New Castle, N.H.–John Carpenter’s film “Village of the Damned” died soon after its April release, but his remake of the sci-fi classic is making a lasting impact on a group of Americans that it inadvertently, though unquestionably, maligns.
Persons with albinism, the genetic condition that reduces skin and hair color in a person, are at last speaking out.
“I am very appalled that you have chosen to make a movie with evil children having white hair and colorful eyes,” wrote Diane Fugera of Montreal.
She echoed the feelings of more than 50 people writing to Carpenter through the National Organization of Albinism and Hypopigmentation.
Elizabeth Batten sent a picture of her two children, whom, she wrote, “are as far from being evil as your film is from being successful.”
Their anger is long overdue.
Carpenter didn’t call the alien-spawned children albinos, but several television reviewers did. Their silver-white hair and glowing eyes invoked a common (though inaccurate) perception of how albinism looks. Carpenter isn’t the worst offender, but his film is the last straw.
Characterization of persons with albinism (a phrase we prefer to the word “albino”) is one of Hollywood’s secret atrocities perpetuated by our silence. Albinism has served as the white smear on the scriptwriter’s pallet, offering the darkest shading for the most appalling villains, characters who fuse audience fear and hate into a being designed to be subdued and destroyed.
“You know, I am something of a distinction, a total albino,” the evil Dragon tells Clint Eastwood in “The Eiger Sanction” (1975). “Even the slightest direct light causes me intense pain.”
Dragon’s blood must be replaced twice a year, and he’s a former Nazi, one who Eastwood says “would sell his own mother, if the bloodless freak had one.” Total evil grows from such scientific-sounding lies. There are no “partial albinos,” and none, like Dragon, cringing in sterile rooms.
But the other extreme, superhuman strength and loyalty, is a pervasive motif that is just as unacceptable.
In “Lethal Weapon” (1987), Mr. Joshua (Gary Busey) has his arm burned with a lighter by his boss in one scene; picks off a man through an office window from a helicopter in another (though most albinos are legally blind); and fights Mel Gibson to the death in the racially correct, but otherwise despicable finale on partner Danny Glover’s lawn. What’s gunned down is the representation of our worst fear: an evil albino who won’t stay dead.
Fear is the intended response. In “Stick” (1985), Burt Reynolds says he knows about albinism. But when he first sees Moke, the drug lord’s hit man, a return to fear and ignorance is immediate: “I never saw anybody with bunny eyes before.”
In “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” (1972), we are expected to be amused by Stacey Keach as Bad Bob: “Not Dirty Bad Bob the Mexican, but the original Bad Bob, the mean one, the albino.” When Bean justifies shooting him in the back, we see that even laws of the Old West are suspended. In “Vamp” (1986), we’re expected to cheer when a gang of albinos is devoured by vampires.
When Burt Reynolds stops his partner from abusing a suspect with albinism in “Hustle” (1976), Reynolds ends the scene: “Don’t you think we ought to show a little compassion for a man that goes through life looking at the world through red Easter Bunny eyes?”
Most of the films are big-name, big-budget favorites. The cable channel AMC (American Movie Classics) runs “Foul Play,” in which an albino stalks Goldie Hawn for the first half of the movie and spends the second waiting to assassinate the pope. “The Princess Bride,” a family rental classic featuring an evil flunky called The Albino, is also shown on the cable USA Network.
Parents of children with albinism have enough to worry about: poor vision, skin cancer, name-calling.
We with albinism share the responsibility for such films. We have said nothing. It is hard to draw further attention to yourself when the only attention you have received in literature and film has made you subhuman or superhuman, but never just human.
Although we are in every country, we remain a small, scattered nation. Nearly everyone can name our condition, but few understand our story. It is a story with connections to race relations, language, genetic testing, abortion rights and the basic human need for respect, and it becomes more relevant every day.
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