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 🙄🙄

I would really like it if they started making more stuff from Black history and folklore rather than this.

I think everyone would prefer this. Not least because anachronistic takes on historical dramas (regardless of casting) are rarely great. I think we've had enough shit versions of the Tudors, Robin Hood, classical Rome etc to last several lifetimes.

@terrywynne

Out of curiosity, is there a theory about why colour blind casting has been more acceptable on stage? Six and Hamilton but being prominent examples but also loads of examples in regional theatres etc.

Is it because film is designed to feel more 'real where stages make you feel you are watching theatre so you suspend disbelief?

I mean, in the examples you've given, the minute people start singing I remove all expectations of authenticity and then just enjoy the 'spirit' of the performance so the race of the actors becomes almost immaterial. Because one thing I'm pretty sure of was that Henry VIII didn't rap his way through his marriage troubles.

Same with something like Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette where the deliberately anachronistic music/costume etc showed that she was aiming to represent the feeling of the period rather than true historic verismilitude, and as I said above, Merlin with a talking dragon rendered a black Guinevere unremarkable.

Even with 'normal' plays you are already employing a level of fantasy when you "accept" that that painted cardboard wall is actually a house, or those men carrying sticks are really a forest, etc., so you are already accepting a certain level of variance from strict realism, so you can accept that x actor is just 'representing' this character, just like the wall 'represents' a house, etc.

Whereas if it's a 'serious' BBC (or whatever) historical drama that otherwise does appear to aim for realism and the idea is that you are supposed to be completely sucked in to the drama, I suppose you do sort of expect that to extend to everything...which is why people get so excited about pointing out historical anachronisms and missed water bottles etc

@ProfessionalWeirdo

It strikes me as odd that it seems OK to cast a black actor in a white role, whilst a white actor can't be cast in a black role (such as Othello). Isn't equality supposed to work both ways?

Seriously?

Are you about seven years old?

@ProfessionalWeirdo

It strikes me as odd that it seems OK to cast a black actor in a white role, whilst a white actor can't be cast in a black role (such as Othello). Isn't equality supposed to work both ways?

If white and black actors had always had equal access to equally good roles, yes. Given that film and tv have been massively dominated by white people, no.

There is actually evidence that a roman legion got lost in ancient china. They've found some of their old stuff near a place call 'lee jun' or something like that- they supposedly went to fight for the chinese warlords as mercenaries.

Nothing would change in Game of Thrones, for example, if Arya Stark and her family or Daenerys or Cersei were black.

The ethnicities of the books are realistic and specifically worked out. The show did a fairly shit job on the non-white characters but it would require quite a deft hand to make wholesale changes well.

Arya Stark, descended from the first men in Westeros whose family have lived in the icy North for millennia being black would have broken suspension of disbelief for a lot of people. The Targaryens from the East having dark skin instead of the blonde hair and purple eyes might have worked really well and open some interesting possibilities.

We had a Chinese Bess of Hardwick and a black Lord Randolph in Mary Queen of Scots... I thought it was going a bit too far as these were actual people but apparently that makes me racist.

Jodie TS is a fantastic actress though, she’s great in Queen & Slim. I’m also very jealous of her making babies with Pacey Joshua Jackson.

Nobody will top Natalie Dormer as Anne Boleyn for me though, she was perfect.

I really enjoyed the recent version of David Copperfield with Dev Patel, thought he was perfect in the role and it all worked really well. But it’s the “playing a real person” bit that just makes me unsure with Ann Boleyn. Seems quite patronising towards black people apart from anything else - that there aren’t any interesting historical black figures worth having their story told about so let’s make Ann Boleyn black and just not comment on this and not mention anything about what life was really like for black people in those days.

It strikes me as odd that it seems OK to cast a black actor in a white role, whilst a white actor can't be cast in a black role (such as Othello). Isn't equality supposed to work both ways?

White actors don't deal with inequality in the first place, so you're walking into straw man territory with your argument.

@TheLadyOfShallnott

orangecinnamon

So if we get talking in the future when Nelson Mandela or Barack Obama is portrayed by a white man and some say it isn’t right, would you have the same stance and say the racists are out in force?

Don’t be ridiculous.

In their stories, their ethnicity was crucial to what they experienced and overcame. You can’t ignore that and still do a biography of them.

In addition, black actors of both sexes have been offered far fewer roles than white actors while we continue to tell “white” stories most.

In the story of Anne Boleyn, her skin tone is irrelevant to the narrative, although her sex is crucial and a man playing her would be wrong. She was punished for not giving birth to a boy.

@Circusoflove

They keep rehashing the Tudors because people watch it.

Very unfair to performers who aren’t white to be cast out of playing in historical dramas. They’re popular with viewers, they keep getting remade and it’s pointless to say well just make black historical programmes instead, because we all know this would be niche viewing and black actors deserve to be in the mainstream.

I agree somewhat.

Black actors definitely deserve to be mainstream and not relegated to niche viewing because everything will be about skin colour/ethnicity but there are other ways this can happen without changing anyone's history.

Eg: Historical drama not based on real life (they can even base it on a real life story but not make it about the actual story. They could have made this show the same way with the same casts without making it about Anne Boleyn herself or saying that it is), fantasy like Game of Thrones, etc.

