Colour Blind casting

[ThinWomansBrain]

I know any statement that starts "I'm not racist but..." is usually exactly that, but I find colour blind casting in period drama really distracting.
I've seen two films and a play in the last week where it's been really off - why go to all of the effort of period costume and make up, and then have really implausible actors?

Wicked little letters - first Asian police woman was 1970s. not 1920s
National Theatre production - 1930s play - white couple with an inexplicably Asian Child
Catherine Booth (co founder of Salvation Army) was not black

It's particularly jarring when they are supposed to be portraying real characters.

In contrast, I saw some contemporary dance/theatre this evening, I don't even race or gender of most of the dancers.

Well yes, of course that’s what I’m asking on this thread about colourblind casting in the UK.

@Redundantrobin It's spring. Haven't you seen all the crocuses growing by the side of the British roads?

I’m not sure. What colour are they?

Yellow, purple, white. It's where we get @SaffronSpicefrom.

@Redundantrobin But at the time the Little Mermaid and Snow White were written, the world was ruled by white people whose interaction with global majority races was one of oppression. Is that true though?

I think they were both published in the early 19th century, at that time the British Raj wasn't ruling India, I assume Indians were ruling, the Qing dynasty were ruling China, the Ottoman empire was pretty vast, colonisation had started in Africa but it was by no means the whole of Africa. White empires were spreading but I don't think it is true to say that when the Little Mermaid and Snow White were written that the world was ruled by white people.

Well, the Little Mermaid was first published in 1837 according to a quick google. It wasn’t too long before the British Empire was in full swing. But ‘ruled the world’ was a lazy phrase on my part - of course huge parts of the world were not - but I intended to give some context for why indigenous stories did not gain the traction the ones penned by European authors did.

Eh, I'm not 100% sure. We know from ancient Greece that the tales in the Odyssey and epic cycle were very well known throughout the peninsula even before writing was widespread. I would encourage you to read about oral cultures both in Europe and Africa - you'd be amazed at how sophisticated they were (still are in some places), how far they could disseminate info and who were entrusted with the telling of those tales (clue: by no means always white men).

Also, women played a big role in the early era of mass book production and printing. You've got the female Lollards, the awesome Margery Kempe, Katharina van Bora, Birgitta Boltofsdotter and loads more who achieved fame and respect in their lifetimes.

I agree that the 'white man controlled the images and stories that were disseminated' was true to an extent in western Europe but that's cos most people in those geographies were white until pretty recently. But even in western mediaeval Catholicism we've got the beautiful images and iconography of the Black Madonna haven't we!? As to Jesus, I am Eastern Orthodox and the Christ on my icons, my eucharist book and in my church is dark and swarthy. As Aristotle said, we make Gods in our own image.

I do think that times are changing - we are hearing more stories from People of Colour (see my comments on Disney, as mass market as you can get) - there's a great thread in the Reading section about novels set in the Deep South and I'm about to add to it with a list of the fantastic and award winning books which have come out in the past 30 years by Black Women about the Black Female experience in the deep south.

And, above all, even before this century, even white folks have always enjoyed stories from People of Colour - Richard the Lionheart sang Saracen ballads, the late Plantagenet court enjoyed stories and tales brought to them and sung by Turkish merchants; children have loved One Thousand and One Arabian Nights for centuries.

Even our canonical classical literature is heavily influenced by ancient Babylon (see Martin West "The East Face of Helicon" for an AWESOME, if heavy, examination of this).

Humans have always swapped and integrated art and stories from different cultures. That's why art and literature are so rich and amazing.

I think you'd be amazed at how many people believe what they see at the cinema. The constant re-writing of WW2 so that only America can save the world (I'm not a war film buff) is an example. The coward in Titanic was in fact a hero but the name is now shamed for his family. There are many more examples.

It's a musical, of course it isn't. It's not supposed to be a depiction of real life. All the queens are on stage for a start, together. The problem is the suspension of belief. If you look at a screen and think 'that's not right' you can't believe the rest. The magic is lost.

