Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn

[Bitchysideisouttoplay]

www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9071763/Director-TV-drama-Anne-Boleyn-says-best-person-role.html#article-9071763
Not and AIBU really but what does everyone think if this?
Personally I think if you are making a historical drama/film etc surely you should cast a person as close in looks to the historical figure.
Before anyone says I'm.being racist I'm not I had massive issues with the casting in the Tudors due to Johnathan Rhys Meyers being cast as Henry, he is short, not ginger and really does not look anything like Henry in portraits 🙄🙄

Why do people care about this shit? Was her race relevant to who she was in the grand scheme of things? Probably not.

Of course it was! Do you think that Anne Boleyn would have become one of Henry VIII's six wives if she had been black?!

@Passmeabottlemrjones

Why do people care about this shit? Was her race relevant to who she was in the grand scheme of things? Probably not.

Of course it was! Do you think that Anne Boleyn would have become one of Henry VIII's six wives if she had been black?!

Who knows, really? Why do you care so much?

Who knows, really? Why do you care so much?

Nice try, with the passive aggressive 'why do you care so much ya big racist'. Go back and read my earlier posts if you want.

I guess it depends if historical context matters to you or not when watching a historical drama. As I said, if Anne Boleyn being black is an actual plot line then it could be an interesting twist. Otherwise trying to pretend that people in Tudor times, particularly within the monarchy, 'didn't see colour' is just ridiculous, and like another poster said, would mean they might as well just do it in jeans and T shirt set in New York, and call it Tudors!

Why not have a mainly black or Asia cast in a relevant series that actually depicts the lives of black and Asian people within our history

Plenty of stories about (not sure about Tudor time’s but certainly Georgian and Victorian)

Rather than let’s pretend we don’t see colour so shall cast a black actress to prove this

*Asian not Asia casts

Some really fascinating stories around. Mary Seacole for one this amazingly brave women her whole life is fascinating and one that should be more celebrated (I knew very little of her until ds did a project at school about her)

@Passmeabottlemrjones

Why do people care about this shit? Was her race relevant to who she was in the grand scheme of things? Probably not.

Of course it was! Do you think that Anne Boleyn would have become one of Henry VIII's six wives if she had been black?!

I don't know or care. If she does a good job representing her that is all that matters.

White people have played other races for years and I don't care about that either. It is acting, the whole point is pretending to be someone you aren't.

@Passmeabottlemrjones

Who knows, really? Why do you care so much?

Nice try, with the passive aggressive 'why do you care so much ya big racist'. Go back and read my earlier posts if you want.

I guess it depends if historical context matters to you or not when watching a historical drama. As I said, if Anne Boleyn being black is an actual plot line then it could be an interesting twist. Otherwise trying to pretend that people in Tudor times, particularly within the monarchy, 'didn't see colour' is just ridiculous, and like another poster said, would mean they might as well just do it in jeans and T shirt set in New York, and call it Tudors!

I just wondered why you care so much. I was interested to find out, because I find myself unable to give a shit really 🤷‍♀️ (Obviously I'm posting on this thread so must have some interest i suppose)

They should cast the best actor for the role.

We have very little idea of what the real people looked like, only what the portrait artists made them look like. Casting for looks is a ridiculous idea, anyway. What a person looks like is pretty much the least important thing about them.

I just wondered why you care so much. I was interested to find out, because I find myself unable to give a shit really

Well, as I said upthread, I was pissed off when it switched to Olivia Coleman in The Crown, so there is obviously something in me that cares about this stuff

@bridgetreilly

They should cast the best actor for the role.

We have very little idea of what the real people looked like, only what the portrait artists made them look like. Casting for looks is a ridiculous idea, anyway. What a person looks like is pretty much the least important thing about them.

I think we can be fairly sure Ann Boleyn didn't look like Jodie Turner Smith.

As for 'casting the best actor', that's rather subjective, and let's not pretend it's the only or even the main priority in many productions. For me, if an actor looks nothing like the historical figure they are portraying, that takes me out of the story. Not saying that the actors have to be doubles for the characters, and you're right in saying that we don't really know what they acually looked like, but when an actor looks absolutely nothing like the real person, that is distracting for me.

Cultural appropriation isn’t it?

Why bother with Tudor costumes, sets and figures, then deliberately have a casting which is totally anachronistic and historically inaccurate?

Why not have a series featuring real BAME historical figures? Bet it would be more interesting and relevant than this half baked attempt to re-write history.

Instead of rehashing the same things over again with a historically inaccurate cast and calling it diverse, they should concentrate on real diversity and make some dramas that concentrate on black history in different eras instead of it always being the bloody tudors.

Historical accuracy matters to me - I won't watch it.

I loved roots - I wouldn't watch if white people played the slaves - I mean seriously.

Just create more shows with BAME roles rather than sticking BAME individuals in white roles.

@EverdeRose

Instead of rehashing the same things over again with a historically inaccurate cast and calling it diverse, they should concentrate on real diversity and make some dramas that concentrate on black history in different eras instead of it always being the bloody tudors.

Exactly

I can imagine the outrage is a white actor was cast in a film about Mohammed Ali.

I don't think this is going to work, tbh. She just looks too unlike Anne Boleyn to suspend disbelief for me. I'm quite interested in history and would be watching it in that context, not as a story therefore I would want it to be as realistic as possible.

