ss0187 John Ridley is an intelligent and progressive visionary. He is a master of addressing sociopolitical issues both past and present while tackling on controversial subject matters in a compelling manner. Brilliant acting, writing, and production design. It is Emmy worthy on all levels. Freida Pinto and Babou Ceesay give electrifying & impressive performances in these roles. I was blown away. This is among the best and most important mini-series out there now. He has been effective in providing amazing representation to all minorities from different backgrounds. He is a pioneer and a brave soul. The backlash that ignited against Guerrilla and John Ridley, that reflected a bigoted outlook on interracial romances between Asian women and Black men really disturbed me as well as an ignorant attitude towards a historical movement where Asians were involved in the Guerrilla/civil rights movement. Ironically, the people who attacked John Ridley are the ones who are expressing a prejudiced attitude, and are not being inclusive to the other minorities who were part of this movement. The media doesn't want to shed a light when some POC are being racist towards other POC. Discrimination exists in all communities where people do not want to be inclusive yet ironically pretend to be "fake woke" while abusing the race card while being racist themselves. I was so saddened about the backlash and hate that John Ridley & Freida Pinto is still being targeted with. The controversy against this series is manufactured, ignorant, and hateful. John Ridley did NOT erase black women from this movement just because he casted an Asian woman as Jas Mitra as the female lead, which is the actual correct PC casting given that he is giving representation to the hundreds of Asians ( specifically Indians) who were part of this struggle. This reductive spin tarnishing an excellent mini-series with controversy and backlash is very upsetting to read. Neil Kenlock did back John Ridley up as well as other historians can back up him if people do their research because there were other minority groups such as South Asians, Caribbeans, and even Latinos that participated in the British Black Power movement. He said in other interviews that he was inspired by Darcus Howe and Farrukh Dondy's friendship, who was an Indian who was part of the original Black Panthers.Yes, there were Asians who were part of The Black Panthers and John Ridley is groundbreaking in lending in a voice to a character that represents this. He went with an interracial romance instead of a bromance and I can imagine how much these accusations have hurt him considering he is in an interracial marriage with an Asian woman. The media is misportaying him as "shading black women" in a number of slanderous articles when the truth is that he DEFENDED himself to a group of militant radicals who happened to be some black women,at a press conference, who were embodying a racist mentality against the series over the female lead being Indian instead of Black. Then when he explained himself intelligently, there was a mob being disrespectful while this group continues to troll him online by misportraying the situation. He is a proud Black man who has casted o so many wonderful Black actors and actresses in many roles both in film and on TV, so this is absurd.They are spinning what he said out of context, he referred to his own interracial marriage with his Asian activist wife to defend the interracial relationship on his show as well as had consultants who were part of the movement who defended the fact that Indian men & women were part of this movement. There were a number of prominent Asians who were members of the original Black Panthers. He is still being harassed on twitter and sites by certain prejudiced individuals in this community who are spreading hate against this series. Zawe Ashton is a Black actress and she is excellent in Guerrilla. There is representation of Black women on this show but a militant group is protesting with hateful attacks because it does not suit their agenda of a Black female being the main protagonist or lead. There are tons of shows featuring prominent Black female characters and interracial relationships but barely any featuring Asians which shows a double standard here. This is a fictionalized account of two characters that has some historical background, it is not a biographical piece. There is a lack of Asian women who play leads on any TV programs especially South Asian women. John Ridley has always been progressive in showing different types of representation for all minorities. It is Hollywood who has erased Asian women as being part of civil rights movements in history for years so John Ridley is being groundbreaking in providing that presentation and letting it be known that Asians were involved with The Black Panthers. You can look at any of his previous work including American Crime where Black female characters were crucial to the narrative so those accusations and hate against him is unfounded. I am reading a lot of racist commentary online from certain segments of a community who are being anti-Asian and are offended by a Asian woman being the lead or being in a relationship with a black character. Black people are still mostly the main characters in Guerrilla so I do not see the issue. There are many shows and series on TV that feature Black females as the leads. There are rarely any Asian leads on dramas. People need to be open-minded instead of aggressively imposing their agenda at the expense of other people. Guerrilla is a six episode mini-series, obviously not every type of representation would be provided in detail

Mike Roberts After half an hour of the first episode I decided to Google reviews of this show and I wasn't completely surprised to find that there were quite a few negative reviews of 'Guerilla' and most of them came from the UK.I'm going to add to them. It's terrible: imagine a Quentin Tarantino directed version of 'Love Thy Neighbour' or 'Till Death Us Do Part' and you aren't far off. Clichés abound, historical accuracy is irrelevant, all of the characters are stereotypes and it was so dire that I think even one star is doing it a favour.Britain in the early 1970s wasn't perfect, but 'Guerilla' is terrible and could only be improved with a laughter track. Utter, utter nonsense. Avoid.

