Casual racism or AIBU

[Kooksadooks]

Hello. I have a lot on my mind today but hope you are having a nice New Years Eve…
We (me, DP, MIL, FIL, DS ect) were sat around the TV over Christmas period.
The Channel 5 advert featuring Anne Bolelyn played by black actress Jodie Turner-Smith comes on and MIL starts complaining that she ‘doesn’t understand all this’ and ‘Anne Bolelyn wasn’t black’ and doesn’t understand ‘why white people cannot play black people’…
I bit my tongue, I appreciate that I am surrounded by people who agree with her and there’s no point in arguing with them about what I think, also not wanting to cause drama over Christmas but AIBU to feel uncomfortable at MIL’s comments?
I mentioned it to DP afterwards and he agrees with MIL

@sst1234

But Ann Boleyn wasn’t black. It’s historically inaccurate to have a black actor play Ann Boleyn. This is the same nonsense as having a female James Bond - he wasn’t written as a woman. It’s just embarrassing virtue signalling to do this sort of stuff. Have stories of real black people ceased to exist? Is it impossible to write a story starting a real female spy? It’s actually racist to give minority and female actors the crumbs off the table, because it implies their own stories are not worthy of being told. It’s not racist to call out this nonsense.

This 100% this. Netflix seems to have lots of new stuff that has a much more diverse range of people.

“also found one 'academic' article where someone was arguing that she was actually black”

It would be white washing to the extreme if that was the case. A quick google tells me there are no portraits of her from her life but we do have a death mask and some painted soon after death which do not show her to be non European.

I do wonder what point the casting makes in choosing Anne Boleyn to be black - as the first queen to be executed and historically being seen as a divisive figure and a social climber - it seems to be bringing race into what was already a charged environment with divisions about religion, nationality, class, dynasty, status and sex all already in play somewhat diminishes the point. Henry did not chop her head off because he was a racist but because he was a sexist womanising self centred power mad king who in making himself head of the church now had no higher power to answer to. She had come from a relatively lower status family and her father exploited and sold his daughters for power - Had she been a foreign royal she would have lived.

It was a creative decision, and a bloody brilliant one because she was fantastic.

I do understand the re-enactment purists, but that's less about race, and more about accuracy. However, this story had nothing to do with race, and was a piece of creative fiction.

On the flip side, I don't think having white people playing Malcom X, the Obamas, etc, because the central tenets of race are really important to the characters, be it historic re-enactment or creative work.

quick google tells me there are no portraits of her from her life
There is a coin, which can reliably match up one or two contemporary portraits.
One of the reasons for the lack of portraits was that Henry and families who had images of her destroyed them as didn't want to be seen to be supportive of her.

Queen Elizabeth 1st had a miniature of her that she kept in a locket, which I think is quite bittersweet as even though AB was thoroughly taboo even in E1 reign she still missed her mum.
One of the most sad details of Anne's story is that she insisted on breastfeeding Elizabeth. It was generally assumed royal mothers would use a wet nurse. I feel desperately sad that Henry broke that mother daughter bond and orphaned his own child. Monster.

Her mother.

On the flip side, I don't think having white people playing Malcom X, the Obamas, etc, because the central tenets of race are really important to the characters, be it historic re-enactment or creative work

So would it be ok to have a white European woman play, let's say, Nerfertiti these days?

quick google tells me there are no portraits of her from her life

There are no surviving contemporary portraits of Richard III either. Maybe he was black as well.

I can't believe they have yet more TV shows about the Tudors. Regardless of race of the actress, surely they have told every bloody story there could possibly be at this point.

@endofbluenight

The problem I have with white people pay white characters and black people play black characters only is that most of the classics, books etc… have all been written about white people by white people. Most of the important characters in history are white etc…

Well, most of the important characters in Europe perhaps.
Maybe the problem is more that we have films made of quite a narrow range of subjects/ settings/ times. Maybe we need to focus on expanding what topics films are made about and the roles within them, if we want to expand diversity. Like someone else said, we don't need a female James Bond, we just need more good roles for women.