I know. People are stupid.

Sometimes I like to watch a film or TV production that's as accurate as it can be in every detail (Chernobyl, say). Sometimes I like to watch a quirky story that's unfolding in a parallel universe that has only the vaguest resemblance to our own (Wonka). Sometimes I enjoy seeing a writer experiment with an alternative history in which things were similar-but-different (Bridgerton).

And sometimes I like to watch live as an ethnically diverse cast in modern dress play white people from renaissance Italy while speaking iambic pentameter in Lancashire accents, clad in modern dress in a plain black box studio theatre with no set at all. There's no attempt at making any of it realistic, but that can be a good way to experience the story, engage your imagination and look for the human aspects that transcend the setting.

Variety is the spice of life!

even if it is fictional how can you ave snow white as a south american

I find it really distracting. In period dramas. Particularly in Wicked Little letters, as like a PP said was sure the first Asian police woman didn't come till later. I

I think if it's an historical character who is real, I guess you want the actor to look like the person. So bar using white face it could look a bit unconvincing. If it's a fictitious character then I don't really see the issue. Many characters exist where their racial background isn't specified or relevant to the story. There's been many instances of white people portraying other races in the past. Ben Kingsley playing Ghandi. Brad pitt playing an Irish traveller. Numerous actors pretending to be Italian or Hispanic or native American. I mean it is acting, right?
If black people could only play characters specifically written as black that would basically exclude them from 90% of acting jobs.
I don't really care as long as I believe in the character and that's down to writing, direction and acting ability, not race.

One wonders how the Americans lost the Vietnam war, I've never seen a film where they lost a battle.

With the Disney films, I think that what most people object to is any detail being different from the version they grew up with. As far as they are concerned the animated classic was the definitive version, and the live action remake should be a carbon copy of that. I grew up reading the Harry Potter books. Any details altered/absent/invented in the films annoy me.

Personally I think that we've had enough disappointing live action remakes of the animated classics and it's about time that Disney dug out some different stories. If they search around the world for them then that's even better.

On the subject of employment prospects for black actors, I feel that Tom and Jerry is worth mentioning. The NAACP campaigned against the woman character in some of the shorts, which made the voice actress Lillian Randolph angry, given that it was difficult to find work as a black actress in 1949 America.

Ben Kingsley is half-Indian. His birth name is Krishna Pandit Bhanji.

@YankSplaining OK cool. So a half asian person can play an Indian, so why not a mixed race person play a 'white' character? (often the assumption by white people is the character was 'meant' to be white, rather than it being specified or remotely relevant) In Bollywood they have British actors who pretend to be Indian constantly.

We get Saffron from crocuses that grow alongside roads? Well I never, you learn something new everyday!

I think it’s the fact that in colour-blind casting, actors of other races aren’t pretending to be white, even when they are part of the representation of a time and place and class when basically everyone was white that irritates people.
Yes. It’s an artistic judgment.

Without derailing the thread - Saffron Walden in Essex was just called Walden until the 15/1600s when it became so famous for growing saffron that it became Saffron Walden.

JK Rowling wrote the books and is not irritated. Maybe you should question why you are 'annoyed' by a simple skin colour change?

Search her Guardian interview

Maybe it’s simply to give actors a chance. White actors have loads of parts open to them. Ethnic minorities would not have as many lead character opportunities if there was no flexibility. The white actor not getting the part of Mulan still has other roles to go for easily. I am sure you agree that prejudice on the basis of ethnicity is wrong…

I feel a bit sorry for all these folk who lack imagination. I get they may find it ‘jarring’ to see a non-white person to start off with. But surely as the plot progresses they can use their imaginations to get into the film/show and ignore the distracting melanin in people’s skin. It must be tough to be so literal.

What "simple skin colour change" was there in Harry Potter? My annoyance was more about how some characters were written out and how Harry's personality was completely different.

If JKR had no reason to complain I'm sire that the royalty cheques had nothing to do with it...