Can we talk about colourblind casting...

[CurlewKate]

...without the thread descending into a woke/anti-woke stramash?

Obviously it's a great advance that black actors now have access to many more parts than they did- and obviously in most cases it makes absolutely no difference to the play, show, whatever. But I was watching Shardlake,and it struck me that it was impossible that the Abbot of a 16th century monastery in rural England would be black. And that casting black actors in positions of power and influence might well give viewers a completely unrealistic idea of the status of black people in British history, and actually gloss over their struggles. So stylised historical figures, as in Shakespeare where we all know there's an element of fantasy (I recently saw a colourblind Coriolanus that was brilliant),no issue at all, of course. But historical dramas that are trying to represent life in the past roughly as it was-maybe actually unhelpful?

Incidentally, I know that one of the main characters in the Shardlake books is black. But he has a detailed backstory, and the discrimination he faced is part of his life.

This point has hopefully already been made multiple times but most of what we view is unbelievable. That's the point - we want stories, made up or real. So adding what some view as an 'unbelievable' black actor really doesn't make much odds in my opinion. I just don't see the problem when we can accept all sorts of other things.

Tell a story,
Tell it well
With good actors full stop.
Whatever their colour.
And I'm happy.

Thank you very much for explaining this. It's been done before, but as we see, there are still so many people convinced she was black. I blame colour blind casting. 😁

are you saying there are no white actors who could play the part of a historic white figure? This is about DEI and quotas.

I absolutely think if you're upset by a Black British queen but never gave a white Jesus a second thought that you're racist.

Unconscious, it may be but the opinion you have shared is a racist one

Simplistically, just looking at the drama students graduating this year from three leading drama schools AND MAKING ASSUMPTIONS FROM THE PHOTOS

RADA - overall 40%
14 men, 6 of whom are Black, (no Asian) so 43% BAME
14 women, four of whom are Black, one Asian, so 36% BAME

LAMDA - overall 43%
15 men, 6 Black, no Asians- 40% BAME
15 women, 6 Black, one Asian, 47% BAME

ROYAL CENTRAL - overall 47%
Men - 10, 4 Black, one Asian, 50% BAME

Women - 7, three Black, 43% BAME

National data by ethnicity (I have rounded the figs) www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/national-and-regional-populations/population-of-england-and-wales/latest/

White - 82%
Asian - 9%
Black - 4%

So, assuming black and Asian people have no greater or lesser acting ability than white people, these drama schools are taking a highly disproportionate number of people of colour - but ONLY of Black people. Asian people are massively under represented as drama students.

I'm sure drama schools will have a rationale for this.

If my calculations are wrong I will absolutely stand to be corrected.

@Iwanttoliveonamountain how is that racist??

The implication that the only reason that black people get jobs at all is because of quotas etc

actually stuff like that does bother me- as well as people who facially look too modern through makeup or otherwise ...didn't notice any zips in The Tudors though

Sorry for the long quote, but maybe I missed something but what do your statistics prove?

And if it's true that she was then her descendents such as queen Victoria and king Charles are too

I haven't seen Ben Hur (and it's not the sort of book I read and too long!) but it will be of its age, the 50s. I have seen various versions of the gospels, the best is, I think, Zeferelli's Gospel According to St Matthew - can't remember what 'colour' Jesus is (it wasn't important and I think all the parts are played by Italians, who would be roughly the right 'colour' if not quite the ethnicity).
One must judge things in their own time using their moral code. To do otherwise is historically a moral anachronism.
I have seen many portrayals of Jesus as black, a Native American etc. Like WS he is not for an age (ethnicity) but for all time (and ethnicity).

Oh, it may not have even been The Tudors, but they used to be rife in period costumes.

What I’m always amused by (though obviously it’s entirely understandable) is how, if you look at a costume drama from, say the 1950s or 70s, the make up and hair, while purporting to be Tudor England, or pre-Revolutionary France or whatever, will always also look distinctly 50/70s. Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet was very 1968. Olivia Hussey’s hair is pure Nana Mouskouri.

(See also recently Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot in beautifully-applied metallic eyeshadow and blow-dry.)

And yes, I hear you on casting modern-looking actors. I’m baffled as to why Keira Knightley was always being cast in period roles, as she has the most 21st-century face and facial movements ever. She was much easier to believe in, even in in the frankly silly Black Doves, when you didn’t have to try to get past ‘There’s a 21st c woman pretending to be Georgiana Devonshire or Lizzy Bennet.’

Our current moral code is that we should be colour blind. Therefore, a variety of ethnicities should be used.

Not to use the reverse argument as an excuse for racism.

