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

[AngeloMysterioso]

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.

I agree. There absolutely should be more representation of people of colour on screen, but it’s odd and unhelpful to have an historical person played by a different race to what they actually were - regardless of what race that is.

@TacoLover I don’t think it’s ‘obvious’ at all.

Angelo

I'm still pissed off about Tom Cruise being Jack Reacher. Like really? really?

BuffaloCauliflower that’s precisely my point.

I knew I’d get accusations of racism for raising the question. It’s a shame that that’s the conclusion some people immediately jump to. It certainly didn’t take long!

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

It would quite nice to see them and their own stories represented on screen, wouldn’t it?

Better than this weird, “colour blind” approach where anybody might be cast as anybody and the same stories get remade over and over again (Tudors, Edwardians, Bronte & Thackery).

How about we just employ the best actor irrespective of race etc?

Glenda Jackson played Lear, the production didn’t flop.

All this attention to supposed correct detail is bollocks anyway. In RL, in history, do you think they had perfect teeth, glossy conditioned hair washed every day, etc?

@TacoLover I don’t think it’s ‘obvious’ at all.

I think when the OP decides that the fucking Ghost in the Shell disaster is the same as an Asian character playing a white person, then cites their reasons as historical accuracy, I think it's quite clear what the actual issue is.

How about we just employ the best actor irrespective of race etc?

Let’s see how that approach goes down when Meryl Streep gets cast as Rosa Parkes. But she’s such a good actress!!

Totally agree, OP. I see that also in that film, Adrian Lester is playing Lord Randolph. What point does this kind of erroneous colour blind casting serve? Apart from it being good publicity for the director? From my point of view as an audience member it's really distracting and yes, reeks of tokenism.

Why does everything have to be political - it's got into every aspect of Western culture and it's really grating. History is history and if you want to make a historically accurate and factual film, don't have black people and oriental people playing the parts of white people or white people playing the parts of black people.

It just makes a mockery of history and is confusing when so much has been spent ensuring certain elements of a storyline are historically accurate such as the clothing or food and then someone is cast who is totally inappropriate for the historical accuracy of the role!

Glenda Jackson played Lear, the production didn’t flop.

That’s just as bad, IMHO.

But if cross-sex, cross-race casting is going to be a thing, theyre more likely to pull it off in the Theatre, where realism isn’t always the aim.

And saying historical accuracy as a reason against it means nothing; nobody is going to watch it and think she was actually Asian in reality whereas when the reverse happens, many think the person in the story is actually white because the erasure of POC in our society is so normalised. Historical accuracy is a very flimsy argument.

Taco

I don't think that. And tbh unless it's a really serious, highly honest and historically accurate replication of events I don't think it matters what race anybody is or what the costumes look like etc. It's up to the screen writer as an artistic approach. If we can have Romeo and Juliet in Malibu with guns and motorcycles we can have anything. Mary Queen of Scotts isn't a historically accurate film anyway, it's a fictional portrayal of what it would have been like if Elizabeth and Mary had a relationship with one another when in reality they never met.

Complain they've cast a tall person when history tells us they were short? Or they're too thin, or too blond or whatever?
I do like an actor's general appearance to be fairly accurate to history, or the book on which the film was based, yes.

It's up to the screen writer as an artistic approach.

Writers don't get consulted much about casting.

@WhataLovelyPear sorry to go off topic, but Demelza was dark haired in the books. Caroline was the red head, and Elizabeth was the blonde.

Demelza was dark haired in the books. Caroline was the red head, and Elizabeth was the blonde.

See? Most people dont read much. Even fewer read around what they've watched. They take what they've seen on screen as “the truth”.

Yeah, I get more annoyed with character being wrong than historical characters. Mainly because they usually buy the rights to characters and that's that characters lot until they remake it or sell the rights. With historical stuff if you don't like how it's portrayed, don't watch it. The next film featuring said figure will be out in a few months anyway.

Heck I would settle for a Scots historical character - Robert the Bruce, Mary Queen of Scots or William Wallace to be played by a Scot. Just once would be nice

I agree that some casting decisions are distracting. For example in Netflix's Lost in Space, the oldest daughter of two white characters is played by a black actress. They don't explain this until a few episodes in, after you have spent a while wondering if she is adopted, if this is going to be relevant to the plot, does it explain why middle daughter is so hostile, etc.

I doubt OP is just saying this because a white person is being portrayed by an asian ... it wouldnt work well for Martin Luther King to be portrayed by a white man ,, think she was just using this as an example and doesnt maker her racist for goodness sake

You say it reeks of tokenism, but what's not to say out of all the actresses who auditioned for the role that Gemma Chan was the best candidate for the job, irrespective of race?

I recently watched Hamilton and the actors playing George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson were black, as were the majority of the cast. These were real people but for me having black actors didn't affect the musical.

Equally there was outcry when they chose a black actress to play the remake of Annie ("she's always had red hair!") But again, I still enjoyed the film, regardless of what race the actress was!

It’s not really any more absurd than Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing Henry 8, though. I can’t think of anyone who looks less like him!

All performances are representations...they can never be precise replications of real people, obviously.

Meryl Streep playing Rosa Parks would be utterly ridiculous (and offensive) because everything Rosa achieved was because she was a black woman. A white woman could sit wherever she wanted on a bus, a black woman couldn’t, which is what Rosa was highlighting.

As far as I am aware, nothing about Bess of Hardwicke only happened because she was a white woman. She could have had the same experiences with raven hair and almond eyes that she had with (what looks like) frizzy red hair.

I get what you are saying, and there are certainly circumstances where common sense must prevail (as with the Rosa example) but I am bot sure this is one of them, tbh.

@TwitToWoo Henry VIII was supposedly quite good looking in his youth, he didn't always look fat and formidable like the famous portrait. It's believed the weight happened later after a jousting accident.

Admittedly, he probably didn't look like JRM though.