filmsbyq Just to be clear, this is not a fair review of this programme. It is not fair because I found the programme so awful, that I could only manage to get through one episode of six. I started watching the second episode but had to switch off after twenty minutes. So, to be clear, I did not enjoy it.The programme I am speaking of is the much promoted and heralded Sky six- parter, Guerrilla. With the headliners being Idris Elba and Freida Pinto, advertising has, misleadingly, lead with their images. Perhaps Idris comes more to the fore in later episodes, but in the opening episode, it is Frida's character that drives the story. So the story: Guerrilla tells the story of a group of militants who decide to free a political prisoner and wage war on the establishment after one of their friends is murdered by the police during a demonstration. We begin with Jas (Pinto) and her partner, Marcus (Babou Ceesay) visiting their activist friend, Dhari (Nathaniel Martello-White) in prison. Later they meet up with another couple, Julian (Nicholas Pinnock) a peaceable activist, and his Irish girlfriend, Fallon (Denise Gough) and head to the pub. Elsewhere, Pence - played by Rory Kinnear, channelling his best Afrikaans accent for some unknown reason - is a policeman on a mission. He wants Julian dead and instructs officers to target him during an upcoming demonstration. During the demonstration, police plants make sure trouble starts. During the ensuing melee, the police beat Julian to death. An aside - as I write this I am trying to watch the second episode again. It is awful. Utter garbage. The fact that this is written by a black person is even more galling. John Ridley, off the back of the critically acclaimed 12 Years A Slave - once again I must admit I was not a fan of that either, though I did not hate it - is an American - and how it shows! - has already received some backlash for casting an Asian Indian, Pinto, in the lead role of a black activist drama, weakly offering that his own real life partner is of Asian descent and a strong woman! If we all decide to write dramas based on the people we like and admire, whilst using historical themes as our context, we can no doubt look forward to a version of Jews being liberated en masse by a black man because some well place writer totally knows a guy who would do that!If that was the only issue with this drama, it would be a minor one. An important one, but in the context of the sheer awfulness of the show, a minor one. The sets are good and the clothing, though it would be a poor wardrobe department that could not recreate the seventies look with so much material and pictorial material available. The music? What the hell are they listening to?!I never such music in an English black household. Though actors are always struggling for work and black actors even more so, I can only believe that on seeing this, that there are many black actors who feel they dodged a bullet.I thought perhaps it was my age, as I was only a small child when this was set in the early seventies, but it is too terrible to be that. Ridley, for some reason known only to himself, decides that in the U.K.- in the early seventies - that Indian Asians, African blacks, West Indian blacks, Irish and Afro-Americans all hung out together, fighting against a near apartheid-like police force and their own liberal minded brethren! He introduces gun play - they can't get any money together but they can get a gun?! - in the first episode. This is set in England! Nineteen seventies England! Gun was not easy to come by and if a black person had shot a white person of uniform - Marcus shoots an ambulance man - in the seventies, they would have called out the army! Now suffering episode three - oh god! - they are trying to mix with Marxist! This show is so mind-numbingly dreadful that I am struggling to find enough adjectives to describe it. It is meandering, clichéd, indulgent, unbelievable, dreary, uninspired, mistaken and pointless. I really do not recommend this show, not even for curiosity value!

misslou-94126 Guerrilla is following in the trend of casting a nonblack woman opposite a black male lead. In this instance, 12 years a slave producer Riley overlooked the much more realistic casting of Lupita, who played a raped slave, to cast a virtually unknown and moderately talented East Indian actress Pinto in the leading female role. It is clear that his choice isn't based on historical events even though the setting is within a historical context, the black power movement in the UK; rather it was purely cosmetic reasons as if a black woman is not marketable. Although there is some evidence of East Indian male leaders' involvement in the black power movement, there exists none that demonstrates Indian women at the forefront of the Movement. In contrast, there clearly were a significant number of black women who helped build, lead, and maintain the Movement, and their involvement isdocumented. Ridley claims that his choice of an East Indian woman was based upon his personal relationship with his Asian lover, who he claims is a fighter. This trend of casting nonblack women in leading roles does a disservice to black actresses. In fact, this appears to be a trend that is exclusively occurring among black male actors, e.g. Will Smith, Idris Elba, Mike Colter, Denzel Wasington, Omari Hardwick, etc. In this instance it is a misrepresentation of history. It would have been fantastic to see Lupita make the transition from a beaten, raped, slave to that of a guerrilla in the armed struggle for liberation of her people, but apparently she didn't meet the cosmetic criteria. I understand and support black women for boycotting it.