Exactly! I think that when the character is portraying a historical person rather than a fictional character then too many differences is distracting and confusing for the audience. In the same way that if you show the orphans in Oliver to be obese, or really tall, healthy and athletic looking, people would start wondering what was going on. We need to be inclusive to world history and tales from other cultures, different historical figures etc. Maybe then actors and producers of different ethnicities can shine in historical drama without things seeming forced. Personally I think that anything fictional, including famous works of Shakespeare and the like, could be done casting any type of looking person for the roles. The role is bigger than the actor playing it type of thing. Historical drama, I prefer it to be more accurate, so that I don't misinterpret history too much and that goes for all roles. If there weren't loads of white guys hanging in ancient Egypt then it's weird to see them on screen.

Omygod, I didn't watch this particula version partly for similar reasons to you. But I have been thinking it would actually be really interesting to see the story of power and religious change and sexual relations/marriage and the importance of chidbearing set in different (More traditional?) societies. For example Iran among the mullahs, where women's lives are strictly controlled yet their roles are intimately powerful not to be mention the religion/culture/commerce dimension. I think there are many aspects of life in Tudor times that are difficult for us to grasp because they have not (for the majority) been bred in the bones and seeing them in a foreign setting could be illuminating.

@BasicDad

It was a creative decision, and a bloody brilliant one because she was fantastic.

I do understand the re-enactment purists, but that's less about race, and more about accuracy. However, this story had nothing to do with race, and was a piece of creative fiction.

On the flip side, I don't think having white people playing Malcom X, the Obamas, etc, because the central tenets of race are really important to the characters, be it historic re-enactment or creative work.

However, this story had nothing to do with race, and was a piece of creative fiction

What ???

@OmgIThinkILikeYou

I can't believe they have yet more TV shows about the Tudors. Regardless of race of the actress, surely they have told every bloody story there could possibly be at this point.

To be fair, I'm several history books, a humanities degree, a dissertation based on Elizabethan portraiture and I am still not entirely clear on what happened. It's so complicated, political and even contemporary accounts are unclear.

I do think it is a good story. But it's not the only story that could be told. Plenty of stories that do centre black women that could be told instead of a lacklustre AB telly retelling.

@PaulRuddsWife I didn’t suggest that she was black because there were not portraits of her. I said that while there are no portraits of her there are several descriptions, a death mask and several portraits done soon after her death that suggest she was European

Apparently some people on social media have genuinely asked why Meghan Markle is such a big deal when Anne Boleyn was black and queen consort.

So however metaphorically it is meant, some people do take productions literally.

I mean thanks to the travesty that was the Other Boleyn Girl many people think she was guilty of the absurd allegations against her, like bedding her own brother, of which she most certainly was not.

People also think Catherine Howard actually had sex with Thomas Culpepper, but most scholars agree that she was only able to have a non physical emotional affair due to the constraints of court life and the practicalities of the time.

And I'm sure lots of people who watched Jonathan Rhys Meyers as Henry the eighth now think his irrational and psychotic behaviour was due to short man syndrome.

@TrishM80 - Ben Kingsley isn’t white. His father was Gujrati

All rules should apply equally to everyone. If we are not aiming for historical accuracy but purely entertainment, you can have a Black Anne Boleyn, you can have a White Gandhi, Asian Obama, female Pope etc. I don't see why anyone should keep their sacred cows.

@BasicDad

It was a creative decision, and a bloody brilliant one because she was fantastic.

I do understand the re-enactment purists, but that's less about race, and more about accuracy. However, this story had nothing to do with race, and was a piece of creative fiction.

On the flip side, I don't think having white people playing Malcom X, the Obamas, etc, because the central tenets of race are really important to the characters, be it historic re-enactment or creative work.

Was she

I haven't read any reviews that said this

Exes mum was like this I started to hate her

@nalabae

Exes mum was like this I started to hate her

I had a family member who would do performative confusion at anything like this. Infuriating