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.

WOW. I never realised representation of a mixed British family in the media would grind peoples gears so much 😮. Relax, white families are plenty represented in the media, don't you worry.

As I said before there are plenty of us out there, just coz you may not know any. We're not just some sort of PC tick box, but humans too, just like you.

There will be thousands of white baby Jesus this Christmas, Jesus could not have been white though.

There will be thousands of white baby Jesus this Christmas, Jesus could not have been white though.

The established churches are going to be a much, MUCH tougher nut to crack than the British television industry.

Mixed race people are the fastest growing demographic in this country, I can understand why interracial families are being shown more. I am in such a relationship and certainly don't feel we are 'overrepresented', and I don't agree that it is tokenism, it's simply reflecting changes in our society. MN has an incredibly white dominant demographic, and has a shocking number of racists along with it. There are times when I think the actors race matters, but with most things there is nothing wrong with adapting films/plays so that they reflect the diversity in our society now. I am sick and tired of other white people complaining about others getting a tiny portion of the representation they've enjoyed for years.

It is very easy to forget as a white, able bodied person how much seeing people like you reflected in the media has an effect, I am very happy for my mixed race DD that there are far more women who look like her on tv than there were when I was a child. DP and I were very pleasantly surprised with how diverse CBeebies programmes are now.

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

thighofrelief
There should be more scripts for and about PoC rather than shoe horning them in in a jarring fashion that nobody. "notices".

You may think all ethnic minorities live segregated lives, probably in a ghetto somewhere, and giving them a few films as a sop will stop them ruining your television viewing. That doesn't reflect the reality of the lives of most ethnic minorities and thankfully television bosses are not so rigid in their thinking.

I just Googled her image.

A white Brit can look more or less like that.

Anyway, if she can act she’ll carry it off.

There are a lot of things Jesus couldn’t have been, but it doesn’t seem to matter!

You may think all ethnic minorities live segregated lives, probably in a ghetto somewhere, and giving them a few films as a sop will stop them ruining your television viewing. That doesn't reflect the reality of the lives of most ethnic minorities and thankfully television bosses are not so rigid in their thinking.

I was replying to another poster about PoC in British History and how their stories often havent been recorded or shared. So I was saying that they would make good historical dramas amd it would be nice to hear those stories (and create jobs for black actors).

As you know perfectly well @charlestonchaplin because you copied that portion of my comment from a post in which I’d quoted the post i was replying to.

Who cares what ethnic origin a fictional character has unless it's central to the plot?

This is pretty much my opinion. And to previous posters saying I was jumping to call out racism or whatever, I never said it was racism. I said that historical accuracy is a flimsy argument; I stand by this as the film being made is wildly innacurate anyway and the race of the character has no bearing on the actual plot.

I do think it's quite ridiculous to compare this to Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks being played by white people because people are just being deliberately obtuse, because it's quite clear that they have to be played by black people because their stories are ABOUT being black. It's not the same case here, is it? I just found the only argument being historical accuracy to be shaky when historical films are hardly ever properly accurate anymore anyway.

And I'm quite astounded that someone on this thread thinks it's okay to dye your hair black and darken your skin to try and look like a black person. Do we live in the twentieth century? Why is it still okay to do blackface??

A good actor is a good actor

But at what point does it become unbelievable.

I have seen big names in films that have probably got the part because they have the name but are just too old.
A 40+ year old who looks 40+ playing a teenager.

I have seen films and theatre where you are left wondering why did they choose that person other than wondering is it because they need to fill a quota.

My questioning casting decisions are becoming more frequent and it’s not just about the ethnicity of actors chosen.

Saw a production on Broadway a couple of years ago.

The part was for a tall black guy. They cast a tall black guy. But he couldn’t act and this was Broadway. I sat through the play thinking that surely in the whole of the US was this was the best tall black male actor they could find to audition.

I have watched a West End theatre production that has rave reviews. I have also seen a production done by an acting school.
The WE version is very good but there is a certain part that would have been better played by the acting student. Only having seen the audition requirements for that part the acting student was not the ethnicity asked for.

Even adverts have started to have questionable casting decisions.

There is one advert where they have a family of an Indian looking mother, a white father with dark hair, a red haired child and a blondish child.

