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 following your logic. My response was effectively to say that it was fictional, it doesn't matter. Your response was then 'Given the entire movie is named after the girls appearance...'. If that's the case then my comment stands.

If I wanted to be absolutist I would insist it was in German, had its original name, was set in Germany and only actors from that country. You do know that Walt Disney did not commission the Brothers Grimm to write it, don't you?

I think you are actually describing the difference between a stage play and a TV or film production.

Plays obviously had no real expectation of the cast looking accurate historically because you only had the actors you had, but tv and movies have changed that expectation considerably.

I think the historical dramas cast actors and actresses appropriate to the time. If we was that it doesn't matter who is cast for roles then males can be cast as females so I believe the same applies. Modern drama is different and reflects the time. I do not believe that is racist, its just the same as asking for someone who is male or female or of a certain age to play a part - we wouldn't expect to see grandmother played by 30 year old male.

No, just that non white actors know their place.

No it's not.

Why are you so preoccupied by the colour of skin? Just watch them act.

@ColonelDax that is a fair point but TV and film are still just made up stories. I mean Julius Caesar was a real historical character, why is it considered fine for him to be played by a black actor on stage but not on TV?

But youre the one being absolutist in your example, not me? You insisted they had to be a brunette albino. 🙄

As long as the actress looks roughly right (dark hair, pale white skin, beautiful) then it's all good. People aren't that bothered about these kind of things, it's just when there is an obviously 'unusual' casting choice should we say that people get annoyed. And it's often done in modern cinema deliberately to stir up controversy and gain more free publicity for the production tbh.

A stunning white blonde girl, a black or an Asian girl cast as Snow White is always going to be jarring.

I've literally never said that or implied it. Only that acting is an unfair business by definition.

Please take it back or it will look like you can't engage in good faith discussion so smear anyone who argues against you as a racist. Do you think that's the way to get anywhere?

I think sometimes it works brilliantly and sometimes it doesn't. I saw Romeo and Juliet at the Globe and Tybalt was played by a black woman - I thought it was flipping brilliant, she absolutely blew my mind. Then I saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and Hermione was played by a black woman and I found it really jarring and just didn't 'believe' she was Hermione at all - it didn't help that they seemed to have gone to great lengths to cast the other main actors to look exactly like grown up versions of the actors in the films.

Depends where you live I suppose. I went to primary school in the 50s and was in a minority as a white child, my class teacher was black. My children went to school 40 years later in a majority white school. Time wasn't the issue, it was where we lived that made the difference.

I think its an accepted unreality particular to historic plays because it's always been that way.

We equally accept the outdated Elizabethan language used in those plays because it's always been done like that and it's what Shakespeare wrote.

If you tried to use that kind of language in the newest season of The Witcher people wouldn't accept it. Same with the casting choices.

Plays or productions not based on real life people or events are clearly a different case and the dating can easily be diverse as long as it's consistent.

For example the latest Rings of Power show went wrong because it was based on Tolkien's work, which actually had plenty of opportunity for consistent casting of non-white people in some of the races he created.

But instead of taking that opportunity they just peppered every group with a mix of races (Lenny Henry as a hobbit, in the same small tribe as a south east Asian looking hobbit for example...)

Nobody watched that and thought 'I hate the fact there are black people in this show',

they watched it and felt it was jarring and inconsistent and clearly done as the laziest possible way of ticking off the diverse casting box without actually putting any thought into it.

I do. I hate it when no attempt is made to cast someone who looks wrong (either a real person or character in a book adaptation (And I loathe it when people have obviously dyed hair in a show or film set in an era when that would have been wildly inappropriate. I've seen this a lot)

there is so much to tell of immigration in the UK long before WW2 I would really like to see productions based on this and the impact in the countries under British colonies not just from the ruling classes point of view

im not so bothered by colour blind casting its acting but let’s have more variety in historical dramas and let’s have more factual historical productions made

Didn’t JK Rowling say she always intended Hermione to be black?

Either way, it’s just a made up story. A character being black is as easy to believe as flying broomsticks, mini sock obsessed goblins or kids who can talk to snakes.

I thought of that example. The little girl in the film was brilliant and I think it was a difficult part for a child so seems likely she was just the one most capable of carrying it off. Having said that I preferred the book, nothing to do with the colour of any of the characters.

I can see where you are coming from but the problem lies in how accurate is the representation. If it doesn't matter that there were no asain female police officers in the 1920s then why bother putting the actor in a uniform that corresponds with that period. Just let them wear a police uniform.
The race of the individual is always important otherwise history gets distorted. It is important for audiences to know that we didn't have people of colour in positions because societal prejudice did not allow it. You can watch any period drama these days and believe that black people were fully integrated into the highest echelons of society, its just not true.
I'm not suggesting that only black actors can play black characters but we seem to be getting perilously close to having the "token negro" of the film industry in the 1970s. Black actors got parts to fulfill the quota and I think we are getting close to the same thing happening again

I completely agree with you op.

I guess that depends how convincingly English and upper class the aforementioned Scot/Aussie etc. managed to be? (Although truthfully, they weren't very convincing as such. Roger Moore was believably posh as well as gorgeous, but unfeasibly ancient in the later movies.)

I've got an idea. We'll put a gorgeous black Bond in a sixties-set Bond parody, like a hot Austin Powers. Special cameo appearance by Liam Neeson as Martin Luther King. "Is that a cosh in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?" Liam can bash himself over the head with it whenever the cognitive dissonance gets too much.

And short, wiry and dark haired Alan Banks brought to our screens by Stephen Tompkinson.

I did say rural NW, I am in Cumbria (Burnley is 2 hours from us) and we do not encounter many people of colour. By the wrong place I meant 18th century Cumbria for example. A shame and yes I accept is not true picture of all of the rest of the UK but true here nontheless.

@Brexile I mean they weren't at all convincing as upper class Englishmen were they? Both Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan made no attempt to use an upper class English accent and it didn't matter.

Bond is a high ranking public servant and Ian Flemming, a man of his time, naturally assumed that meant the character would be a white upper middle class man.

As people have said Bond is like Dr Who, a malleable character that moves with the times, Bond films are not faithful period renditions of the Flemming books. There are black and asian public servants in high office in this country these days. For goodness sake, three out of the four current leaders of the UK nations are not white.

Minority actors/actresses need to have more high-profile roles available to them.

Look at the Oscar winners. Look at the history of Best Actor and Best Actress winners: It's strange - considering POC are actually the global majority - that the most high profile roles and the most financially lucrative roles, are largely only available to white people.

Until there are more stories commissioned with a large number of parts for people of all different racial and ethnic backgrounds, then we should embrace colour blind casting IMO.

It's a job, and it's the arts - I welcome anything that increases opportunities for POC and increases diversity. Why is it that the best acting career opportunities should only be available to white people? Shouldn't we try and change that? Colour blind casting is one route.

Completely agree with all of this @JumpyCat

Not anyone who has ever read a book or taken the time to educate themselves.