Odessa A’zion drops out

An adaptation of Holly Brickley’s novel Deep Cuts is in the works from filmmaker Sean Durkin—the guy who made Marcy Martha May Marlene and The Iron Claw is adapting a romantic drama? Color me intrigued—and will star Cailee Spaeny and Drew Starkey as the topline couple, Percy and Joe. Production is supposed to start next month, so the cast is rounding out, which led to Odessa A’zion, hot off Marty Supreme, being cast in a supporting role as Zoe Gutierrez. Do you see it?

Well, book readers did, pointing out that Zoe Gutierrez is a Jewish-Mexican character. A’zion, whose roots are German and Jewish (she is the daughter of Pamela Adlon and German filmmaker Felix Adlon), immediately caught flak as she is not Latina. It took only two days, yesterday, A’zion posted on Instagram that she is dropping out of the film.

I 100% believe she has not read the novel and that there is limited or no description of Zoe in the script (not unusual), and that A’zion probably didn’t do a deep dive on the script and really didn’t notice the last name implying the character of Zoe has specific roots. A’zion is having a hot moment, I can buy young and excited to work with certain people and not really doing her homework led to her agreeing to something she was bound to hear opinions about. I don’t think she was trying to screw anyone over, just I like bet the producers/director were thinking getting an up-and-comer to play a supporting role would help boost their film’s chances in the marketplace.

But godDAMN we keep having this conversation! This is “they keep casting white Heathcliffs” and Scarlett “I can play a tree” Johansson all over again! Initially, they said they would “rewrite” the role for A’zion, but that isn’t helpful because the whole point is a Latina character being taken off the table, when there is so little Latina representation to begin with. It’s the old M&M analogy, if there are two bowls of M&Ms, one overflowing and one nearly empty, you don’t notice an M&M being taken from the overflowing bowl, but you sure notice one being taken from the nearly empty bowl.

Yes, in an ideal world, anyone could play anything, but we do not have anything close to representational parity, you still notice when those few M&Ms go missing (which is why people keep talking about Jacob Elordi being cast as yet another white Heathcliff). This is the point made by Melissa Barrera, who posted on her Instagram about representation and opportunity. She didn’t mention A’zion or any film in particular, but given the timing, posting the same day A’zion dropped out of Deep Cuts, it’s hard not to put two and two together.

Unlike when ScarJo abandoned that biopic about a trans man when she wouldn’t get to be the star, Deep Cuts will continue without Odessa A’zion. Also unlike ScarJo, A’zion isn’t being defensive about the situation. She is straight up agreeing she shouldn’t play a Latina role. Maybe this is the progress we’ve actually made, people will acknowledge when it’s not their place and exit the scene without making excuses. (Well, she made the excuse that she hasn’t read the book and didn’t really read the script, but at least she’s accepting that’s a her problem.)

And for everyone saying something like “good luck finding a Mexican-Jewish actor”, I’ll just go ahead and assume they’re unaware of Mexico’s robust Jewish community, which includes cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki. I don’t think it’ll be all that hard, if the filmmakers actually make an effort to include meaningful representation in their film.

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