‘Purple Hearts’ director defends Netflix film from racism backlash

nme.com:

Purple Hearts director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum has defended the Netflix film against criticism over misogynistic and racist themes.The romance drama, which has been watched for more than 100 million hours on the streaming service, follows Cassie (Sofia Carson), a liberal aspiring musician who enters a “marriage of convenience” with conservative Marine Luke (Nicholas Galitzine).At the start of the film, Cassie and Luke are portrayed as polar opposites, which includes their political views.

In one scene during a going-away dinner, one of the Marines on Luke’s team makes a toast and says: “This one is to life, love and hunting down some goddamn Arabs, baby!”Cassie calls the Marine out on the comment before she storms off, after Luke insists she backs down.The film has been criticised for “painting racism as a simple flaw” while the character of Luke “stays the same”, according to a viewer on Twitter.

Other users have criticised Purple Hearts for being “anti arab anti hispanic racist misogynistic AND pro military propaganda”.Speaking to Variety in response to the criticism, Rosebaum said: “I hope that people understand that in order for characters to grow, they need to be flawed in the beginning.

So we very much intentionally created two characters that had been bred to hate each other.“They are flawed at the beginning and that was intentional.