Depends how much you like Elton's view of him. Hilary Mantel obviously liked it as does C.J.Samson (Shardlake novels). I think he was Henry's fixer but Henry got less manageable (all the Tudor usurpers were tyrants) after Cromwell's execution.
What Cromwell's (and Wolsey's) careers show is how much the church was happy to promote men (and women - remember there were many powerful women running priories etc) of low estate, not just the rich and powerful. That route out of poverty was lost with the Reformation - so in a sense, Cromwell was pulling up the ladder of advancement after he'd climbed it! The Elizabethan era is full of young men (there are no longer any places for young women) who are well-educated but come (like Cromwell and Wolsey) from the middling sort (tradesmen whose sons had access to grammar schools and Oxbridge) to not much because there are no places for them to flourish.

We could consider a few things here (this was taught in a media studies / Afro Caribbean module I did at uni).

1. Historically, some aspects of life, which did not require high educational standards (often blocked to people of colour) were seen as slightly more accessible. Hence the range of historical African American singers and artists. Same as with sport. Areas where natural talent could flourish with a little access to success. Still facing racial discrimination of course.

2. While for Black families, the media and sports were regarded as aspirational, for Asian families, they were not. They focused on education, based on the countries they migrated from (large parts of Asia value education above all else). First generation British Asians would not have seen the media as aspirational.

And this is presumably part of the reason why this trend continues.

Well, most people in Britain under Rome were Celts, fair with blue eyes (blue eyes are still predominant). Incomers could be of any ethnicity as Rome did not care about the colour of your skin but about how good a soldier you made, how much money you made out of trade and how likely you were to rebel (and thus end up a slave).
98% of people in Elizabethan England were white, though not always English. There were a few black people about (one is Black Lucy, perhaps Shakespeare's 'dark lady' - certainly his description of her suggests a Sub-Saharab origin). So it's not unreasonable to have only white people in a Tudor story. Peasants' teeth would be mostly ok - no sugar.
I strongly object to visible zips in the Tudors - or I would if I watched this USian nonsense.

Actually I disagree.

It's perfectly possible to be concerned about white jesus but not happy about black queens.

Why?

Because the current debate is about inclusion and what this means and representation and what this means.

A lot of people want to be fairer and have better representation of society with a view to positivity within that.

Then there's inclusion which goes further than that and pushes a different kind of politics which is not representative and raises other questions.

We should be having a conversation about which is appropriate and what the unintended consequences of either approach might be.

And yes, I hear you on casting modern-looking actors. I’m baffled as to why Keira Knightley was always being cast in period roles, as she has the most 21st-century face and facial movements ever.

I'm with you on anachronistic makeup and hair styles but what on earth is a '21st century face'? Afaik there hasn't been any very recent evolution in bone structure. Let alone 'facial movements' (botox aside) ... we don't know how Tudor or Georgian ladies moved their faces do we?

Maybe some of our perceptions of what historical figures should look like is overly influenced by the artistic styles of their time?

Not sure what point you're making.

Pro inclusivity OR representation or not.

Either you want accuracy or you want colour blindness.

I think 'colour blindness' is colour blind tbh.

You are behind the times. Being colour blind is now apparently racist (see BLM) and we should be promoting those who are non-white over those who are white. I do not agree with this at all - the best person should get the job irrespective of ethnicity etc.
What I and many on here take issue with is the playing of historical characters, such as Anne Boleyn, by black actors when the real person was white (or vice versa, of course).
It's another issue entirely whether you can have black actors in Lord of the Rings, which is based on Northern European folk lore, which is all about white people. If you are happy to have Aragorn or Galadriel black then you must be happy for the reverse, IMO. I am not happy for either. A black Elizabeth Bennet is downright stupid in an otherwise all-white cast.
I also spoke of films etc made in the past. We cannot judge their portrayals by any other than the mores of the time when they were made - at which point we may find that they were breaking established codes, not upholding them e.g. they were being anti-racist etc in terms of their own time. That is a valid point about the study of history i.e. we don't judge either Cromwell by our standards but by those of their time.

the best person should get the job irrespective of ethnicity etc. This will just result in white washing.

@Iwanttoliveonamountain
It doesn't "prove" anything but it highlights that drama schools take 10x more black student actors than the ratio of black people in the UK population would predict.

I didn't infer "other" in my summary from the photos.

If drama students were successful in applying to RADA and lamda ( total of 54 students) in the same ratio as the population we'd see

Data Predicted Actual
White - 44. 30
Black - 2. 22
Asian - 5. 2

this paints a striking picture of drama schools selecting more Black students as a percentage of annual cohort and im suggesting this is primarily for commercial reasons as socially we have moved to inclusivity in film tv and adverts ie the call for black actors is far higher than ever before and drama schools are selecting for this market assuming acting talent is equally distributed across all ethnicities.

And this social/cultural demand for black actors (and I mean Black rather than Asian) to appear more on screens and stage can only be achieved by casting a disproportionate number of Black actors to available roles. Resulting in colourblind casting - nothing to do with "best actor for the job".

If you can show me how I'm wrong I'd be very interested in understanding that.

I think your university has got something wrong there - media and sports are great careers young people love them their parents not so much.