AIBU to think gay roles for gay actors

[SqueakyCarrots]

Is basically pushing people to out themselves?

In what other career would it be ok to question people’s sexuality? What if the actor isn’t out or doesn’t want to be? What if it’s a teenage role and a teen actor- how can it be ok to question a child’s sexuality? What if the person themselves doesn’t know yet? How would they be expected to prove it? And wouldn’t pretending to be lgb something some would fake to get a role?

Sure there’s a need to address those who feel discriminated against because of their sexuality within the film industry. Sure it would be great to look at how gay people are represented in films, narratives that aren’t stereotypical or insensitive. But the idea that gay roles should only ever go to gay actors seems to be on every social media feed and I don’t see any concerns about it in response.

I assume that gay actors wouldn't be able to play straight characters then?
Indeed
'How j met you mother' and 'BBT'wouldn't be he same!

The chosen actor should be the one who can best portray the character.

A character's sexuality is only one aspect of them as a person. Say, the character was gay and had recently experienced a tragic loss in their life - it might be that an actor who had experience of loss but was straight, was better able to portray that character than a gay actor who hadn't had that experience. Or it might be the other way round.

Ultimately it is acting - while an actor's life experiences might enhance their ability to play similar roles, actors exist to portray characters, not simply to be themselves.

Hasn’t the controversy around this always been the other way around ie gay actors not being given straight parts and thus discriminated in a profession designed to pretend and entertain?

It’s why so many don’t come out, because it holds back opportunity. You only have to look at blind gossip to see how many people hide their sexuality to ensure the roles keep coming. And it’s utterly tragic.

The point of this is that straight actors aren’t discriminated against in the industry on account of their sexuality and are offered parts playing both gay and straight characters, whereas LGBT actors often get turned down for straight roles because of stereotyping around their sexuality. Suggesting that jobs playing gay characters should go to gay actors where possible means that they aren’t being pushed out of the industry even further e.g by having a straight actor like James Cordon who could get work anywhere playing a role that a gay actor could have taken up.

Aren't there already about three other threads about this?

How about we all stop caring what people do in private and at home when selecting them for a job?

If an actor is worth the name, they'll tell the story with enough skill to make it make its mark. If they're not, they won't. Accordingly, decent actors won't take a role they don't feel they can deliver on and engage with, and casting directors work hard to find actors who 'fit' roles.

I think this is one of those bits of manufactured controversy that's not really about what it appears to be about.

First of all, gay and lesbian actors still face a lot of discrimination. You can point to Jodie Foster, Zachary Quinto, Luke Evans, or Neil Patrick Harris all you want but there are still loads of gay actors who get turned down for parts simply because they are gay. You'd be surprised how homophobic elements of the casting and TV production industry still is.

By starting a debate from a position where the majority of people will go 'no that's ridiculous, a good actor's a good actor' then it helps to shed light on the fact that the opposite position is similarly ludicrous; hopefully, levelling the playing field for gay and lesbian actors.

After all, if we don't think it's right that only gay actors should play gay parts then by extension it's not right that only straight actors should play straight parts.

The other thing is about shedding light on an empathy gap. Davies has a new drama series coming out about HIV and AIDS in the 80s. At the time, the growing health crisis was ignored for years because people were uncomfortable with discussing sex and sexuality in public. Indeed, gay men particularly were othered and blamed for the spread of HIV, while straight people were smugly told (by The Sun) that they couldn't get it through 'straight sex'.

So what better way to get people in 2021 thinking about how gay people were marginalised, ridiculed and ignored over HIV than to start a somewhat spurious argument about actors? Plenty of people posting a response to this, whilst correct in certain specific terms about acting qualifications, are showing themselves to be entirely ignorant of how gay and lesbian people's lives and experiences differ from straight people's. And this is how the HIV crisis grew to become what it became.

Suggesting that jobs playing gay characters should go to gay actors where possible means that they aren’t being pushed out of the industry even further

But doesn't it also further embed the stereotyping?

I do think that if a non-diverse person has an opportunity to publish a diverse book, or play a diverse character

How on earth can an individual person or character be diverse or non-diverse? Diversity is a property of groups not of individuals.

Is it pressurising people to come out though?

My 17yo DD was gobsmacked that a Sia song was on the radio this morning because she thought she’d been (rightly in her opinion) CANCELLED for being ableist.

I looked it up, and it’s because she didn’t cast an actual non verbal autistic teenager in that role in her new film.

The world has gone fucking loopy. But DD was really angry that Sia was allowed airtime after her heinous crime so this attitude is really pervasive with the young.

@YippeeKayakOtherBuckets

My 17yo DD was gobsmacked that a Sia song was on the radio this morning because she thought she’d been (rightly in her opinion) CANCELLED for being ableist.

