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.

Glad someone said it so I didn't have to. You can suspend your disbelief that the actor in front of you is playing an entirely different person, but the colour of their skin is so distracting you can't? What kind of weirdly specific limited imagination do other people have!? If it's jarring you just go 'well, that's just the casting choice they've made' and then surely you are over it within 10 seconds? I cannot understand being put off a show by this.

I'm in my 50s. In my Devon primary school, all kids were white. In my secondary school, all kids were white except one, and he only joined when I was in Upper 6th. My 25yo DD was born and brought up in London and can't imagine a society that isn't multiracial. My own experience makes multiracial casting of historical dramas a bit harder to warm to, but often once I'm into the story I don't notice the ethnicity of the actors.

Royal Shakespeare company has been doing this for as long as I've been going, makes no difference to the plot, can't see the issue. Unless the plot involves race, it really is irrelevant what ethnicity the actors are.

Many years ago I saw Lea Sagogna, who's Filipino (and I can't spell!) in Les Mis and when I heard she was playing the part it confused me as I'd seen her in miss Saigon, but once in costume her ethnicity makes no difference to the plot

How many white men who have played jesus have been viciously attacked?

I don’t remember any of the carry on cast being attacked for playing egyptians.

Giving "white" roles to black actors is applauded,

It's attempting to address a historic imbalance and not automatically assume White-as-default.
Or are you referring specifically to roles playing actual people who lived?

Fiction it doesn’t matter, fact it does.

Saying people who are real should only be played by a member of the same race seems a bit much. You make the character look realistic with costume, hair and makeup and the skill of the actor and director, their movements, posture, speech etc. it has nothing to do with race or skin colour.
The person who said it 'wouldn't work' if Lassie was played by a black lab. Why not? Maybe that dog can do the best tricks and is the best to work with on set. The story is about a dog who rescues people. None of that would be lost if it had different coloured fur?!
I have a mixed race cousin who's a very talented actor, and if he were to only be able to take roles of a half Jamaican-half Welsh character that would be ridiculous.

I think sometimes it's brilliant - saw Tybalt played by a black woman at the Globe and she was bloody fantastic. But in a realistic historical piece I don't want Henry VIII played by a black actress.

I genuinely don’t see what difference it makes to the plot if a character is played by a black actor. It’s just something I don’t have the remotest issue with.

I think posters are thinking that the history of Black people in Britain is one of linear progression. That the further back you go in time, the worse off they were and the more discriminated against. It wasn’t like that, there have been ups and downs.

I did follow the Snow White "controversy" with a bit of bemusement. On the one hand... its a fairy take, did it matter. But she is described as having skin as white as snow...

Whereas Ariel... if you look at the actual fish, it makes sense its set in tropical waters, there's tropical fish!!!

One of my top beefs with films and telly is female characters having to be suspiciously attractive and/or suspiciously young compared to their male 'peers'. The whole thing is fiction so why should I care etc but I care because I have eyes and can see the discrepancy.

Fiction doesn't mean 'just make real life up to suit how you'd like it to be'. If there's no realism at all it's hard to care about the characters.

I found it a bit confusing in Wicked Little Letters, because the policewoman was played by an Asian actress, and at first I thought the way she was treated was due to racism, but then I realised that she was actually playing a white policewoman (it’s based on a true story) and the treatment was due to sexism

How do we know though?

Maybe Keira Knightly in Black Doves is a white actor in a black role?

And so on…

One of the best Shakespeare performances I have ever seen was Sophie Okonedo as Margaret of Anjou in a number of the Shakespeare history plays in The Hollow Crown. It would be a real loss if we were deprived of performances like that through an insistence on historically authentic casting.

"Don't even start me on Balamory."

Really? You are concerned that a children's programme which has a mix of skin colours, accents and someone with a disability isn't an accurate representation of the actual mix of people in Scotland? It's almost as if it was a deliberate choice to show children a variety of people , isn't it? Inaccurate bastards!

It is fairly well documented that one of the Roman commanders at Hadrians Wall was black.

Personally colour blind casting is fine by me, thank heavens we are decades past white actors blacking up to play Othello.

Hamilton works (none believes the founding fathers were black and some of the inherent racism is actually highlighted because the actors were black)

Alexander Hamilton came up on a quiz question recently when DH and I were watching telly and it turns out DH genuinely thought he was black because of the musical.

Latest one that really irks me is casting a black actress to play Astrid in the How to Train your Dragon live action movie. A movie which is by all accounts a scene by scene remake of the animation, where all the other major chacters are played by white actors. Which makes sense - because they are Viking ffs. She is unfortunately the very definition of the token black actor.

Part of the reason for colourblind casting is that until very very recently there was a real shortage of good roles for black/brown actors. I welcome the chance to see talented people do their thing, at the end of the day they are all just pretending anyway! I thought the David Copperfield mentioned above was a real joy and it wasn't pretending to be a straight 'realist' depiction anway.

I have no concern about disabilities being featured, that's part of life everywhere.

I live in Edinburgh, a diverse city of half a million residents. I can go for weeks travelling on the buses daily without meeting a black bus driver. Perhaps there are black bus drivers with English accents working on rural routes in Scotland but I really, really doubt it.

I remember watching How To Train Your Dragon 2 and being really shocked that the villain was the only non-white character. He was a big scary brown guy with dreadlocks. So maybe they realised what a horrible mistake that was and are trying to make amends.

I just googled where there any black people in England in the 16th century and
This is what came up

In the sixteenth century Africans started to arrive in England from Spain or Portugal. Some arrived in the entourages of Katherine of Aragon and Philip II, and in the households of Portuguese merchants.

sellymanormuseum.org.uk/news/2023-10-02/black-tudors-free-men-and-women-in-england#:~:text=In%20the%20sixteenth%20century%20Africans,the%20households%20of%20Portuguese%20merchants.

Do you mean in UK history? Because I think you will find that “black and other non white people” have featured “in history” in all parts of the world, and indeed, in some parts of the world have been the major players at all levels of society! 🙂

Do you think that a film about Rosa Parks would still work if it were played by a white woman?