Reign was quite far from historically accurate that they may as well have cast different ethnicities to play major roles and nothing would change but they made it about historical figures. I suppose with them, everything but the cast can change.

thevassal the is, that was my thinking though you expressed it better (I hadn't really considered it before this thread). I am fairly certain I have seen versions of the Shakespeare history plays where the actors are not white English but it is just accepted. Where in tv and film it is not.

From what I have read of this series, I suspect the casting is going to be far from the only inaccuracy.

I suspect we don't see dramas about made up characters because they know people are more likely to watching it is about Anne Boleyn or another popular figure (even if the story is then so altered it might as well be fiction)

I wish there was a way to petition for shows about interesting Tudor people not called Anne, Catherine, Jane or Henry. Or other time periods.

@terrywynne

Out of curiosity, is there a theory about why colour blind casting has been more acceptable on stage? Six and Hamilton but being prominent examples but also loads of examples in regional theatres etc.

Is it because film is designed to feel more 'real where stages make you feel you are watching theatre so you suspend disbelief?

Gad a same thought and I think it is that.

@user1471565182

There is actually evidence that a roman legion got lost in ancient china. They've found some of their old stuff near a place call 'lee jun' or something like that- they supposedly went to fight for the chinese warlords as mercenaries.

I’ve heard about this but it’s fake and just promoted by locals for tourism. There’s scant evidence for it (but it does give some character to a place that’s otherwise pretty unremarkable)

@Raceless
Why only "black actors"? I asked above, where are all the Asian actors?

I’m with the ‘enough of Tudor times, there are other historical periods with good stories’.
greaterdiversity.com/englands-first-black-queen-sophie-charlotte-born-1744/

CrotchBurn

How come asian actors never get a look in when it comes to boosting diversity?

The fact this comment has been ignored says it all.

I have actor friends who are of Asian and SE Asian origin and there is beginning to be some grumbling about only one race being boosted in the name of "diversity".

It's not diverse at all.

Care to help make it so then? Why don't we start campaigning for Asian actors as well...separately. That's a good idea.

I doubt "one race" would be boosted if they didn't fight/shout the loudest to be heard.

I may be wrong but I haven't noticed Asian people doing so, at least to the extent Black people are. If anything, it's been more of a recent "Oh Black people are finally being heard. Hey what about us?! We also need x,y,z" (Nothing wrong with that, just trying to answer the question).

Why only grumble, as if jealous of what others are receiving (which wasn't just handed to them)? Why not do more than that?

Of course I could be wrong and there's a different reason.

It's annoying that producers continue to only tell very Eurocentric stories, but no, of course black actors should not be excluded.

If you want historical accuracy, watch a documentary, not a drama.

I agree with many PPs that more historical dramas should be made about black and Asian people/places, then we wouldn't have to have this cringey debate.

If white and black actors had always had equal access to equally good roles, yes. Given that film and tv have been massively dominated by white people, no

Well, Britain until recently was pretty much just white people so this is really unsurprising. The odd historical person here or there does not really change demographics.

Nowadays, of course they should strive to be more inclusive. I’d prefer more original stories though instead of this kind of crap

Considering Asians are the biggest ethnic minority in the UK by quite a big stretch I think the bigger issue is actually why Asian actors are almost completely absent, and why black actors take precedence over them when it comes to increasing diversity. The fact that this happens makes me definitely take the cynical view that this casting of Anne is riding the coat tails of BLM and is a publicity stunt.

I think Asian actors are completely pushed to the side, usually cast as medics. Occasionally you'll get an Asian woman cast in a leadish role, but you can forget about having an Asian man in one a la Luther

@CrotchBurn

Considering Asians are the biggest ethnic minority in the UK by quite a big stretch I think the bigger issue is actually why Asian actors are almost completely absent, and why black actors take precedence over them when it comes to increasing diversity. The fact that this happens makes me definitely take the cynical view that this casting of Anne is riding the coat tails of BLM and is a publicity stunt.

I think Asian actors are completely pushed to the side, usually cast as medics. Occasionally you'll get an Asian woman cast in a leadish role, but you can forget about having an Asian man in one a la Luther

Loads of British people take social cues from America. They’ll deny it but its true

Many moons ago, I studied and wrote about how cultural output (books, plays, paintings, film) related to historical events changes ie: which events and people get focused on, how they are depicted etc in response to broader social, political and cultural trends. It was actually really interesting and this thread direcrly ties into.

Looking back from the future, why did we have such an obsession with the Tudors? Was it just market driven or is it to do with the themes and how they relate to 20th/21st century life? And how do debates around casting relate to other events and movements going on?

By the way the other day I watched the Haunting if Bly Manor (Netflix series). Sone appalling fake accents there (particularly the cringe worthy Lancashire accent done by an American) but honestly some great acting.

I think they did diversity in that show really well, and I was really impressed by T'Nia Miller. I'm glad they are opening up roles, in that show two of the lead women were black (out of a total of five), and one of the three romances were between BAME characters.

[quote CrotchBurn]@Raceless
Why only "black actors"? I asked above, where are all the Asian actors?[/quote]
Actors in David Copperfield include:
Divian Ladwa
Dev Patel
Peter Singh
Phaldut Sharma
Benedict Wong

@heyjude12

Maybe if we want historical accuracy we should stop portraying jesus as white with blue eyes?

And blonde hair.

Whitewashing has been going on for ages. Don't blame the reverse but
it all needs to stop. We have a lot more stories to make up than trying to overpower and annihilate each other's histories.