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' ...

Anne didn't have blue eyes. It's definitely part of the story because she wasn't conventionally beautiful like Catherine of Aragon.

So yes, that would annoy me.
How difficult is it to find a modeling height, talented women with brown eyes?

And it does matter because it changes the dynamics of the story. Look at how Catherine's Spanishness became about her looks whereas it was due to her speech and dress.

It’s acting, not impersonating.

She’s a fantastic actress, excited to see this!!

(Do agree a bit bored by Henry VIII stuff on telly though...)

@KittyKatChonky

I’ve heard that Lily James is set to play Michelle Obama in an upcoming biopic

Wouldn't surprise me. She's in bloody everything these days.

@NeedNewKnees

I don’t see the problem - it’s fiction, not documentary. If the actress is good, it won’t matter in the slightest.

AB’s whiteness isn’t integral to her story so not portraying that aspect of her appearance is a non-issue.

Claire Foy was magnificent as AB in Wolf Hall. Claire has blue eyes, AB’s were famously dark. Should we have shouted about that?

I do think it’s a bit whitewashing in a way to portray a British noblewoman from the 1500s as not white. It seems to imply there was no racism or classism holding back the existing black British population who were actually seen as slaves, extra cheap free labour or exotic servants. So I think there is actually an argument for whiteness being integral to portraying a British noblewoman in the 1500s. Especially one that went on to become Queen of England....

Of course, if they put a disclaimer up front that the film is pure fiction, loosely inspired by historical events and the characters are not meant to resemble real persons living or dead, then I’d agree with you.

But if they do make it seem historical, there is a danger that people who don’t know history will mistakenly think that racism and classism in 1500s England was not ‘that bad’ or more like now etc. I think that would be fundamentally wrong. Almost revising history to make England look better than it was I now its abhorrent treatment of black people.

Having seen one of the best productions of Romeo and Juliet performed by an all male cast - including Juliet - I can well believe that if Bolyen is good we will forget her skin colour within 5 minutes.

I think it's a really good idea to mix up our cultural assumptions - it's good for us and the acting profession!

Having seen one of the best productions of Romeo and Juliet performed by an all male cast

What an equal opportunities victory.
I bet pretty witty Nell is spinning in her grave.

I won't be watching.

Natalie Dormer was a perfect Anne Boleyn for me in The Tudors and Jonathan Reese Myers was a good Henry - even though I'm sure the real Henry was not as hot. I'm not interested in anything else.

@SunnydaleClassProtector99

Having seen one of the best productions of Romeo and Juliet performed by an all male cast

What an equal opportunities victory.
I bet pretty witty Nell is spinning in her grave.

It struck me too as well as you that that was how Romeo and Juliet would have been done in Shakespeare’s times because they didn’t allow women on the stage a team all then....so I suppose it’s actually regressive and setting equality back by 500yrs.....

@planDeRaccordement It seems to imply there was no racism or classism holding back the existing black British population who were actually seen as slaves, extra cheap free labour or exotic servants.

I do not understand why you think this was confined to only black people. Do some research into how the indigenous 'lower orders ' were treated - ever heard of serfs?
From what I have read, the exotic black servants were kept as almost 'pets' and were probably only found in the aristocratic estates.

Your average white serf was worked to an early grave at that time.

[quote bunnybuggs]@planDeRaccordement It seems to imply there was no racism or classism holding back the existing black British population who were actually seen as slaves, extra cheap free labour or exotic servants.

I do not understand why you think this was confined to only black people. Do some research into how the indigenous 'lower orders ' were treated - ever heard of serfs?
From what I have read, the exotic black servants were kept as almost 'pets' and were probably only found in the aristocratic estates.

Your average white serf was worked to an early grave at that time.[/quote]
I never said it was confined to only black people. In fact I implied there were also white slaves, servants, cheap labour etc by including “classism” in my comment. But it is true that aristocracy and marriage to royalty was confined to upper class white people in 1500s England.

@bunnybuggs
From what I have read, the exotic black servants were kept as almost 'pets' and were probably only found in the aristocratic estates.
Your average white serf was worked to an early grave at that time.

Serfdom was abolished in 1381, so it doesn’t matter whether or not they had it worse than a black servant/house slave over a century later....does it? On individual level you can always find a white person who had it worse than a black person, but you’ll never find on a population level more black people having good compared to white people.

Desdemona no, Anne Boleyn yes fine.

Desdemona is a wet blanket. It's a good thing Emilia makes up for it.

@SunnydaleClassProtector99 @PlanDeRaccordement

I didn't see it as regressive - it was just a very good production. In fact having Juliet's sometimes stereotypical young woman lines come out of a huge young man's quite deep voice really made me think more about some of the 'young love' stereotypes that I hadn't noticed before.

It was interesting and reinvigorated what is a very familiar play (to me at least)

I don't think there is any issue with re casting characters who don't explicitly need to be white, as different ethnicities.