I looked it up, and it’s because she didn’t cast an actual non verbal autistic teenager in that role in her new film.

The world has gone fucking loopy. But DD was really angry that Sia was allowed airtime after her heinous crime so this attitude is really pervasive with the young.

No. its because Sia made no attempt whatsoever to engage with the autistic community apart from a highly controversial organisation who recommends what amounts to conversion therapy. Autistic actors ARE routinely discriminated against and many would have been capable of playing the role. Maddy's portayal of Music (& I don't blame Maddy at all, she's a child) was highly inappropriate, and reinforces all kinds of stereotypes.

Well I haven’t seen the film and probably won’t but the whole ‘x roles for x people’ as a hard line is absolutely nonsensical.

My daughter is very angry about the Sia film but she doesn't feel the same about the character Abed in Community despite the fact that as far as we are aware the actor doesn't have autism. But you can tell by how everything is handled that someone close to the production does (turns out to be the creator of the show).

Hmm, tricky one this... wasn’t there an outcry when a stage play of Harry Potter cast Hermione’s character with an actress who wasn’t “white and Caucasian”?
I personally was really pleased when the play went ahead with her anyway, as it’s down to the quality and believability of the person acting.
So any actor could be chosen to play any character, whether or not they have the same sexuality as that character, and I don’t believe it would be at all “outing” (other than - spoiler alert - the actor can act)!

Gay actors play straight roles and vice versa - it's called acting.

Identity politics is the road to ruin.

It's like a slow motion car crash in our culture at the moment as all the groups collide with one another fighting for their rights and virtue - I just hope they hit the reality wall soon so we can all get on with being just people

If you're a gay actor who can't get a role, in 2021, it is NOT because you are gay. It's because you're not good enough, or you're going for the wrong roles, or you don't have the experience, etc. It may have been the case in earlier times, but now...not a chance.

@Notjustanymum

Hmm, tricky one this... wasn’t there an outcry when a stage play of Harry Potter cast Hermione’s character with an actress who wasn’t “white and Caucasian”? I personally was really pleased when the play went ahead with her anyway, as it’s down to the quality and believability of the person acting. So any actor could be chosen to play any character, whether or not they have the same sexuality as that character, and I don’t believe it would be at all “outing” (other than - spoiler alert - the actor can act)!

That was just a silly storm in a teacup. As JK Rowling pointed out, there is actually nothing in the books that specifies Hermione's ethnicity. She is described as having curly brown hair, which could be true of someone mixed race at least (I can't remember exactly what the book says, but I do remember a Twitter thread by a black man who said he'd always pictured Hermione as black anyway, and had been surprised as a child to see Emma Watson playing her!).

As for the OP question, I agree with most MNers that acting is acting.

@YippeeKayakOtherBuckets

Also the ‘autistic community’ tends to be made up of blue haired self diagnosed woke twenty somethings, rather than the parents and carers of actual non verbal disabled young people.

There’s a world of difference between non verbal autism and the raft of ‘I sometimes take things literally’ self diagnosed millennials.

🤷‍♀️

I'm reporting this VILE post. How dare you.

Do you know how difficult it is to get an asd diagnosis? And how much discrimination autistic children, young people and adults face?

How many times they are told you don't look autistic, or everyone is a little bit autistic (no they are not, its a spectrum you are either on it or you are not).

Isn’t it contradictory to be, on the one hand, promoting colour blind casting, yet on the other insisting actors can only play parts that align with their sexual preferences?

It’s acting, not holding a mirror to real life.

I don't think that any actor should be asked to disclose their sexual preferences, every.

My daughter has no sexual preferences whatsoever. Along with her autism she may as well just give up now ever getting cast in anything.

Why’s it vile? You know exactly the cohort I’m talking about so don’t be disingenuous.

It’s incredibly fashionable among my kids’ friends to identify as autistic, or adhd.

I’m not talking about people who genuinely struggle and then have a lightbulb moment. Or who have self diagnosed based on actual symptoms because the dx process has failed them.

I’m talking about young people pathologising their very normal behaviour and feelings and claiming an identity.

And then being very vocal about it and claiming offence at every slight transgression of the rules they themselves have decided on.

If every single teenager I know who identifies as autistic actually is, then autism has something like a 75% incidence. It’s the current fashion (along with being Queer, which often goes hand in hand and is similarly meaningless).

YippeeKayakOtherBuckets I was thinking of the Sia thing too- she cast Maddy Ziegle as an autistic teen and Twitter exploded with everyone telling her she needed to fire her and hire someone who had autism. The abuse over something that sounds like something well intentioned was unbelievable. I dont know where I stand on any of this, as people say above acting is acting, but then you do look back and see how white, straight, able bodied, slim, beautiful and privileged the acting community is