When Eddie Murphy made that atrocious remake of the Nutty Professor, very few Jews complained that the Jerry Lewis role as professor was originally Jewish. Who basically gives a shit? The re-make was so awful no-one wanted to make any claim to any part of it.

The play Hamilton is a historical production in which all the cast are black. Even though the original old white men, the founding fathers, weren’t. No complaints. In fact the show’s apparently brilliant.

Yet when Sky tv make a re-make of Michael Jackson’s life, there’s uproar. Because the title role is being played by a white man. Uproar. Led by Ms Jackson Junior who claimed the programme made her want to vomit. So they’ve pulled it. ‘Out of respect to the family’. The vomiting family.

This is not about any form of racism or discrimination. Because no-one really cares what colour people are in films. And I don’t think its specifically about Joseph Fiennes performance either. There was no lack of realism there. Nor would there have been if Michael had been played by a white girl.

Its about the chronic tragedy that was the life of Michael Jackson. One of the most brilliantly talented performers of his, or any, generation, other aspects of his time with us were rather odd, a bit bizarre, well on the far side of ‘eeeuuuwww’. And Michael Jackson, in 2001, when the film was set, was no longer the ‘little black boy’ of the Jackson 5. The family can make claims of a skin disease whitening his skin, but it wouldn’t account for the almost total facial reconstruction he’d had too. Which, deny it or not, whatever the reason, took a sweet little black boy and turned him into an androgynous little white person of undisclosed gender affiliation. Thus when you see Joseph Fiennes as Michael it is essentially funny. In the main part because it is so realistic. And that, I feel, is what the family don’t really like. That he became something of a joke-figure.

So if Mike Tyson had played Michael, the effect would have been the same. He was a seriously tragic figure. Whatever colour. Or lack of.

Dmitri Payet is different. He’s a very nice colour. But everything else about the West Ham (for the very short term) midfielder is really not very nice. He is horrible. The worst kind of horrible. Because he’s repetitively horrible. He has a history of playing for a club, ok, playing quite brilliantly, then demanding to leave. Just out of the blue. And not just demanding, but refusing to play, refusing to train, everything but an all-out hunger strike. West Ham obviously don’t want him to leave, they’re doing pretty badly with him, heaven knows what’ll happen without him. But he’s no longer an option. He’s returning to Marseilles. From whence he came. And where he performed the same stunt a few years back when he wanted to leave.

Therefore Dmitri Payet is my tosser of the week. And that’s a real achievement for the little Frenchman because he’s been up against Trump, Obama and a lot of stiff competition.

Happy Saturday

A xxxx