Jamaicans had to turn on subtitles during Luke Cage S2

I know I am late with this but have to say my piece. For those of you who watched Luke Cage season 2, by now you might have heard about the controversial Jafaikan accents. Before I ruin it for you, I will say this about Luke Cage Season 2. They had a much better villain than the first season and better story. This villain was not only a great match for Luke but he also had a purpose you could get behind.

That being said, now I have to ruin it. America has come a long way with inclusiveness in films ever since the “White Oscars” scandal a few years ago. Even so, there is a still a long road ahead. Luke Cage is a special series in that it is a highly rated predominantly black cast superhero series. That establishes it as ground breaking and unique. Unfortunately, the inclusivity ends there.

Now, we are used to an occasional fake Jamaican here and there in western movies, but when a series is filled with Jamaicans to the point where half the cast feels like they are supposed to be from the island, the very pertinent question must be asked. Why weren’t more Jamaicans cast? There are literally hundreds if not thousands of Jamaicans in Atlanta who would die for this opportunity.

Interestingly an entertainment lawyer in California told me that a lot of times Jamaicans are not cast because their accents do not sound authentic enough. Yeah right! More like certain Americans can’t understand the accent enough. The accents were so awful that I as a Jamaican had to have subtitles on to understand what was being said. Not only was the accent wrong, the diction was off by miles. Words were mispronounced so badly that had it not been for subtitles I might as well have been listening to Spanish.

Hollywood, Atlanta Film Community, please do your due diligence and cast authentic Jamaicans. There are too many all over the united states. I am happy you made Jamaica a large part of your story and you made mention of some crucial history and culture, but while doing so, you didn’t do the most important thing and that is to let Jamaicans represent themselves.