The campy-yet-poignant 1989 tearjerker Steel Magnolias earned a pre-Pretty Woman Julia Roberts her first Oscar nomination and grossed $96 million at the box office. Now the film, which also starred Sally Field, Dolly Parton, and Olympia Dukakis as a close-knit circle of friends in rural Louisiana, is being remade as a Lifetime TV movie — this time with an all-black cast. The project will be directed by Kenny Leon, who directed the TV-movie version of A Raisin in the Sun starring Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. Some commentators are questioning the new Steel Magnolias’ all-black casting treatment, considering that race relations play little part in the film’s plot (none, really). Still, could this work?
No, this makes no sense at all: Of all properties to remake with an all-black cast, says Megan Angelo at Business Insider, why this? Other productions that have gone this route, like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Hamlet, had themes, time periods, and plots that resonated in new ways when the cast was uniformly black. “Not ditto for Dolly Parton and armadillo cake.” Considering that the script will likely have to be re-written, “why not just start from scratch altogether, instead of awkwardly calling it an all-black remake?”
