Colour Blind casting

Oh! I think I'm thread title blind... there's a current thread which I (and possibly others) have confused this one with.

Can we talk about colourblind casting... www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/5275572-can-we-talk-about-colourblind-casting

What rattled your cage?

This is a Zombie thread. Is it a slow day for you lot in the Royal family section?

They have. Lolita Chakrabati wrote a very successful play called Red Velvet with Adrian Lester playing Ira Aldridge.

Thanks. Sounds like someone should do it on film (maybe there's a recording somewhere...)

They have. Lolita Chakrabati wrote a very successful play called Red Velvet with Adrian Lester playing Ira Aldridge.

I don’t think OP needs to reflect on this.

Historical inaccuracies in drama can be jarring. Seeing different-colour faces doesn’t bother me, but I don’t believe everyone expressing 21st century opinions that they would not have had hundreds of years ago.

The worst, for me, is sex-blind casting, if it’s implausible. I saw a production of Henry V where the king was played by a woman, and that was great, it worked. I imagined a powerful monarch like Elizabeth I. But the French princess was played by a bearded man, which was just ridiculous!

It's not really surprising, TV companies don't seem to want to touch real Black history.

John Kent for example, victorian black policeman. A fantastic idea for a police series.

Wow... I'd never heard of him. It's surprising no one has done this yet.

I've not read the whole thread, has anyone discussed Sanditon? That seemed like a good idea - expanding on the sketch of a black character Jane Austen had introduced. While it's probably unlikely she'd have developed the character of Miss Lambe in anything like the same way as the TV series did it, this wasn't an ahistorical shoehorning in - clearly there were black people accepted into Georgian society, if they had enough money.

Of course there isn't a great supply of unfinished works by great novelists featuring black characters waiting to be developed, unfortunately!

Why don’t script writers create films/TV about real historical people? Ira Aldridge, for example: Victorian Shakespearean actor. Black. This would be great to watch especially knowing that it was based on fact.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge

Yes, that would work. Mercutio's age is not suggested and he could be an older man re-living his youth with the young set, quite easily. We only know two things about him, in fact: he is witty in the Elizabethan sense and he is a kinsman of the Prince.

Write new plays. Do the plays with all black casts. Put black characters where colour does not matter? Lots of WS's plays (and most of Marlowe's) are set abroad, Italy, fictional places, the Middle East. Plenty of room there for non-white actors e.g. Italians could well be played by Arab or Indian actors; Tamburlaine the Great could have an entirely non-white cast.

But Yul Brynner was wonderful in The King and I! Isn't the argument that the most talented should get the part?

Agreed @NonsuchCastle but in a time when some say only trans actors should play trans, only gay people should play gay people, etc. I’m merely pointing out the double standard.

There are times when culture/skin colour is vital to the role. And times when it isn't. So it really doesn't matter who plays the role are long as they are good at it. And if it gives a wider representation to ethnic minorities all the better.

Strange you never hear anyone complaining when say for example the Les Mis cast is mostly Americans and British. As apposed to French. Many many films made with a ton of white people but set in eastern locations.

Age blind casting www.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/aug/14/age-blind-casting-geraldine-james

Well that has been done with some Shakespeare productions - Derek Jacobi played Mercutio in Kenneth Branagh’s version of Romeo and Juliet a few years ago. And by all accounts it worked brilliantly!

Why don't we apply the same logic to age? Let's have Judi Dench playing a teenager. Or us ageism acceptable in a way that racism is not?

You can't tell if someone is Jewish by looking at them. Phrenology and nose-measuring died out with the Nazis. Well, it didn't but you get my drift.

Brilliant post.

Very well said.

This.

Just to address one point in Wicked Little Letters, the WPC of Asian descent would have been a HUGE deal. It's just about inconceivable that a woman of that heritage would have been allowed to join the police.

Remember what the British were doing in India and other Asian areas at the time?
Remember the attitudes to anyone not white or not British at the time? Britain was a xenophobic and deeply racist country - it was in the very fabric of society.
The casting in the supposedly "true" story of the Littlehampton letters was dishonest.

Confused children? Not really given that history and literature (generally white centric/whitewashed) are taught from foundation/ reception year.

I am filing this whole thread in a drawer that is labelled deep seated racism, unconscious bias and white fragility.

That's fine, but for children and future generations it can give a completely incorrect view of history. Colourblind casting would, for example,be very confusing in a historic drama about racism.

You want to engage in discussion over a specific artistic decision, fine. But generally being against colourblind casting is nothing more than racism.

People tend to object in a lot of cases because they see it's not colourblind at all, and it's only done for stories where you might expect mainly white people. Not for stories about non-white people. As if the history of Europe needs to be retconned to be acceptable, whereas the history of other continents is somehow differernt. Justifications about empire etc just don't really make much sense in that context and people don't believe it.

People also get the sense, especially for big productions (Disney stuff for example), than many are not making the choice of just a great actor, but have purposefully decided to cast against race expectations. And then defended that choice as colourblind casting, when clearly it is deliberate. And many suspect it's about either creating publicity, or meeting quotas, and that doesn't sit very well.

As far as those who don't like colourblind casting being racist, in my experience there's a pretty varied set of opinions across races. Most think it is ok sometimes but doesn't work others but a lot seems to be about personal preference. Frankly I think if you wanted to find a divide it would mainly be about social class and university education.