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Original poster

To think that racial diversity in film casting has gone slightly bonkers...

501 replies

AngeloMysterioso · 08/12/2018 10:06

When you have an Asian actress playing Bess of Hardwick?

I just can’t see why anyone thought it was appropriate to have such a prominent woman in English history being played by somebody who is Chinese- can you imagine the outcry if an important black woman was being played in a film by someone who isn’t black, or indeed a significant Asian character being played by a white woman? There’d be uproar, and rightly so. And yet, in the new Mary Queen of Scots film we have a white Englishwoman being played by Gemma Chan.

This Chinese author/blogger said pretty much the same thing, pointing out that when Ed Skrein was cast as a fictional Japanese character in Hellboy the public response was so furious that he ended up quitting. And Bess of Hardwick isn’t even a fictional character, she was a very real woman, an ancestor of our current Queen, whose life and legacy are quite remarkable.

I don’t want anyone to think that there is any racism behind this post at all. I think Gemma Chan is a fantastic actress, but I don’t know, there’s just something about it that reeks of tokenism.

OP posts:
Julianaa · 08/12/2018 10:08

Gemma Chan is British. She was born in suburban London. And her mum's from Scotland. ?

OP posts:
Original poster
AngeloMysterioso · 08/12/2018 10:10

Her Mum is Chinese. Her Dad is also Chinese.

OP posts:
SnuggyBuggy · 08/12/2018 10:11

It seems a bit patronising to me. Is tokenism the right word?

TacoLover · 08/12/2018 10:12

It is very different to a white person playing a character who is not because white people haven't been erased from stories and media for hundreds of years. There is no contribution to overall 'white erasure' in the media by having one character played by a person of colour because white erasure doesn't exist. However if a white person were to play Mulan, they would be adding to the already existing erasure of Asian people in our society.

ViragoKnows · 08/12/2018 10:12

Gemma Chan is fab but i dont like this recent approach to casting either.

The next generation are going to have a really skewed view of history and a warped understanding of the struggle for minority rights. So many people learn most of their history from screens.

I’d love to know what Linda Bellos or Trevor Phillips make of it.

scatterolight · 08/12/2018 10:14

Lol at Juliana. By this standard Joanna Lumley can play Indira Ghandi and Richard E Grant could have a crack at Nelson Mandela. And of course literally any white American could play Martin Luther King because they're all born in the same place. I'm looking forward to Chris Pratt delivering the 'I have a dream' speech.

knittedjest · 08/12/2018 10:15

Ghost in the shell one pisses me off because they already made several ghost in the shell movies with a fully Japanese cast which were better than the remake but nobody outraged by the remake wanted to watch those. They were basically wanting Hollywood to take movies away from Japans thriving movie industry and remake a movie that already existed, just in English.

Hisaishi · 08/12/2018 10:15

Well it's a little different because ethnic minorities are massively under-represented in movies. If everything was fair, it really wouldn't matter who played who, but giving a white actor the part of an Asian character is ridiculous when so few Asian actors get cast. It's simply not the same the other way round.

The ironic thing is that Asians in Asia barely notice or care. My (Asian) husband thinks it's hilarious when I get uptight about stuff like Scarlett Johanson being in Ghost in the Shell, he doesn't get it at all. But that's because he obviously sees himself being represented in Korean/Japanese/Chinese etc movies all the time. It's more of an issue for Asians living in the west I think.

It is still an issue though.

ViragoKnows · 08/12/2018 10:16

I do understand the squeamishness around period dramas with all white casts, but the glaringly obvious answer is to commission more original drama or adaptations that will naturally require a multi-ethnic cast.

What was the name of that Tom Hardy aupernatural georgian drama? That was good. The films ‘Belle’ and ‘A United Kingdom’ leap to mind as outstandingly good.

More BAME screenwriters would help. Also more history graduates in television and film.

WhataLovelyPear · 08/12/2018 10:19

The thing is, how far do you go with this? Complain they've cast a tall person when history tells us they were short? Or they're too thin, or too blond or whatever? The only reason you're complain is because race is still an issue for you. Once we've all accepted that people's characters and behaviour are more important than how they look, it won't matter if a British actress with Asian heritage plays a British person with Anglo-Saxon heritage.

On the other hand, I'm glad they kept Demelza's red hair for Poldark because, well, it looks gorgeous and matches the book Hmm so I guess I'm shallow too (and yes, I know Poldark is fiction, but the same argument stands for all the films of Elizabeth I and her red hair).

