Albinism in popular culture
[2] Traits of albinism commonly associated with the evil albino stereotype include pale skin, platinum blonde hair, and blue or pink-to-red eyes.
In response to the "albino gunmen" characters in The Da Vinci Code and The Matrix Reloaded, albinistic actor Dennis Hurley wrote, produced, and starred in a short film parody, The Albino Code, where he played up the stereotypes, illustrated a typical example of real-world prejudice, and pointed out that the vision problems associated with albinism would make a successful career as a hitman highly improbable.
The phenomenon may also have been influenced by attitudes towards people with albinism in Africa or Jamaica, where those with that condition are sometimes regarded as cursed or magical (see § Folklore, urban legends and myths, below).
Dermatologist Dr. Vail Reese theorizes that albino bias may be part of a broader Hollywood pattern of equating or at least linking skin disorders and appearance problems with villainy.
Use of albinistic features to indicate villains in Hollywood films appears to have begun in the 1960s, and may be related to the popularity of tanning (and thus a decrease in pale skin being seen as attractive) in this period.
For example, the 2003 Warner Bros movie The Matrix Reloaded featured two sociopathic characters with pale skin and white hair frequently interpreted to be albinos despite studio declarations that they are not.
Albinistic actor Michael C. Bowman, of Me, Myself and Irene, has said, "Kids all over this country are being affected in a very negative and harmful way because of the sloppiness and laziness of a writer in Hollywood.
"[3] A number of movies, books and other works have been criticized[1][2][10] for albino bias, as they associate the uncommon features of albinistic people (pale skin, white hair, and unpigmented eyes) with danger, terror, or criminality.
[46] In Tanzania in 2008, President Kikwete publicly condemned witch doctors for opportunistic persecution of albinism, including a spate of murders of albinistic people.
The book uses alleged first-hand accounts mailed to the authors to paint a picture of various locations in the U.S. (most notably Clifton, New Jersey) where aggregations of albinistic families were said to live in seclusion.
Due to a wave of persecution of people with albinism in some parts of Africa (especially Tanzania and neighboring countries) a number of documentary films have been made about the problem.
These include: Also released in 2013, White Shadow, an award-winning German–Italian–Tanzanian drama film, portrays the plight of albinistic Tanzanians and their efforts to avoid falling victim to witchdoctors' bounty hunters.
An albino humpback whale called Migaloo (Australian Aboriginal for "White Lad") travels the east coast of Australia, and has become famous in the local media.
[79][80] In 2009, a pink albino bottlenose dolphin, nicknamed Pinky, was sighted several times in an inland lake in the United States,[81] and footage of it has become popular on Internet video sites.
This made him widely feared among whaler crews, though also a target for adventurous captains, who engaged him in possibly as many as hundred or more sea battles before he was eventually killed.
