What's your view on Jack Whitehall playing a gay character?

[LyndorCake]

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/13/jack-whitehall-role-gay-disney-character-row-jungle-cruise

People have gone wild on twitter about it.
One argument says that as he is straight, he can't understand the role properly and is taking roles always from LGBTQ+ actors. The other side of that is he's an actor and therefore he is always pretending to be someone he isn't in any role, how is this different?

I can sort of see both sides but curious as to what you think?

I cannot understand the outrage surely the whole point of acting is to pretend to be someone you’re not so there shouldn’t be an issue with a straight person playing a gay person. All this outrage is ridiculous liberals just love getting offended there was also outrage over Dwayne Johnson playing a disabled character even though there aren’t any disabled actors I can name.

Leading lady.

metro.co.uk/2018/08/11/emilia-clarke-gemma-arterton-expose-hollywood-stereotypes-in-leading-lady-parts-7827976/

The saddest thing about the Scarlett Johansson story is that now she has pulled out the story, about a gay woman who worked with the mob, is highly unlikely to be made into a film at all.
The protagonist was not transgender, apart from the fact that she wore a mans suit for business, so can only be convincingly played by a woman who is a good enough actor to pull off the behavioural anomalies one would expect of a woman in those times trying to be taken seriously in a violent men's world. Now the filmmakers (who were undoubtedly getting a good deal on megastar Johansson as she is an old friend) have to find a transman (?) who can convincingly play a woman who was not a transman but wore 'men's' clothes, and be a compelling enough actor to make a small story from modern history into something worthy of the amount of money it'll cost to make.

gay men are much less likely to be cast in roles generally than straight men

You've not met many actors have you? There certainly is still homophobia in the UK, but performing arts is not a bastion of it. I would not argue things are perfect, but I would suggest we are a long, long way past 'gay people for gay roles' and such a policy would be a huge step backwards.

But it's like Scarlett Johansson playing both Asian and trans roles as a white cis woman - I wouldn't automatically see the big deal, but that's because I'm white and cis so it doesn't effect the visibility of my community.

That is different. An Asian role was being removed and replaced by a white role- again. In this case the role remains. There are no physical differences between gay and straight people. It's regressive to see a need to enquire about JW's sex life before he can play make believe.

Note to pantomime producers: good luck casting the back end of a pantomime cow this Christmas.

In all seriousness, how do the superwoke cope with the traditional casting in pantomime - man playing Dame, woman playing Principal Boy?

Ideally gay men should be freely cast in the roles they are suitable for regardless of their own sexuality, but they aren’t. So in the meantime, the least we can do is not give gay roles to straight men.

Maybe the straight men are better actors?

So people have taken the issue over actors portraying other races (which should never ever happen IMO, obviously) and are now transferring this to everything else. There will come a time if this continues where a white straight childless actor from Scotland can only play white straight childless Scottish characters (and to be honest, this is more of a blow for the disabled trans welsh gay guy who can maybe get one role in his lifetime, if he’s lucky).

Representation is important. You need gay (and black, Asian, trans, disabled etc) characters and actors. But to limit an actor to parts that are exactly what they already are negates the entire point of the profession.

Josh Gadd was gay in beauty and the beast he isn't gay it doesn't matter however Jack whitehall is a terrible actor how he gets in things i have no idea he should stick to the stand up imo

Meh, it's twitter, faux outrage is what keeps it going, I remember seeing something about outrage over a gingerbread woman in a skirt, twitter is such a bad, bad cliche.

I’m not bothered, though I think Russell Tovey would have been a better choice, as I think he’s a better actor.

Making the character effete does bother me, as it’s such a lazy old stereotype, but as it’s an unattributed quote, and very early days, I’m not going to get too worked up about it just yet.

Really? Don't show them avatar whatever you do. And for shame if anyone tells them Peter rabbit isn't actually rabbits.

This is stupid and needs to stop. It's a job, he's playing a role. Like other jobs sexuality shouldn't matter.

He has been employed because he is ridiculously camp, and that seems to be what the role is. That Disney's first gay role has been written as ridiculously camp, and probably played for laughs, is the problem here.

It's gone fucking ridiculous! These twats don't seem to understand then nature of acting: ie pretending to be someone or something you are not.

We have idiots proclaiming that a woman can't be allowed to play a trans role, and straight people can't play gay roles, and a character who was asian in a book can't be white or black in a film....where does it end?
Who is going to play Othello, only a mentally ill african-italian soldier?

some of my favourite actors would be out of a job if gay epeople could only play gay people, straight only straight, etc. Eg John Barrowman, Jim Parsons (Big bang theory), Neil Patrick Harris (how I met your mother).

In this,day of self identity, maybe these actors should identify as ‘straight’ for the straight roles, and then identify as ‘gay’ if they want to play a gay role.

Twitter is full of toxic fans. I usually see women like Ruby Rose, Kelly Marie Tran and Scarlett Johansson being criticized the most for this sort of thing.

JW annoys me so wouldn't be my first choice for casting but maybe he smashed his audition?

The key thing is that good actors get the work. Neil Patrick Harris (gay) played a straight guy brilliantly. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal (both straight) played 2 gay guys fantastically.

he's not even a mutant

Best line I've read on MN for a long time
and sums it all up very nicely imo

All this outrage is ridiculous liberals just love getting offended there was also outrage over Dwayne Johnson playing a disabled character even though there aren’t any disabled actors I can name.

Do you not think there might be a reason there are no disabled actors you can name?

That’s completely different.

I thought Heath ledger was awful in Brokeback mountain and was cast because he was Heath Ledger

I didn’t even know he was straight. Why is everyone so bothered about where he puts his penis in his private time, to be able to act in a movie. It could of been in many a tom, dick or harry doesn’t mean we would know about it anyway.

What about Cam on Modern Family. He's straight and I've never heard any outrage whatsoever about him paying that part. In fact, can you think of any other actor who could play Cam like Eric Stonestreet?

All this outrage is ridiculous liberals just love getting offended there was also outrage over Dwayne Johnson playing a disabled character even though there aren’t any disabled actors I can name.

Doing things like getting non-disabled actors to play disabled roles is probably part of the reason why there aren't any disabled actors you can name, though. Because the opportunities that do exist for them go to non-disabled people.

And it's different to people playing someone of a different sexuality to them, because gay people don't intrinsically look different to straight people. There's nothing to actually prevent a gay person playing a straight person effectively. Which is why plenty of them have. Whereas if you're eg paraplegic, you aren't going to physically be able to play a role that requires someone with full use of their legs. The option simply is not there.

Doing things like getting non-disabled actors to play disabled roles is probably part of the reason why there aren't any disabled actors you can name, though. Because the opportunities that do exist for them go to non-disabled people

Or more likely its because disabled people often aren't able to be actors and do the job, simple as that.

Disabled characters often become disabled in films there is noway a disabled actor could become able bodied so that comparison isn't really the same.

There are certainly some disabled people whose conditions would prevent them from being able to act, but it would be ridiculous to suggest that someone who eg doesn't have full use of their legs but is otherwise unaffected can't actually act because of that. It will of course reduce the number of roles available to them, but it won't prevent them playing a paraplegic. Which is kind of the point!

I thought Heath ledger was awful in Brokeback mountain and was cast because he was Heath Ledger

Quite a few ‘1st choice’ actors turned down Brokeback mountain because they didn’t want anyone thinking they might be gay. That’s Hollywood for you, or was back then anyway.