Oompa-Loompa

Apparently, there's going to be another film version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. Of course, the burning question is not whether Tim Burton will direct, but what will the Oompa Loompas will look like.

(5/01/2004, The Pictures will be back soon! See comments.)

I remember when I first read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory back in the 1970's. I was so happy that there were black people in the book, not the dreamcicle colored freaks from the movie. Most of the negative social and political implications of a bunch of Africans being imported to Europe to work and live in a candy factory were lost on me. Any qualms I may have felt about these people's conditions and their boss's insistence on their happiness were washed away by my pleasure in seeing my people represented in a quality chapter book. I thought it was better than Good Times.

Well, what can you do?

From Greg's Previews at movies.yahoo.com:
Oompa-Loompa Note: As noted at this fan site, in the original 1964 edition of the novel, the Oompa-Loompa's were pygmies from Africa imported to replace the local workers (part of why the city is so impoverished). This movie will definitely use the Oompa-Loompas with "rosy-white skin", as depicted in later editions.