And the only Anne Boleyn for me is Claire Foy in Wolf Hall

In fictional films, series etc I have no problem with any race being cast, (Lee Jordan being changed from a white boy in the Harry Potter book to a black girl in the film for example) but I really wish they'd at least try and be historically accurate when it comes to things/ people that actually happened/ existed 🤦‍♀️😔

I think many people are assuming that any objection to this kind of casting (putting black or Asian actors in historical roles which, come on, we KNOW were actually caucasian) comes from "not wanting to see non white people on the screen".

It probably does, in the case of some complainers.

But I think there is a more thoughtful reason for objecting to this: it's basically lying about the past, and in particular it is really really telling lies about race relations in the past.

If you have black or Asian actors just randomly playing regular roles in the script while the white characters drift around smiling happily at said black and Asian characters without comment, and being almost preternaturally color-blind, it's telling really big and obvious lies about what people and society were like centuries ago. We know they wouldn't have been like this. People in the 16th century were incredibly prejudiced, openly bigoted, about pretty much every topic under the sun, including race, by modern standards.

It's basically asking viewers to believe "We are in the 16th century, an age when men beat their wives and flogged their children, when servants were spoken to and treated in a manner we would find utterly shocking today, when people who believed in the wrong ideas or followed the wrong religion were put in the stocks, whipped, imprisoned, hanged or burned, AND YET guess what, these unreconstructed bigots just happen to be beautifully race blind and toooootally don't even, like, NOTICE the race of the person in front of them---to an extent which would be quite striking even in people living in 2020! Well, isn't that special?"

It's jarring, it's at odds with everything else about the period, and we know it's bollocks.

How about creating some new, innovative and interesting historical dramas which feature more non-white period, if black and Asian actors want to do historical drama? I can think of about fifty things like that which would make amazing historical series or films. How about a series on the Chinese immigrants who came to Limehouse, and the British women that many of them married? I'd find that a really fascinating subject. And it would be something that felt real and would not involve telling really silly lies about the past.

I was shocked when Dan Snow said he'd told his young daughter that there were women combat fighters in WW2.

Very bizarre, wrong even to my mindset but part of a new way of thinking perhaps?

@Kokeshi123

I think many people are assuming that any objection to this kind of casting (putting black or Asian actors in historical roles which, come on, we KNOW were actually caucasian) comes from "not wanting to see non white people on the screen".

It probably does, in the case of some complainers.

But I think there is a more thoughtful reason for objecting to this: it's basically lying about the past, and in particular it is really really telling lies about race relations in the past.

If you have black or Asian actors just randomly playing regular roles in the script while the white characters drift around smiling happily at said black and Asian characters without comment, and being almost preternaturally color-blind, it's telling really big and obvious lies about what people and society were like centuries ago. We know they wouldn't have been like this. People in the 16th century were incredibly prejudiced, openly bigoted, about pretty much every topic under the sun, including race, by modern standards.

It's basically asking viewers to believe "We are in the 16th century, an age when men beat their wives and flogged their children, when servants were spoken to and treated in a manner we would find utterly shocking today, when people who believed in the wrong ideas or followed the wrong religion were put in the stocks, whipped, imprisoned, hanged or burned, AND YET guess what, these unreconstructed bigots just happen to be beautifully race blind and toooootally don't even, like, NOTICE the race of the person in front of them---to an extent which would be quite striking even in people living in 2020! Well, isn't that special?"

It's jarring, it's at odds with everything else about the period, and we know it's bollocks.

How about creating some new, innovative and interesting historical dramas which feature more non-white period, if black and Asian actors want to do historical drama? I can think of about fifty things like that which would make amazing historical series or films. How about a series on the Chinese immigrants who came to Limehouse, and the British women that many of them married? I'd find that a really fascinating subject. And it would be something that felt real and would not involve telling really silly lies about the past.

I noticed this in the luminaries on the BBC recently when there was racism towards the Chinese workers but none to the main male character

As for 'casting the best actor', that's rather subjective, and let's not pretend it's the only or even the main priority in many productions. For me, if an actor looks nothing like the historical figure they are portraying, that takes me out of the story. Not saying that the actors have to be doubles for the characters, and you're right in saying that we don't really know what they acually looked like, but when an actor looks absolutely nothing like the real person, that is distracting for me.

Yes, same here.

Why bother with Tudor costumes, sets and figures, then deliberately have a casting which is totally anachronistic and historically inaccurate?

Exactly.

And the only Anne Boleyn for me is Claire Foy in Wolf Hall

Her execution scene was just brilliant. She is such a great actor!

Wolf Hall the fictionalised biography ? Wasn't Anne Boleyn born in Norfolk, so how could somebody born in Stockport who doesn't look like her portray her so well? Must have been that she was the best actress to audition. I rest my case M'Lud.

@titbumwillypoo

Wolf Hall the fictionalised biography ? Wasn't Anne Boleyn born in Norfolk, so how could somebody born in Stockport who doesn't look like her portray her so well? Must have been that she was the best actress to audition. I rest my case M'Lud.

You lose your case then.

Foy doesn't have a trace of a Stockport accent - perhaps because she grew up mostly in Buckinghamshire - and we really don't know what people in the Tudor era sounded like at any rate. No suspension of disbelief is required to see or hear her as a member of the landed Tudor gentry. The same is simply not true for Jodie Turner Smith, and you know it.