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.

Just like mine?

And what do you know about my experience within the entertainment industry?

Good post. However, using 'Jesus Christ' and 'historically accurate' doesn't really cut it for me on a few levels 😁 that said, yes he and others around him should be depicted by an actor with the features from that area.

Karaoke doesn't count 😁

No offence, just feeling cheeky 😉

Considering 67% of Asians and 67% of mixed race people voted remain, maybe I wouldn’t want to.

Besides, I’m not conflating race and voting for Brexit; I’m conflating
racism and voting for Brexit.

Because 100% of racists voted leave.

😂

I was just thinking I don’t do enough karaoke.

Cover songs - a whole new category of art we haven’t considered…are POC allowed to sing Taylor Swift?

I think that it's easier for some people to gloss over things than others.
When you have direct experience of certain issues, to simply put them out your mind and gloss over them can be harder than for those who haven't.

I find glossing over any inaccuracies difficult, because I have elements of ND, and if I notice something, my brain goes off on a tangent. I do recognise though, as others have said, that all works are loaded with inaccuracies, and we only can pick up on those that we are familiar or knowledgeable about. I wouldn't get distracted by them in a fictional police drama, because I haven't got any real knowledge to go on, but I bet those who worked in the field would.

So as someone with a mixed ethnic background I do get distracted easily in this particular topic, but have taught myself to put it out my mind. However I find it really hard to restrain myself from commenting to my kids things like, "remember that unfortunately people probably wouldn't have been able to do ....." whatever.

I think if it positively reinforces people, and encourages and inspires, then it doesn't really matter that I personally find it distracting. I believe in the best outcome in general is more important. I do however want to be able to say that yes, it is distracting.

Because 100% of racists voted leave

are you saying that the only people who voted for leave were racist
or
that no racists voted remain

cos i think you are wrong both ways….although id be quite happy to agree that more racists voted leave than remain ( Ive got no idea really)

I am not saying the former - I know people who voted leave who are definitely not racist, and I think a lot of decent people voted leave because they were sold a lie.

But I’m fairly confident all racists / xenophobes who voted, voted leave.

But sadly there is no tick box for ‘I identify as a racist’ on surveys, so I can’t be sure.

Thank you for clarifying redundantrobin

my in laws were/ are racist and both voted for remain…but again i am very happy to agree that they are outliers

Oh yes. I have read many posts here, including recent ones whilst quietly thinking, ‘tell me you’re a racist whilst not saying you are a racist’. I can’t be bothered to challenge them because they might start crying, fragile souls that they usually are!

I get initially annoyed when any adaptation on tv doesn’t match my mental picture of it from books, but I’ve learned to get over myself most of the time. Usually the biggest differences are around plots and personality which is the most annoying thing. Sometimes I get annoyed when a character’s appearance is so different from the book, when it’s something that’s very heavily emphasised in the book. I end up needing to see the tv version as an alternative universe version.

So by my personal rules, which I’m sure feel different for everyone:

Little mermaid - race totally irrelevant as long as she’s a mermaid. Her mermaidiness is her key feature.

Snow White - one of the key recurring lines of the very old story is black hair, white skin and red lips. So anyone of any race or background who looks like that would be fine, if you’re going to call it “Snow White”. However, there are other very old variants of this tale from around the world and across many different cultures, eg there’s an Indonesian poem version from 1750 where the character Syair Bidasari is described here “her cheeks are described as like ‘the bill of a flying bird’, her nose ‘like a jasmine bud’, her pretty face like ‘the yellow of an egg’, and her teeth like ‘a bright pomegranate.’ “
https://www.pookpress.co.uk/project/snow-white-history/
So a more interesting updating would be using one of these alternative stories, rather than clumsily switching out.

Goldilocks should have long golden hair, but rapunzel could have any appearance as long as the hair is stupidly long. Etc etc.

