Anne Boleyn as a black woman

[Frustratedbeyondbelief]

Am anyone explain why ? I know this question raises the issue of race which is highly controversial. It is not meant to be goady.. just perplexed by what they are trying to achieve. To me like playing GHandi and Martin Luther King as while men..

For context I hope my non racial credentials as a mother of mixed race children assist in not seeing this as an 'anti black' thread ... I genuinely would like to be educated as to why this is thought to be a 'good thing' when simply factually incorrect . ? Her home at Hever is less than a mile away, I have never had any idea she was black or mixed race. Just seems a bit 'trendy' ...

@brondary there's a Harriet Tubman film on Disney plus and netflix at the moment. I haven't seen it yet but it's on my to watch list.
There's definitely enough 'meat' to her story to do a series. I'd definitely watch it.

I did not know that thanks. I have netflix.

@PaperbackRider well, aside from the fact all the popes have NOT been male (please see “Pope Joan”)... in fact, I COULD get on board with women playing men and vice versa. This isn’t documentary, it’s not educational. It is (just) entertainment. If a director has a reason to cast in a non-conventional way ... why not? I fail to see why it is causing so much outrage.

Would you object to a tall man playing Napoleon? I mean as long as he could ACT the part of having a short-man complex what difference does it make whether he is actually 4’11 or 6’4. Would you object to an older actor acting the part of a famous teenager (which actually happens a lot)? A chubby person playing a famous marathon runner?

Casting is surely more of an art than a science, and you can do interesting things when you play around with convention.

Hmmm historically Anne was seen an outsider, an interloper, a witch who stole the Kings heart from the much loved queen catherine.
Casting Jodie is going to portray annes story with a very obvious sign of her difference and I'm excited to see how this plays out. It's an interesting idea.

Lottiethelemming

As a black female I'm honestly sick of this. Yes, we know they are just acting but to me acting is portraying another personality. Picking somebody who has zero resemblance to the very real person they are portraying is unnecessary and divisive.

I hope the 'woke' type realise they are creating even more racism.

Absolutely this.

A man will play her next. You know, just so the casting is open to more people.

www.history.com/.amp/news/napoleon-complex-short

@NonBinaryNumbers

I think colour blind casting in this context is just plain silly. I can't get worked up about it but it does make me shake my head and roll my eyes. The thing is, it only works because none of us have many strong pictures of Anne Boleyn in mind. If they had cast a black actor to play someone like Hitler, who everyone knows exactly what he looked like from countless photos, we would realise that it doesn't work. Actors do need to look like the people they are supposed to represent - they need to be the same sex and race as well as approximately a similar age, height and weight and share similar facial features. Being a good actor just isn't enough.

What about Taika Waititi playing Hitler in JoJo Rabbit? Hitler definitely wasn't half Maori/half Russian Jewish.

What about Taika Waititi playing Hitler in JoJo Rabbit? Hitler definitely wasn't half Maori/half Russian Jewish.

He wasn't playing Hitler. He was playing a child's mental image of Hitler. The fact he doesn't look like Hitler is the point.

Every historical character in a fictional drama is someone's imagining of that character.

Every historical character in a fictional drama is someone's imagining of that character.

You seem to be willfully missing the point. Are you saying you watched JoJo Rabbit and thought that was supposed to be the real Hitler?

I love watching dramas from this period.

I fear I might be watching this actress but subconsciously waiting for Anne Boleyn to turn up.

al45

I saw Romeo and Juliet at the Globe and Tybalt was played by a black woman - worked absolutely brilliantly, it was several years ago and it still really stands out in my mind as inspired casting. Saw Harry Potter the cursed child and Hermoine was played by a black actress and it seemed like they'd just stuck her in to make it more PC and it didn't work at all for me - especially as they seemed to have gone to a lot of effort to ensure all the other characters really resembled their counterparts from the films.
I haven't watched Anne Boleyn but I'm not convinced it would work in that role.“

I don’t JKR actually specifies the colour or ethnicity of any of her characters (apart from Lee Jordan or Cho Chang? Officiant dies will correct me)
Don’t think it says anywhere that Hermione is white?

Officiant dies?
My spellcheck is daft.
Aficionados.

@CustardyCreams I would object to a tall actor playing Napoleon. The fact he is short is important to his character.
Most people want subtlety in portrayals. For example, the suggestion that having a black woman playing Anne is a good way to signal she was an outsider is an example of trying to signal obvious stuff in an ABC way. Bloody stupid.

