Controversy over Jewish-Israili actress playing Virgin Mary

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An actor's personal background does affect how much and what kind of insight the actor has into the role. This is especially true for marginalized groups whose perspectives are not well-understood by mainstream folks.

Also, in the case of Palestinians in particular, mass media representation may well be a matter of life and death. Given the U.S.A.'s celebrity-obsessed culture, the casting of Palestinian actors in appropriate sympathetic roles might be just the thing that could spur many Americans to start seeing Palestinians as human and, therefore, start feeling at least a little bit bothered by the mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.

Anyhow, regardless of how you personally feel about Biblical epics, there are lots of people who do watch them.

One of the articles quoted a person from CODEPINK an American founded advocacy group. Otherwise the background of these social media critics remains unknown. I also noticed that so far there has been no criticism about Anthony Hopkins an actual European playing King Herald. So far are the key words. Let’s see if people actually start canceling their Netflix subscription, if Palestinian Christian or Christians of Palestinian background picketing Netflix Headquarters, if Palestinian Christian clergy and church leaders speak out.

King Herod is a relatively minor character. I would expect people to be more concerned about the casting of the main characters and especially the Holy Family.

True, but I would have thought that Anthony Hopkins probably more well known then all the other actors combined would attract attention.