Tim Burton slammed for comments on diversity

Tim Burton: I embrace the peculiar and weird

Face2Face: Director Tim Burton opens up about adapting the popular book 'Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children'

Tim Burton came under fire on social media over his explanation on why his new movie's cast is overwhelmingly white.

The major characters in Burton's "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" are all white, save for Samuel L. Jackson's Barron.

"Nowadays, people are talking about it more, (but) things either call for things, or they don’t. I remember back when I was a child watching ‘The Brady Bunch’ and they started to get all politically correct, like, OK, let’s have an Asian child and a black — I used to get more offended by that than just — I grew up watching blaxploitation movies, right? And I said, that’s great. I didn’t go like, OK, there should be more white people in these movies."

Jackson commented that "Tim's a really great guy" and that he doesn't think the lack of diversity is "any fault of his or his method of storytelling."

The comments made Burton a trending topic on Twitter on Thursday, with many criticizing the director for his response.

Tim Burton isn't special. He's just one of the many directors who think that for a world to be magical and fantastical it must be white.
— THE UNDRAGGED (@sakilegrannum) September 30, 2016

Its fascinating that Tim Burton has a huge imagination in the rendering of his films, but a Asian kid in Miss Peregrine is a stretch for him
— Shelly Ellis (@ellisromance) September 29, 2016

Some, however, defended the director.

To be fair, Tim Burton usually only casts the same three people over and over again, so he's not even diverse in the white people he hires.
— Valentina Cano (@valca85) September 29, 2016

All Tim burton is saying is that he hires people and likes people for their talent, not just because they're a certain race
— *which witch* (@BadMonkeysClub) September 29, 2016

The Associated Press contributed to this report.