hollywood and it would’ve been brilliant to see some greater inclusivity for the genre. Movies featuring non-white casts are perfectly capable of scoring big in Hollywood so it’s quite disappointing to see how much further we still have to go on that front.
There’s no doubt that Greta Gerwig’s Little Women will be good at the very least, but Hollywood missed out on an opportunity to turn this adaptation into something special by opting for yet another all-white cast once again.