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?

someone who eg doesn't have full use of their legs but is otherwise unaffected can't actually act because of that

i don't think you understand what being paraplegic means because you are not "otherwise unaffected". Its not a matter of just not being able to walk.
And how many parts do you think there are for people who are paraplegic all the way through a story line, and how many trained or talented actors who are paraplegic and able to maintain the physical difficulties of acting roles?

John Barrowman didn't get the role of Will in Will and Grace because he wasn't gay enough, so they gave the role to Eric McCormack, who is straight.
Neil Patrick Harris makes a hilarious 'Don Juan' figure in How I met your Mother but he is not (shock!) heterosexual.
I don't really follow the side bars so don't know who is gay or straight unless they have a big wedding and end up on a front page.
Until hearing of the twitter twittering I hadn't given any thought to if Jack Whitehall is gay or straight. I do know he isn't a teacher though, and he played one in that Bad Education film, at a time when lots of teachers are trying to get out of teaching and find alternative employment, possibly in acting. Selfish Bastard.

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

Bullshit. There are plenty of disabled actors, just as there are plenty of disabled people who work in other jobs. Utter bollocks.

There aren't plenty actually. There are statistically very few

Urgh really Echo well I will forgive heaths mumbiling because the rest of the cast were great

And how many parts do you think there are for people who are paraplegic all the way through a story line, and how many trained or talented actors who are paraplegic and able to maintain the physical difficulties of acting roles?

Us not knowing is kind of the point, you do realise? That we won't know if they're never brought to our attention, and they won't be if they never have the opportunity to play the only roles that are open to them.

It is within the realms of possibility for a person to being paraplegic and not suffer other problems that would stop them from being able to act. But if you don't like the paraplegic example, feel free to use another type of disability. Unless of course you're suggesting that literally no disabled person would be capable of taking on any kind of acting role, ever? Which is the sort of extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.

Well that would depend on what you’re classifying as disabled, I suppose. If you’re talking about para/quadriplegic there are few, but there are plenty of actors with other disabilities (CP, deaf, blind, dwarfism, DS, and so on). The fact that they’re rarely cast even when a disabled part comes up is the issue.

For example, there was a film released about 10 years ago called Tiptoes, where Gary Oldman played a character with dwarfism. Are you saying an actor with dwarfism would have been able to play that role?

Obviously it depends on the budget of the film but if they can convincingly take off someone's limbs I suspect they could convincingly put some on for part of a film if required. I think that the discussion around sexuality is quite different to the discussion of race or disability.

Maybe Peter Dinledge was busy Tammy

I honestly think some people will be offended by anything.
The point of acting is it's acting as someone else.
I think Josh Gad was fab as LeFou in beauty in the beast and do not think for a second Luke Evans should have played him instead of Gaston because he's gay
I'm no real fan of Jack Whitehall but he's probably got the role because he's quite camp anyway.

Ah, the Twitterati. What would we do without them.

TammySwansonTwo Mon 13-Aug-18 16:23:18
For example, there was a film released about 10 years ago called Tiptoes, where Gary Oldman played a character with dwarfism. Are you saying an actor with dwarfism would have been able to play that role?
I'd say almost certainly yes, an little actor could have played that role, given that all the actors who played the rest of his family were little people...whether the film would have been a success without him is a different question.

Peter Dinklage was in Tiptoes.

Is the new expression woke for the being offended by nothing everything I have just heard that the other day are these people not exhausted with all the handwringing. Oh and i just googled that tiptoes film it looks so offensive no wonder it went straight to DVD

I'm assuming that those who think only gays should play gay roles are then equally happy that only straights play straight roles? IMO that would be not only wrong but ridiculous and many excellent performances would never have taken place.

As for Whitehall, I don't care one way or the other.

Agree sexuality is different to race because there just isn't a physical element there. Even if they want someone who's normal persona is camp, that's not a trait restricted to or indeed universal amongst gay men.

Didn’t see anyone complaining about Matt Bomer in Magic Mike

Anyway we are talking about sexuality not disability they are not the same comparison.

I cannot believe the outrage over this, It is acting, playing a role that is not yourself is kind of the point...

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet play husbands in Modern Family, but one is gay and one is straight. I don’t think there has been any issue with it, and certainly Jesse Tyler Ferguson who is very involved in lgbt issues doesn’t seem to have an issue with his on-screen husband being played by a straight man.

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.

There's a book called Maybe the Moon about an actor who is a small person and the challenges getting hired. It's really good. Although Peter Dinklage has ruined that for now.

It’s very different to an able bodied actor being cast in a disabled role because a disabled person potentially wouldn’t be able to play an able bodied role. A gay actor conversely would (unless they aren’t a very good actor!) be able to play a straight role so I can’t really get worked up about it.

Anyway we are talking about sexuality not disability they are not the same comparison

Absolutely.

Actors are pretending to be people they are not. Isn't that the point?