BONUS: Tom Hanks, Fox News, And A Debate About Whiteness In Hollywood

Consider This from NPR

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🗓️ 20 June 2021

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

This all started with a guest essay by Tom Hanks for The New York Times called "You Should Learn the Truth About the Tulsa Race Massacre," in which Hanks made the case for a more widespread teaching of American history involving Black Americans, especially of events like the Tulsa Race Massacre. He wrote: "History was mostly written by white people about white people like me, while the history of Black people — including the horrors of Tulsa — was too often left out. Until relatively recently, the entertainment industry, which helps shape what is history and what is forgotten, did the same. That includes projects of mine."

NPR TV and film critic Eric Deggans appreciated those words, but wrote in a column of his own that Hanks could do more from his powerful perch in Hollywood.

Eric speaks to host Audie Cornish about the reaction to his column, and how Hollywood reckons with its own power. (And no, he is not trying to cancel Tom Hanks.)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So just so there's no confusion, no one is trying to cancel Tom Hanks.
0:06.0	Seriously, I checked.
0:07.9	So people are going around saying you're trying to cancel Tom Hanks.
0:12.6	That's NPR's TV critic Eric Degins.
0:15.0	So let's open with that.
0:17.0	Is that what's going on here?
0:18.7	Absolutely not.
0:19.7	I love Tom.
0:20.5	I'm a huge Tom Hanks fan that is not happening.
0:24.3	What is happening starts with a look at some of Tom Hanks' biggest movies.
0:30.0	Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much.
0:33.3	My wife is even going to recognize me whenever it is I get back to her.
0:36.4	In saving private Ryan, he's a US Army captain.
0:39.6	You have bridges spies where I think he plays an negotiator during the Cold War.
0:45.1	We need to have the conversation our governance can't.
0:48.7	He's an astronaut in Apollo 13.
0:51.2	Houston, we have a problem.
0:52.6	He's a newspaper editor in the post.
0:54.8	Who decides to publish the Pentagon papers?
0:57.2	The way they line those days have to be over.
1:00.8	And of course, he's forced gum.
1:04.7	Where he plays this kind of innocent,
	...

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