@Frustratedbeyondbelief

Except that the lead actor is black and Ann Boleyn was white... it's like a white women portraying Maya Angelou .. simply not true. A white womans place in the world in the 1570s was VERY different to that of a black woman. To portray a. Black woman at court in the age of Henry V111 where race is 'blind' is just nonsense political correctness of the worse kind and to my (white) mind betrays the struggle of horrendous racism black women have suffered .

To me Anne Boleyn's story is about being a woman and the issues that went with it in that period. Race is not key to her story in the same way as it is to famous black figures stories. If she's a good actor who can portray a 35 year old Queen about to meet her maker at the hands of a tyrant husband then it's a job well done

@GrimDamnFanjo

Hmmm historically Anne was seen an outsider, an interloper, a witch who stole the Kings heart from the much loved queen catherine. Casting Jodie is going to portray annes story with a very obvious sign of her difference and I'm excited to see how this plays out. It's an interesting idea.

How was Anne an 'outsider'? She came from upper class English families on both sides. Her father was one of Henry's courtiers. Her uncle was Duke of Norfolk, the highest ranking peer of the realm.

Yes, she was resented for 'taking the king' away from Catherine, but she was hardly an outsider.

@DenisetheMenace

al45

I saw Romeo and Juliet at the Globe and Tybalt was played by a black woman - worked absolutely brilliantly, it was several years ago and it still really stands out in my mind as inspired casting. Saw Harry Potter the cursed child and Hermoine was played by a black actress and it seemed like they'd just stuck her in to make it more PC and it didn't work at all for me - especially as they seemed to have gone to a lot of effort to ensure all the other characters really resembled their counterparts from the films.
I haven't watched Anne Boleyn but I'm not convinced it would work in that role.“

I don’t JKR actually specifies the colour or ethnicity of any of her characters (apart from Lee Jordan or Cho Chang? Officiant dies will correct me)
Don’t think it says anywhere that Hermione is white?

You are right on Hermione. Books describe her as having bushy brown hair, and overlarge front teeth (until she magically shrinks them) but that's about it. So casting a black actress as Hermione is fine as it's in keeping with the source text.

To me Anne Boleyn's story is about being a woman and the issues that went with it in that period.

Yet we're not expected to think that there were any issues that went with race in that same period?

@IcedPurple
Oh I'm not saying that I'm just saying that Anne Boleyn's story and struggle is about being a powerless woman.
Say if she had been a Princess with powerful relatives her story would probably have been different. Sadly she showed Henry the extent of his power which backfired greatly when she didn't produce the expected son.

[quote DanceWithYourBalloon]@IcedPurple
Oh I'm not saying that I'm just saying that Anne Boleyn's story and struggle is about being a powerless woman.
Say if she had been a Princess with powerful relatives her story would probably have been different. Sadly she showed Henry the extent of his power which backfired greatly when she didn't produce the expected son.
[/quote]
Catherine of Aragon, who did NOT have dark hair and eyes, was a princess with powerful relatives.

@TheWeeDonkeyIsMySpiritAnimal
www.vox.com/2020/7/22/21326824/white-voice-actors-black-characters-cartoons-whitewashing

and

blurredbylines.com/blog/whitewashing-movies-hollywood-2000s/

How was Anne an 'outsider'? She came from upper class English families on both sides. Her father was one of Henry's courtiers. Her uncle was Duke of Norfolk, the highest ranking peer of the realm.

Yes, she was resented for 'taking the king' away from Catherine, but she was hardly an outsider.

This.

[quote DanceWithYourBalloon]@IcedPurple
Oh I'm not saying that I'm just saying that Anne Boleyn's story and struggle is about being a powerless woman.
Say if she had been a Princess with powerful relatives her story would probably have been different. Sadly she showed Henry the extent of his power which backfired greatly when she didn't produce the expected son.
[/quote]
All of that is true.

But it's a bit incongruous to acknowledge that attitudes to women - and religion, and class and so much else - were appalling, and yet at the same time be asked to believe that race was something that nobody at the Tudor court even noticed.

I would object to a tall actor playing Napoleon. The fact he is short is important to his character.

Except he wasn't short, it's a myth created by British propaganda.

If she's a good actor who can portray a 35 year old Queen about to meet her maker at the hands of a tyrant husband then it's a job well done

It's a shitty drama on Chanel 5 trying to get attention by exploiting racism. It's got no more artistic value than Mickey Rooney in breakfast at tiffany's- crass, lazy and dumb.