Billed as a “Smart, Stylish thriller” and “Based on a story by the legendary Phillip K. Dick,” I was looking forward to a pleasurable diversion when I put in this fairly recent Dinduwood offering, crossing my fingers that it would not turn into work—then dawned the fact that I reside in the ever-expanding Dindustan continuum—I noticed that a sagely concerned, observant character, oozing empathy, and wisdom for the befuddled white man, just happened to be a young black man. I knew then and there that Matt Damon’s charter would be edified and saved from the damnation of other whites… and it was so.

Look, I like black heroes.

I write black heroes.

I wrote a character as a black quantum physicist.

And no, not everything in Dinduwood revolves around this one morality drive.

Emily Blunt’s character had to be inserted—instead of the wife of Dick’s story, The Adjustment Team—to have a forbidden love affair to keep women in the movie seats.

Matt Damon’s character, instead of being a regular guy with a shit job and a worse boss, must be the next JFK, poised to save the world, but is just as stupid and clueless as the average guy, keeping the average guy in his seat, feeling better about being average.

However, as with most of Dick’s stories and most science-fiction of the era, human racial divisions are rarely mentioned and rarely important, with characters usually assumed to be Caucasian. Now, with this story, one can forgive the casting director for replacing the black dog who empathizes with the officer clerk for a black man who empathizes with the future leader of the free world. But, why does this sainted character have to be the only black character?

Cannot he have at least one other black team member?

Can there not be a negative black character?

Could we have a single clueless black character?

Do they all have to be masterminds?

How come all of the white male characters are either dupes like the protagonist or villains?

I find this kind of propagandistic casting as offensive as I found watching 1930s movies as a boy, in which every black person was depicted as a good-natured imbecile.

However, in light of the fact that there is only one casting agent in Dinduwood, I suppose I should get used to it.