Colour Blind casting

If you feel this way you may want to skip 'six' at the theatre. The queen's are incredible so you would be missing out but it is not historically accurate

I can understand the issue if it's a real life depiction of a person. But otherwise it's refreshing to see the best person in the role.

I have more of an issue that female actors have to be beautiful, pert of breast and flat of stomach to be considered for a lead role.

Well said.

Apparently not as the entire film has been pulled. 🙄

Not really. If you were making a film about Nelson Mandela you can't have a white actor playing him, any more than you could have a man playing Thatcher or a Will Smith playing Churchill.

I'm mixed-race and struggled a bit with Wicked Little Letters. One of the main themes was racism: the accused woman was Irish and there was a lot of anti-Irish sentiment which added to the unfair judgment against her. When I saw the policewoman was Asian, I felt on edge, dreading the racist comments she might get from her sexist, boorish superiors - but none came. At that point I thought, Oh, OK. I'm meant to notice that Rose is Irish, but I'm meant to "Not See Race" when it comes to the PC. Got it.

Your absolutist approach isn't helping and is clearly designed to deflect from the issue.

If they cast Sydney Sweeney as Snow White I'd have similar complaint.

From a purely practical point of view, acting is a job. To exclude different racial groups from taking those jobs would surely be illegal.

This is a terrible example.

Snow White is a fictional character. The "point" of her is her beauty and her kindness.

I wouldn't find it jarring for her to be played by a black actor. I would expect her skin to be flawless, like unblemished freshly fallen snow.

I don't think we can really cite Brigerton as an example of an accurate historical drama. The whole thing is a fantasy.

I would like to see more historical dramas about the 19th - 20th century experiences of black and asian Britons. Steve McQueen's Small Axe TV series was incredibly good and told me histories of my own country that I am ashamed to admit I did not fully know.

Yes, dissonance is a good word. I don't care what colour people are but if you have as mentioned, two white actors and an Asian child, I start to wonder whether this is part of the story. Historical mistakes make the programme irritating to watch. Period dramas where the women are not wearing hats, my partner struggles with films that get the type of aircraft wrong. You stop believing in the magic.

I'm not suggesting anyone 'blacks up'. 🙄

We are talking about whether tv dramas need to be accurate or whether people can cope with inaccuracy.

My point is they are all very inaccurate in a million different ways- if you don’t demand accuracy in clothes/colours/language/structural, class or gender representations etc, but do about whether people are the ‘right’ colour, then that does not cast you in a good light.

“it’s jarring to see a black person there, but not at all to see a maid in a pink dress answer back to the family” is just stupid.

An Asian actress playing a police woman during a period it would have been unlikely to see an Asian I don't think is a problem. She's notnplaying a white person. She's playing a policewoman.

Someone playing a character facing race specific issues is obviously stupid. A while person couldn't play Martin Luthur King. A black person couldn't play Hitler.

Ah yes, we must have historical accuracy. That’s why I only watch period dramas where the actors have bad teeth, the woman have body hair, and they speak in the exact same way as they would have done back then

ooor I can just enjoy a fictional work for what it is.

an interesting case of race swapping was the adaptation of ‘the girl with all the gifts’ in the book the little girl was white and her teacher was black. In the film, the little girl was black and the teacher was white. After all the fans revived themselves after fainting in horror, we all just carried on with our lives

By your accuracy standards only a black haired albino could play her, if you think about it. Not just any white woman.

The problem is a lot closer to home than the change of skin colour...

Sometimes colour blind casting works. Sometimes it doesn't (when kids don't match parents etc) .

What Id like to see is more writing which naturally includes characters of all races, so there are good parts available for good actors of whatever ethnicity.
I'd like to see celebration of history which includes the POC who were there; are their stories never told?

James Bond is like Doctor Who and absolutely can be played by actors of different colours, these characters are modern mythological characters and the story can be changed to reflect modern concerns and issues. I also think with a good script a female James Bond could be an interesting twist.

Could a white actor play Shaka Zulu then, given his race had no impact on his life?

We all know we live in a racist world where there is a long history of white actors using blackface when playing characters of different races. That historic baggage means that kind of 'colourblind' casting is not acceptable because we all recognise it is rooted in racism.

We’re not talking about the things you’ve just mentioned though. Maybe read the thread?

I'm with you OP. I also find it irritating when women play males roles. It doesn't bother me when it's something like musical theatre where everything is so unrealistic anyway. I do think there's a huge dose of liberal middle class white guilt influencing this and it's tokenism at its worst. Invest in some new plays where BAME and female actors can be front and centre. I also note that there is no attempt to ensure working class actors get their chance - this is never mentioned despite class being a much bigger obstacle to success than gender or race (although obviously a black working class female has a harder time of it than a white working class female).

I think it's fine. I see a lot of live theatre (inc period stuff) and I genuinely don't notice it anymore. Ditto gender-blind casting.

I don’t watch Eastenders so can’t comment. However, as a % of the population, if you work it out, Corrie does just fine. The U.K. is a predominantly white country and to say there should be more BAME people than there already are, makes it racist to the white people on the show 🤷‍♀️

My main issue with it is that it glosses over the struggles of people of colour at the time. Are we supposed to just ignore the fact that they were actually dealing with slavery during these period dramas? Are we supposed to pretend like Britain wasn’t a very racist country years ago? Acting like mixed race marriages were normal in the 1920’s for example is just bizarre and it minimises what people went through. It’s like pretending that gay couples were fine to be out in the open in the 50’s, they weren’t. They had to hide and lie and went to prison if caught. It feels wrong to me to pretend that shit didn’t happen.

The lords and ladies also wouldn’t have shagged about, worn bright pink eyeshadow, have had the multitude of bright coloured clothes, have spoken so informally to each other or been so clean… its just a made up story, it can be made up however the writers/producers fancy!

YABU (a lot of the time)
I do get distracted if they have blood family members of different races though. I also thing real figures from history should be cast very carefully.