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.

Preach! It's always the Black actors, coming over here stealing all the jobs... 🤨

Even in the book Black Tudors, the author states there were probably on a few hundred non white people in Britain at the time, out of a population of 6-7 million. I mean you can do the maths but that's not even a tenth of 1% of the population.

There were a few hundred named black Tudors that we have historic records for in London, the numbers were probably higher. Admittedly, the black Tudors would have predominantly been in London and the port cities. Just like now, London is far more ethnically diverse than, e.g. Durham (54% white, 21% asian, 14% black, 12% mixed and other vs 96% white, 2% asian, 1% mixed in 2021 census data).

The worst case of this most recently was the latest Snow White which has been delayed because of the controversy around it.

How can Snow White 'lips as red as rose, skin as white as snow', be played in any way convincingly by a black girl?!

I don’t mind who is cast in what role, as long as their acting is believable I can look beyond historical inaccuracies.

On another note, accents, I’ve heard some of THE most dreadful Scottish accents (usually by American actors) over the years! Kathy Bates, I’m looking at you, there are more but it’s early and I’m about to make breakfast! This to me is actually FAR more distracting than skin colour!

See also Tom Cruise being cast as Jack Reacher. Reacher was portrayed in the books as 6ft 5in….,,

White people do portray people of a different race though. See my earlier post about non-Jewish actors playing key historical Jewish figures where their Jewishness should be part of the plot. And no one gives a shit.

A lot of the attitudes on here have explained to me the logic of people who got themselves worked up into a lather about a black James Bond.

Eg. JB is a handsome man, a spy, but as far as I’m aware JB is not specifically a white spy struggling terribly with his whiteness and being discriminated against for being white. So any handsome man of any colour skin could play the role. Being white is not particularly relevant or important.

(to add, I think also there is something thats been said about a woman being able to play the 007 agent number but not JB himself? I haven’t investigated enough to fully know about that and I don’t want to go off on a tangent about gender on a thread about race. JB was just an example character that sprang to mind first)

The same people say oh so a white person should be able to play Nelson Mandela/Martin Luther king/ Rosa parks, etc, and miss the point entirely that their stories depend on their race, it is relevant and important.

I'm not sure what that proves, so we know that there would have been barely any non-white people outside of London and the ports, and its reasonable to assume they would have been so unusual that they would have likely been recorded in some way. Safe to say not many 16-17th century villages in the Cotswolds or Yorkshire would have had thriving communities of black people in them. 🙄

So still likely less than a tenth of 1% of the entire population. Unless you were from somewhere cosmopolitan, you likely went your entire life without ever meeting one.

Not saying that's good or bad, just stating fact.

The character is a representation of a real historical person and we should try to represent them close to how they were and looked. Within the show, we're not meant to think of the character as being black Gandhi, but as it's a visual media, we're still presented with a black Gandhi, while knowing that Gandhi looked very different in real life. There's a disconnect. If you don't want to make a historical show, don't make a historical show. Or, rather, there are many other historical tales you could tell, where your casting would actually fit the story, because you can have a black character in Tudor England, but not a black Henry Tudor, as he was a real person. It's making a mockery of history to 'racebend' real people.

Some high profile (David Baddiel, Maureen Lipman) people have been outspoken about this recently actually and I think it’s quite a hot topic in film/Tv at the moment.

Could a white actor play Shaka Zulu then, given his race had no impact on his life?

Wow, you are right? My god! What about Dopey? Or the talking mirror? 😟

@Misthios
''I think it depends on the circumstances. Saw Moulin Rouge recently on stage and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was played by a black guy with dreadlocks and he was brilliant. The fact that the real Henri Toulouse-Lautrec was a white French guy made no odds.''

Well it does matter if you understand how someone's background and appearance are an integral part of how their life story unfolded.

Toulouse-Lautrec was born in a wealthy family and had disabilities and life long health issues.

That affected his appearance and influenced his life. He turned to painting and drawing because of his poor health and was able to do that because he was from a wealthy background. He ended up painting prostitutes because other women were not attracted to him because of his appearance/disabilities.

So yes if you have an actor who is completely different physically/is not disabled and remove his real family background you are also completely removing what made him who he was as a person and what was unique about him.

It’s like in Bridgerton. It’s not racist to admit that the Lords and Lady’s wouldn’t have been of BAME origin. It’s historically accurate 🤷‍♀️ You wouldn’t have a white Martin Luther King.

So few people of colour up here? Have you got your eyes closed?!

40% of the population of Blackburn is non white, 29% off the population of Pendle, 27% of the population of Preston, and 17.5% of Burnley, for example. Nearly 10% of Lancaster.

If you live on a farm in rural Cumbria then yes, probably all your neighbours are white… but it’s ridiculous to claim that we don’t encounter non white people and therefore find tv shows jarring.

I think if the role reflects a true historical figure and we know their race & appearance the casting should reflect that.

However if its just a work of fiction then the best actor should get the part.

Given the entire movie is named after the girls appearance, I'd suggest it probably is a reasonable deal.

Also seems the studio and show runners agree given that the entire movie has been taken back in production for extensive reshoots and rewrites based on the backlash they got from nothing more than the initial publicity.

The delays were due to the actors' strike.

The colour of Snow White's skin has nothing to do with the plot. Her physical description is just what happened to be seen as most beautiful at a time when the story was written. For the story to work, Snow White just needs to be beautiful, which Rachel Zegler certainly is.

Their black friend told it would be OK...

YABU (a lot of the time)
I do get distracted if they have blood family members of different races though. I also thing real figures from history should be cast very carefully.

The lords and ladies also wouldn’t have shagged about, worn bright pink eyeshadow, have had the multitude of bright coloured clothes, have spoken so informally to each other or been so clean… its just a made up story, it can be made up however the writers/producers fancy!

My main issue with it is that it glosses over the struggles of people of colour at the time. Are we supposed to just ignore the fact that they were actually dealing with slavery during these period dramas? Are we supposed to pretend like Britain wasn’t a very racist country years ago? Acting like mixed race marriages were normal in the 1920’s for example is just bizarre and it minimises what people went through. It’s like pretending that gay couples were fine to be out in the open in the 50’s, they weren’t. They had to hide and lie and went to prison if caught. It feels wrong to me to pretend that shit didn’t happen.

I don’t watch Eastenders so can’t comment. However, as a % of the population, if you work it out, Corrie does just fine. The U.K. is a predominantly white country and to say there should be more BAME people than there already are, makes it racist to the white people on the show 🤷‍♀️

I think it's fine. I see a lot of live theatre (inc period stuff) and I genuinely don't notice it anymore. Ditto gender-blind casting.

I'm with you OP. I also find it irritating when women play males roles. It doesn't bother me when it's something like musical theatre where everything is so unrealistic anyway. I do think there's a huge dose of liberal middle class white guilt influencing this and it's tokenism at its worst. Invest in some new plays where BAME and female actors can be front and centre. I also note that there is no attempt to ensure working class actors get their chance - this is never mentioned despite class being a much bigger obstacle to success than gender or race (although obviously a black working class female has a harder time of it than a white working class female).