My family spent the advert trying to work out where these kids came from. So much so we have no idea what on Earth they are advertising

WW, that's probably the reason for the vast over-representation on the Christmas ads but presumably because it sells products. The 82% of white Britains must think ah a mixed race couple shop at Sainsbury's so that must mean the products are better. the ad agenices must have done studies that show if they depict instead white couples they sell less Christmas food. That is why I moved this to adverts as it is a clearer commercial issue rather than who plays whom in plays and films.

They are all good adverts.

www.marketingweek.com/2018/11/06/tesco-christmas-ad-campaign-2018/

Hang on a minute!
It must've slipped your mind that white european actors play the roles of people of colour all the flipping time!

Very interesting how the focus is on me pointing out an inordinate amount of POC/mixed race people in adverts, but NOTHING is beng said about me mentioning the fact that some people go batshit if a white actor is cast as a POC.

Typical cherry picking of peoples posts to suit your agenda.

And

Typical double standards from some people on this forum, and the PC brigade.. All one sided, and accusing anyone who doesn't fall in line with their views and rants, of being bigoted, daily mail readers.

Non white Characters in novels that have been adapted to the big screen are casted as white.

I agree WinterfellWench however there is one section of society that is very very rarely represented.

White post menopausal women.

Recent advert for Volvo about family showed Old gay men, younger gay women, young heterosexual couples and an old man driving with... his grand daughter.

Talk about being airbrushed out of history.

Agree that unless central to the role ethnicity shouldn't matter.

However we went to Streetcar Named Desire at the Royal Exchange in Manchester last year. Maxine Peake was Blanche but they had a black actress playing Stella. Wasn't sure if they were suggesting that they weren't sisters at all as the characters are very different and colour was a big thing in the deep south at that time. If they were just being colour blind then it possibly wasn't the best time.

Thanks @oliversmumsarmy Agree with your posts too. Many good valid points in them.

It seems fine to cast POC to play white people, but not fine when it's the other way around.

POC have been erased from the media for hundreds of years, which is why we get mad when one of the few stories we have about our culture gets a white actor. White people are not erased. White erasure is not a thing, and when a POC plays a white character, whose race usually has no bearing on the plot, they are not contributing to the overall whitewashing that we have in society. Seeing as us POC are getting so many white roles and leaving you all out, despite us still being under represented, would you like to swap? Would you like the erasure instead so you can complain when there's a black actor playing Cinderella or something?

It's not PC brigade to stand up when someone say they think that representing mixed family is just some box ticking agenda, when we are just normal British families going about our daily business and deserve to be represented as well? How would you like it?

I'm with @Tacolover on this. Unless race is central to the plot then it doesn't really matter who plays the role BUT the opportunity to play it must be open to all in the first place. Think of recent transwomen role uproar involving Scarlett Johansson, of course she can do a perfectly good job of playing the character but trans actors would not get the chance to go up for 'women' roles so losing this role as well is just a kick in the teeth.

Ultimately though its just entertainment. People made a big deal about Lucy Liu playing Watson in Elementary, years later no one bats an eyelid about it. She's wonderful in it and that's all that matters.

@tacoLover

Poor argument, doesn't wash.

Very disingenuous

There is one advert where they have a family of an Indian looking mother, a white father with dark hair, a red haired child and a blondish child.

My family spent the advert trying to work out where these kids came from.

Foster children. Adopted. You are pretty lacking in imagination. Advert makers are clearly trying to be more inclusive with their adverts and I see no harm in that but I kind of wish they wouldn't bother. As we can see here, even diversity in adverts (so no problems with historical accuracy) enrages a certain kind of white person. I don't think it's worth the backlash, but then I'm not a struggling black actor. They may really appreciate these jobs to pay the bills.

Predicted outcome......

One rule for one, one rule for another, and the left-wing, PC brigade shouting down anyone who doesn't agree with their views, and calling them 'wrong.'

I'm not going to get into an argument with the LW/PC brigade on here, who will just hit REPORT on anything I say, to get my posts deleted and try and get me banned. So I am outta here. Said all I wanna say, and my points are valid and true. Hiding the thread now.