HOWEVER, I don't think it works well for historical characters such as Ann Boleyn and I have to say, doesn't really make sense.
Although, it is quite different from people such as Ghandi and Muhammad Ali as their races were integral to their stories/drive/fight and their character.

I don't think there was an issue with it in a fictional story such as Bridgerton. And I don't think a black/Asian James Bond is an issue either.

Also OP - saying this in the least snarky way (although I'm sure many will choose to jump on my following comment), I don't think you can really use your mixed race children as a defence for not being racist. Same goes for those who say the old line of but I can't be racist my husband/best friend/neighbours twice removed cousin is black/Asian/mixed. Anyone can be racist regardless of colour or association. I am mixed ethnicity by the way.

Another vote for why are we rehashing the Tudors again?

I'm torn on how much race matters for historical figures, both sides of the argument have some merit. I think I lean towards it doesn't matter that much with a character like Anne Boleyn as there have been so many TV and theatre portrayals it's not like this particular one is the defining record of who she was.

Also it's way back in history and once you go that far back in time apart from the basics an awful lot becomes a fictional licence. I think colour blind casting probably does need to be a case by case basis though. There are some historical roles that would feel too strange if it's fairly contemporary history. For example if the next series of The Crown cast a black Princess Diana that would be a bit much for most people.

The problem will always be that even fairly well educated people will pick up their views about any subject that isn't their own particular area of interest and expertise from what they absorb from media, including fiction or semi-fiction. I've met at least one fairly literate intelligent and well educated American who was gobsmacked to discover that it wasn't the American Navy who recovered an Enigma machine from a U-Boat which lead to the breaking of the Nazi secret codes, but a Royal Naval ship. Because he'd seen U571 at the cinema. And please don't even get me started about Braveheart!

I think it’s potentially problematic if you think about the conversations over Meghan Markles skin colour. I mean if Henry VIII was happy to marry a black woman it means the Royal Family aren’t institutionally racist.
Why not a black Henry as well if no one sees the colour of actors?

Also it's way back in history and once you go that far back in time apart from the basics an awful lot becomes a fictional licence

It’s not that it’s far back in history imho, but that her identity and life is well documented.. For example, we do have colour portraits of the real Anne Boleyn by artists who had her sit for them in real life, letters, and other documents written by eyewitnesses, ergo her race as a white woman is “one of the basics.”

If it were the identity of a serving girl named Martha in a tavern in Cheapside, then yes next to nothing would be known of Martha and there’d be artistic license to choose a plausible identity from many possibilities.

We had a Chinese Bess of Hardwick and a black Lord Randolph in Mary Queen of Scots too.

It just feels wrong when it’s depictions of real people. I couldn’t care less about the casting in Bridgerton... it’s fiction, go for your life! The more diverse the better, why the fuck not?

But this feels like an attempt to retroactively diversify our history and pretend the indigenous population of the country isn’t white. Except it is. It’s ok to have a film that only stars white people if the real life people they are playing were also known for a fact to be white people.

Lack of diversity in TV and cinema is a huge problem, and needs to be addressed. But the answer to this isn’t to make historical shows about people who were white and just cast black or Asian people in their roles. The answer is to make more shows about black or Asian people. Why is nobody doing that? I’m sure they could find plenty of people in history whose lives were just as interesting and influential as Anne Boleyn, with the added bonus that chances are we won’t have heard their story a million times before.

And I agree with PP, they’ll never find a better Anne Boleyn than Natalie Dormer.

Was The Other Boleyn Girl Movie as offensive to the op?

@AngeloMysterioso
Agree. it feels like revising history to fool the less educated into thinking the past was more diverse than it was and that oppressed minorities had a presence in the aristocracy. Doing that is the first step to forgetting what our ancestors lived through.

@PlanDeRaccordement

Also it's way back in history and once you go that far back in time apart from the basics an awful lot becomes a fictional licence

It’s not that it’s far back in history imho, but that her identity and life is well documented.. For example, we do have colour portraits of the real Anne Boleyn by artists who had her sit for them in real life, letters, and other documents written by eyewitnesses, ergo her race as a white woman is “one of the basics.”

If it were the identity of a serving girl named Martha in a tavern in Cheapside, then yes next to nothing would be known of Martha and there’d be artistic license to choose a plausible identity from many possibilities.

This is why I'm a bit torn on the topic because I don't disagree with your argument here but from a TV enjoyment perspective I could watch this portrayal of Anne Boleyn and it not put me off on a personal level if the acting and production quality is good. As per my example above though I could not watch The Crown and take seriously a black Diana or asian Charles. I'd probably switch off.

It must be a proximity thing in some respects.

I'm aware this isn't a rational argument as such, more one based on where my personal enjoyment lines would be on the re-imagining of historical figures.