LOS ANGELES — Joey McFarland, a producer on Antoine Fuqua’s “Emancipation,” apparently did not think through the ramifications of showing off the original 1863 “scourged back” photo of an enslaved man at the film’s L.A. premiere Wednesday.
It gets worse: McFarland proudly discussed the historical photo of the man — whose story inspired “Emancipation” — with a red-carpet reporter from Variety.
Though Will Smith portrays “Peter” in the movie, the man’s given name was Gordon, according to Frank H. Goodyear III, a former assistant curator of photographs for the National Portrait Gallery.
