SJW's Slam Director Tim Burton for 'Lack of Diversity' in His Films

"Things either call for things, or they don’t."

9.30.2016

Director Tim Burton, the man most-known for films about outcasts on society's fringes, has just been slammed by "Social Justice Warriors" for not having enough diversity.

When questioned by the leftist mag Bustle as to why he didn't have enough "people of color" in his new movie Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, Burton, the director of Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood – movies about misunderstood freaks in a wasteland of plastic modernity – went on the offensive by saying the demand for diversity in films for the sake of diversity is uncalled for in the creative process.

"Things either call for things, or they don’t," Burton said. "I remember back when I was a child watching The Brady Bunch and they started to get all politically correct, like, ‘Okay, let’s have an Asian child and a black’ – I used to get more offended by that than just – I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, ‘Okay, there should be more white people in these movies.’"

Samuel L. Jackson, who stars in Burton’s new film, defended the director by saying the creative process doesn't always require a minority member of the cast.

"I had to go back in my head and go, how many black characters have been in Tim Burton movies?" said Jackson. "And I may have been the first, I don’t know, or the most prominent in that particular way, but it happens the way it happens."

"I don’t think it’s any fault of his or his method of storytelling, it’s just how it’s played out," he continued. "Tim’s a really great guy."

Despite Jackson's best intentions, he's actually not the first black man cast in a Tim Burton movie. That title would, of course, go to actor Billy Dee Williams, who played Harvey Dent in 1989's Batman despite his character being white in the comics.