Historical drama

[Banananew]

Genuine question
Why do production companies use people of colour in dramas set in historically times? We were watching a program earlier set in the 1960's and there were a number of characters of colour. It was set in a very rural part of the country that my parents were from. This really would have been unusual/unlikely. So why does this happen?
I am not bothered as it doesn't particularly matter, but why?

I'm more appalled that you think something set in the 1960's is a historical drama. I was born in 1962. It seems like no time ago and I'm hardly Methuselah!

Because reality upsets some people and that can’t happen. Instead we pretend reality is different, to appease the snowflakes.

I guess it depends whether you see them as actors, or actors of colour?

I hear Tom Holland can't actually climb buildings, maybe he should not play Spiderman!

Colour blind casting is a (totally unremarkable) thing. But lots of places did have significant populations of colour 8n the 1960s. And in lots of earlier years too.

But there was huge amounts of prejudice in the 1960s and people of colour were heavily discriminated against in many, many ways.

Surely people know there were “no blacks, no Irish and no dogs” signs up in boarding houses? And many other things.

Does colour blind casting say that it's ok to pretend that discrimination didn't happen? To erase the injustice of the time by people in 2026 who believe in retconning the past because they "know better"?

Its not unremarkable at all.

Because Anne Boleyn was actually black and if you disagree youre cancelled.

No, because colour blind casting isn’t suggesting those people were black, just that in the modern day it doesn’t matter if they are played by someone black. Because we can be blind to colour in terms of the casting.

Try not to be silly about it. Colour blind casting suggests nothing of the sort and I’m sure you know that really.

it’s not about erasing prejudice from the past. It’s when there is a fictional show set in the past, that is pure fiction and not actually exploring themes of race and prejudice then using colourblind casting is preferable to making a show with only white people.

It gives more opportunities for work for actors of colour as well.

I honestly don’t know why it bothers people.

And yet these threads come up on a regular basis and are incredibly vituperative, as if raceblind casting is doing some kind of injury to the poster.

My first Henry V was Adrian Lester at the NT. He was extraordinary. His performance did not cause me to imagine that the historical Henry V was the Brummie-born child of Jamaican immigrants.

I find it really interesting. I get the argument about levelling the playing field for actors of colour - that's fair enough. In some things, like the film of David Copperfield, I find it pleasing; in that instance it totally melds with the director's political message (about inclusion and diversity and celebration).

I do think it has some downsides though. Not everyone has a thorough grounding in what societies were really like in previous eras, and I think we might be creating a confusing impression about the impact of prejudice. (A PP says 'you know that's not what it's doing' or words to that effect, and it's interesting to see that explanation because I hadn't heard it before. It feels of a piece with a lot of what I find intellectually dishonest about post-structuralism.)

In the same way, the current Sky adaptation of Amadeus shows lots of women playing in the orchestras in early nineteenth century Viennese opera houses, which just... wouldn't have happened. It wipes away the reality of the impact that prejudice had in people's lives, and that does bother me. It's important to understand that people of colour and women had highly circumscribed lives. That was a thing that really happened, and that affected millions of people, and shaped the nature of those societies. If you smooth that stuff out and pretend/imply it didn't happen, it's very, very difficult to understand anything about how those societies operated and how world events played out.

I feel like in Copperfield (the movie) it was doing something narratively important and intentional, whereas in some other productions it's a more intellectually coercive/dishonest imposition of modern norms - it feels more like 'just pretend you believe that 2+2=5 even though we all know it doesn't'.

Those DEI quotas aren't going to meet themselves.

Don’t be silly.

Do you know if the person being played was blonde or a redhead? With a beard or cleanshaven? Tall or short? Fat or skinny? Full-chested or an A-cup? If none of those things have to be accurately cast, why does colour matter?

I think maybe the colour-blind/gender-blind casting of a lead requires much less artistic angsting than the colour-blind/gender-blind casting of lots of extras/minor characters. Without a coherent artistic intention, the latter gives the impression that this was a modern society with modern norms. The former is much more about an interpretation of an individual character, or the presentation of a strong overall artistic interpretation (like staging Richard III as taking place in a Nazi context). Like, I don't have a problem with Anne Boleyn being played by a woman of colour, because you can read that as a metaphor for her outsider/exceptional status, something that was commented on by her contemporaries and was a factor in her story.

I think maybe one of the problems is that a lot of these things are artistically flabby or lacklustre (as most things are, kind of by definition), or they're doing a kind of rote 'mwah, fabulous darling' handwave over well-loved stories. (Which they're allowed to do, of course, but viewers are also entitled to find that mode displeasing.) When the director/writer knows exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it, it can be brilliant.

Because around 20% of the British population isn't white and so about one fifth of roles need to go to them - otherwise it's discrimination.

Maybe it's also to balance historically low representation on our screens, for example, enormous numbers of Romans in Britain were black or brown and yet those parts in the past always went to white actors, similarly when we look at Tudor exploration / navy, etc.

I mean, because being blonde or a redhead, in itself, didn't determine which opportunities were open to you, whether you were allowed to own property, whether you were considered to be someone else's property, what kind of job you were allowed to do, which talents you were allowed to express, whether you had access to education, whether you were popularly considered to be dangerous/stupid/sub-human, which legal rights you had, whether it was OK to subject you to random violence...

Because the fact that the world was a lot more racist in the past doesn't mean people of colour should continue to face discrimination when it comes to casting when strict historical accuracy regarding the racial makeup of the country in question isn't relevant to the story.

There are times when having colour blind casting in a period piece might compromise the production, but often it makes no difference at all.

Personally I dont mind it in something like the Larkins, or Sister Boniface or Bridgerton where it presenting a rose-tinted view of history or using a historic utopia. I don't like it when they are striving for historical accuracy and are erasing the racist views of the past and struggles people fought to overcome.

Grew up in West Reading and my best friend at one point in mid 60s was Dorothy, didn't occur to be she was a person of colour, she was just my friend.

The only people who seem to be 'upset' are those who don't want to see POC in the roles. Are they the snowflakes you feel should be appeased?

But the whole point is that it doesn’t have to be making an artistic point. It’s not a complex mataphor, it’s not saying it’s a literal representation. It’s just casting actors, some of whom happen not to be white.

I'm not sure 'Sorry actors who aren't male / white / whatever, we can't cast you in this production because it's important we recognise that you were discriminated against in the past by continuing to discriminate against you in the present' really does anyone any favours.

If a film or show is addressing the historical reality of racism / sexism etc. as part of the plot that's one thing, but if those things aren't being dealt with I do not care if the casting is historically inaccurate as regards race and gender. I would much rather see actors of different races and / or women be given the opportunity of roles in these shows, and I think that probably does a lot more to combat prejudice than continuing to exclude them for the sake of faithfulness to a racist and sexist past.

I think it depends on context. Certainly in the theatre where you have the cast playing a number of roles you often get sex and colour blind performances.

In plays I’ve seen, it wouldn’t have worked for the following characters
Mary Seacole - needs to be a black woman as the structural inequality is important to the play

A Jewish male intellectual in the holocaust- needs to be a white male as it is based on recent historical events where identity is an issue

It did work
A woman playing Stanley Baldwin - we all knew who was being represented and it was their reaction not their identity that mattered

An Asian actor playing Winston Churchill- again in the context of the play with the cast playing multiple characters he was completely believable

Depends. We have had an American Cleopatra and an Australian Jesus and no-one seems to bat an eye at those.