Hisaishi · 08/12/2018 10:19

"The next generation are going to have a really skewed view of history and a warped understanding of the struggle for minority rights. So many people learn most of their history from screens."

People have a massively skewed view anyway, since minorities are barely visible in most period dramas, despite being in what is now the UK for centuries.

Funny how people only care about that once it's white people being replaced.

Original poster
AngeloMysterioso · 08/12/2018 10:21

ViragoKnows exactly. If it were all a work of fiction (historic inaccuracies aside) then that would be one thing, but these were real people.

OP posts:
thighofrelief · 08/12/2018 10:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ViragoKnows · 08/12/2018 10:22

The thing is, how far do you go with this? Complain they've cast a tall person when history tells us they were short? Or they're too thin, or too blond or whatever? The only reason you're complain is because race is still an issue for you.

You can’t infer that OP has an issue with race because she objects to the casting policy. There are so many reasons someone might find it objectionable.

Instead of bickering about it, we should all be hassling TV and film companies to make more drama about PoC from the past.

Flashingbeacon · 08/12/2018 10:24

Does it actually matter? Isn’t she just acting? Or have they changed the portrayal to say the character is actually a Chinese woman from China? I assume not so she just looks different. Well people look different is the lesson there.
But I am furious when in period dramas everyone has white matching teeth. Completely inaccurate and the should either use actors with missing and brown teeth or insist the actors wear false teeth. Otherwirse children will think universal dental care was always a thing.

TooTrueToBeGood · 08/12/2018 10:25

Why does it bother you? It's called acting. We have gentle, non-violent actors playing death-dealing action heroes, gay actors playing straight characters and vice versa, atheists playing religious icons etc etc etc. I doubt you'd even notice when yet another white western actor is cast as Jesus so why the outrage over this? Why do you see it as deliberate racial diversity and not just an actor being given a role regardless of her ethnicity?

knittedjest · 08/12/2018 10:25

Whatalovelypear

Oh, I've seen many people complain about things like height and hair color. A recent example would be the cast for the upcoming Netflix adaption of The Witcher series. Fans are flipping their shit because Henry Cavill is apparently much too pretty for the main character and the female lead looks too young. People become attached to characters and refuse to view them in any other way once they have that image in their head.

Claire Foy as lisbeth in the girl in the spider web is another one that people hate with a passion.

Original poster
AngeloMysterioso · 08/12/2018 10:25

WhataLovelyPear You don’t know my race or ethnic heritage. Don’t make assumptions.

OP posts:
Hisaishi · 08/12/2018 10:26

"If it were all a work of fiction (historic inaccuracies aside) then that would be one thing, but these were real people.'

So? There are millions of inaccuracies in period dramas. Anne Boelyn was famously plain but they got the very unplain Natalie Dormer to play her. Did you complain about that too?

No. People only complain when ethnic minorities stop being in their little boxes, and for Asian actors that usually means "hilarious ching chong accent guy", "kung fu fighting guy", "studious nerd" "sexy slut exotic prostitute" and literally fucking nothing else.

CherryPavlova · 08/12/2018 10:26

A good actor is a good actor. Their heritage is generally irrelevant unless it’s a genuine requirement (The Help, Roots, The last emporer). To be honest, if it’s well enough directed and acted you hardly notice the colour of the actor.

ViragoKnows · 08/12/2018 10:28

ViragoKnows exactly. If it were all a work of fiction (historic inaccuracies aside) then that would be one thing, but these were real people.

Even with fiction, I think they need to be careful.

We’ll get to the point where we try to tell the children the stories of Learie Constantine or the Bristol Bus Strike leaders (make dramas about THEM FGS) and the difference those people made, and they just won’t get it. Because they'll think that the UK has always been peacefully multicultural and there WERE no struggles.

Original poster
AngeloMysterioso · 08/12/2018 10:28

Weren’t people quite pissed off when the not-very-tall Tom Cruise was cast as the apparently-very-tall-in-the-books Jack Reacher?

OP posts:
Cherries101 · 08/12/2018 10:29

Brown and black people have been around in the UK since the crusades and maybe before. Indian and Chinese people have been around since at least the 1700s. It’s just that British history has by and large ignored us. e.g. Rhiannon and Jones are common Middle Eastern names incorporated into Welsh.

TacoLover · 08/12/2018 10:29

exactly. If it were all a work of fiction (historic inaccuracies aside) then that would be one thing, but these were real people

Do you honestly think there's going to be a load of people being misinformed and taught the wrong history because one Asian person plays a person who was white? I think it's quite obvious that your real concern isn't historical accuracy.