The cast of the 2018 movie "Skyscraper" is comprised of many different ethnicities and backgrounds.
The protagonist is a Pacific Islander, retired FBI negotiator and war veteran who lost his leg in an explosion. His wife is a white naval surgeon. Their kids are multiracial.
The Chinese billionaire who funded the skyscraper was born impoverished but climbed his way to the top. The villains are from eastern Europe, China, Britain and the U.S. That sounds like a pretty diverse cast.
Too bad that none of that matters. Diversity isn't just about skin color and the most diverse thing about this film is that occasionally actors will speak a different language. Everything else is superficial. This film was made with the intention of checking diversity boxes, and that makes it worse than if the cast had been entirely white.
That is not to say I don’t appreciate diversity in movies, even superficial diversity. I think it's a good thing that movies are more diverse.
However, while representation on the big screen is a big deal, it isn’t what makes a diverse movie.
"Skyscraper" was written and directed by a white man who was born into wealth and privilege. The most powerful man on set couldn’t bring the diverse characters he wrote to life in a meaningful way.
None of the characters act like they are from different backgrounds. They are basically cardboard cutouts of characters who all deliver cliche lines in a cliche manner that strips the characters of any real personality. They, even the characters who speak Mandarin periodically, become nothing more than diverse actors speaking as stereotypical white action characters.
The only time there is conflict stemming from who the characters are is when the wife tries to explain to the Chinese cops what's going on, but they dismiss her because she's a foreign woman.
Then, she proves the cops wrong, and they now have to begrudgingly respect her. It comes across as pandering and American-centric when an entire task force of Chinese cops can’t save the day but one U.S. Navy surgeon can.
In summation, diversity is more than just skin tone.
It’s more than just different languages. It is the essence of difference that brings about diversity. A movie can have every ethnic group represented during its runtime but it will be no more diverse than your typical Hollywood blockbuster if everyone acts the same.
More pressing in film than racial diversity is diversity of thought. There should be more diverse producers, directors and screenwriters.
"Skyscraper" lacked that. It lacked a critical understanding of the characters it was trying to portray. Instead of a diverse group of characters, you have a diverse group of actors. Diversity is more than what we look like. Hopefully Hollywood will someday realize that having a Samoan actor act like a paper-thin action hero isn’t divesity. It's just pandering.