I do think it’s worth introducing some anachronisms into historical dramas purely for the sake of giving non-white actors a broader and larger range of roles. Particularly because we have so much historical drama tv in the UK - it’s a huge market. But it’s best to make sure that there’s internal consistency - so if there was a big plot point around lineage and background, and one of the characters looked completely out of type, that would be confusing. I’m a bit worried about the new Bernard Cornwell King Arthur adaptation, for instance, where Merlin is played by a black actor. In the Bernard Cornwell book series, Merlin is fanatically obsessed with expunging all non native Briton people from the British isles (Saxons, romans etc) and restoring the old British gods. It’s uncomfortably like a plan for ethnic cleansing, frankly! So him being of a totally different ethnic background is very jarring. In any other King Arthur adaptation, where Merlin’s role is different and his motivations are different, it wouldn’t necessarily be nearly so odd. On the other hand, the book already has a black Knight / warlord, so introducing more characters of different races in that way would work really well.

And saffron - has definitely been grown in England for many centuries for use in cooking and dyeing. Croydon is likely named after the saffron fields. Several medieval recipes here from the British museum: https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/how-cook-medieval-feast-11-recipes-middle-ages

You do know that Alan Sugar is Jewish don't you? - It is a race and a religion. Why aren't you moaning about him depriving White British people a job, just the 'not white British' contestants.

Perhaps Merlin is a Tory Home Secretary as well as a wizard?

Also, growing it here doesn’t make saffron an English spice. It’s still of Middle Eastern origin.

Why is it ok for us to use the best of the rest of the world but fiercely guard our own heritage (in terms of plays, books etc) as only ok for white participants?

Ha, I did think that. Probably still not a good look.

This means that white British people were being systematically deprived of the opportunity for a £250,000, to take part in a £50,000 game show, and for lucrative TV careers. This is simply not fair

This has made me laugh. White people not having enough places allocated for them on the Apprentice is what is wrong with society today!

The questions raised originally on this thread are about something being anachronistic, not “white is better”.

I absolutely see the rationale but it can be confusing
In David copper field for example , I didn't twig it was colour blind casting and there was a father, daughter combo of different ethnicity and I spent ages wondering if they were father and daughter, was she adopted etc.
So I see why it's done, and I applaud it as a good thing but it doesn't always make sense when approached logically !

Snow White was published in 1812, even further away from the British Empire ruling vast areas of the world.

I'm getting a bit worried now, am I allowed to eat potatoes, I love potatoes which are known as Food of the Gods in my house, not indigenous though. I'm also a chocoholic, is chocolate in danger, I love a cup of tea so that's also a worry but my biggest worry is tobacco, my husband is an addict going back 60 years and if he can't smoke he will be unbearable and it will probably mean divorce. Divorce and your 70s isn't a good look is it.

Other white imperial nations are available

There's a real lack of history knowledge here.

Firstly, Britain in India did not start with the Raj. The East India Company had been controlling parts of India for centuries, it was the largest and richest corporation in the world and had a larger army than Britain. The Raj was set up after the Indian Mutiny of 1857 aka The First War of Independence. Basically the East India Company messed up so dreadfully and committed such atrocities that Parliament decided India had to come under Parliamentary control and not be owned by a company. Before 1600 China, India or the Ottoman Empire were the richest counties but once Europeans started their expansion into Asia and America Europe quickly became more powerful. The first recorded African slaves in London arrived in 1555 and less than a century later Britain dominated the transatlantic slave trade. So to claim that there was no British Empire until the late 19th century is twisting the facts, British corporations were making the country rich from the spoils of other countries for along time before that.

Secondly, Saffron has been used in Europe for over a thousand years first in Spain but was initially traded for Cornish tin in the 14th century and came into the UK that way. To put that into context that means we've been cultivating saffron in the UK for longer than the Italians have had tomatoes or the Thais have had chilli (both came to the old world as part of the Columbian Exchange from the 15th century onwards). It's ridiculous to try and claim a foodstuff should only belong to the area it originally grew wild before it was domesticated. There's been foodstuff coming into this country for centuries. Don't google what the Romans introduced, you'll end up eating a very restricted diet!

Of course it’s ridiculous to claim a food as belonging to one part of the world as another.

Similarly skin colour to one fictional character or another. But here we are.

You said, 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. So tell us which white people were ruling the world in 1812. I think you will find there were many global majority races happily ruling themselves.

It’s not ridiculous for a writer of fiction to describe the physical appearance of a character.