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.

I agree, @PhotoDad and I am heartily sick of the Tudors.

I agree.

I'm reading the "Dark Tower" series by Stephen King at the moment. A key piece in it all is how one of the key characters, Susannah, who is black and despises white men due to past experiences of racial discrimination, interacts with the main character, Roland, who is a white gunslinger/cowboy type.

When casting for the part of Roland they chose...Idris Elba??

Don't get me wrong, he's a brilliant actor, but the racial element is mentioned frequently in the book, and there's a whole character arc that Susannah goes on wrt how she views and feels about white men. Why then cast the main character as black?

Colour blind casting is ridiculous. Especially like Anne Boleyn being played by a black actress. 🙄

Imagine if they cast Leonardo DiCaprio in the role of Martin Luther King. Or Margot Robbie as Rosa parks?!! 'Well, it's just colour blind casting/it's only acting la la la!' Yeah right! The shit would hit the FAN! It would never happen!

Time to create more roles for black people/POC. Good, NEW, strong roles for them, (if they can't find anything where they can play a POC.) Why cast them into roles where they are playing historically white people, or put them in a programme/play/film that is set in a time and a place where there could not possibly have been POC. It's ludicrous, it's tokenism, and it's box ticking.

Why does any POC want to play someone who was quite clearly white anyway? If I was a POC and I was asked to play fucking Florence Nightingale or something, I'd tell them to fuck off LOL!

It's even a bit annoying if it's a fictitious character. Like The Equaliser was played by Edward Woodward (a white man) originally. They have brought the show back several decades later, and the new Equaliser is a black woman. Just feels very PC and tokenistic.

As for Idris Elba playing James Bond, when someone asked him about this on a TV interview he basically laughed and said 'don't be ridiculous. I would never play James Bond. I am as far away from Bond as any actor could be!'

Just as Mulan shouldn't have been speaking and singing with an American accent...

Seconded! Lea is incredible.

I’ve been having this debate with my teenage DD this weekend. We went to see a play a couple of days ago and the sisters in the play were different races. It really bothered my DD and she has been very vocal about it. She said it completely ruined the play for her. I honestly didn’t see the issue. Both actresses were amazing. Actors should be cast for their talent in my opinion, their race shouldn’t matter. But my DD hard disagrees. In her view, the play was set in the Deep South and the sisters were from a family of plantation owners. She felt that they absolutely both should have been white for the play to make sense.

@CarmelaBrunella "
"Pretty shit if the only dramas and representations our children see on TV are black actors reduced to playing 'slaves' or 'the help'. What does that teach them? Never mind the black children watching "

Well, if we 're talking about a time when in the UK that's mostly what they were, then it teaches them a realistic version of how their ancestors were treated and the obstacles they overcame. And that they have come a long way but there is a long way still to go. Rather than presenting a world where Britain is presented as a progressive haven.

How do you know it’s not realistic? Were you around during Viking times to observe the inter-relationship between human and dragon?
I think not.

Hi @CurlewKate . You've got the wrong poster.

I am actually in agreement with the points you have made.

Well yes it SHOULD be an accurate representation of what life is like in rural Scotland. I'm baffled that you don't think it should be.

Many people were furious when the film Notting Hill was released, and there was not a single POC featured, just middle class white people. Because the area houses a LOT of POC.

So yeah, if something is made in rural Scotland where they are very few POC, then of course it's perfectly OK to not feature many POC. Ridiculous to suggest otherwise.

I look forward to the first white Martin Luther King or Michelle Obama.

I can kind of see her point, actually. I don't think that they should necessarily have cast a different actress, though. What they should have done is have a story to explain why the one actress was black. It could have been implied that she was the daughter of the plantation owner who had raped a slave, or if she was fully black, that they had adopted her. If it was actually about a plantation, then colour blind casting doesn't really work imo.

Very few people would understand the dialogue if they sounded as if they were of the time.

Especially if we go back further than about 1860 and outside London.

Ah yes, I see your point. I should have mentioned that one of the sisters was played by an actress of Indian descent (if I had to guess), not black. So clearly just colourblind casting as opposed to a potential plot twist. Which is why I think my DD is being unreasonable.

It’s also a very famous play, so everyone knows they’re full sisters in the play.

Yes, this. I love the shardlake books and as others have said, one theme running through the books is how Guy is othered, made to feel an outsider, how that impacts on him, how people around him react to him etc.
And it means that presumably the racism experienced by Guy isn’t really featured as much in the tv show? Feels like those issues are being swept under the carpet. I guess the trade off is that it makes a better variety of roles for excellent actors, which is good.

FWIW I loved the David copperfield - everyone was a mix so nothing seemed out of place, as it were. And the Shakespeare plays etc - all great ways of challenging and bringing a much wider choice of roles to good actors. It’s where it basically erases a storyline and accurately researched historical commentary that it feels less wholly good.

In general, I don't think it matters. Bridgerton is deliberately meant to be an alternative take on history, it's a "What if?" story. Halle Bailey was amazing as The Little Mermaid. I think it's great that little girls of all colours have role models that look like them.

However, it doesn't always work. My Mum went with some GCSE students to see An Inspector Calls recently and is now trying to correct the belief that 1912 was a time of harmonious multiculturalism. The lie that people of all colours and creeds could be wealthy throughout history- from the Importance of Being Earnest to Anne Boleyn- devalues the real histories of POC and how they were treated imo. It's pretending that white people were better than they were.

Why can't we have more stories featuring POC playing roles they would actually have been in? The Mill was brilliant for that, it had several black characters and represented the struggles they, and the people who got close to them, had.

This ^

Why does any POC want to play someone who was quite clearly white anyway? If I was a POC and I was asked to play fucking Florence Nightingale or something, I'd tell them to fuck off LOL!

Or suggest they focus on Mary Seacole, maybe, if you want to keep the job?

Because that's one of the points: whose stories actually get told, and then cast to type?

(Most actors can't afford to tell people to fuck off, not until they are extremely successful)

I think that it's always ok to switch something off if you're not enjoying it, and that includes thinking an actor isn't right for the part. I don't think the fact that a black actor is playing a white person means that the actor is wrong for the part but you're welcome to disagree.

Thanks, @MrsSunshine2b - that's been my main point. It denies the struggle for basic rights that so many people were denied.

Oh, I now know what you mean. Is it the one with Paul Mescal? Yes, I agree with you, in that case.
Fun fact, I actually played Blanche DuBois in my end of year school play (I'm mixed Black and white) I got a standing ovation! That may just have been people being 'woke' (or pc as we said back then) but I don't think so. I felt amazing when I played the role.

I could understand the casting of Anne Boleyn to a certain extent in that AB was considered as an outsider in Tudor England. However, on another level it concerned me because AB has always been understood to be manipulative and to a degree somewhat immoral and I think that collided with the intention and made the casting inappropriate.

To me miscasting actors in historical dramas is exactly the same as using inaccurate clothing or scenery. It is also all one way not evenly split

@SammyScrounge "
"I look forward to the first white Martin Luther King or Michelle Obama"

Yes-because white people havw always struggled for representation in the Arts...

My DS (who is white) once played Puck to a black Oberon. It added an interesting extra layer to the power dynamic.