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' ...

I’m afraid I don’t understand the Markle reference. What have AB and MM got in common?

It's just acting. They've chosen the actor they like best for the role. This kind of casting happens in theatre all the time and it's more than time that TV caught up with it.

Anne Boylen's race isn't central to her story, MLK's is, which is why you won't see a white actor playing MLK.

@Frustratedbeyondbelief by making excuses, you are playing into their hand. Giving them even more reason to feel 'oppressed' by you.

Your circumstances speak for themselves, not that they should have to.

There is nothing wrong with being white.

I'm sick of seeing so many white people apologise for something they have not caused. Eventually, if things continue to go as they are, you'll end up being the minority and we'll be back to square one. Which some people definitely want, from both sides in fact! Not me though.

I myself struggle to make friends in a predominantly white town and it's all because of the division the media are causing x

My issue is that it simply isn't true .. wanting it to be so .. doesn't make it so... just strange and for me , beyond wioke. Literally re-writing history .

@Frustratedbeyondbelief

My issue is that it simply isn't true .. wanting it to be so .. doesn't make it so... just strange and for me , beyond wioke. Literally re-writing history .

But of course it's rewriting history, it's a telly programme not a documentary. In the same way that Phillips Gregory's books aren't historical records.

I do however agree with pp's that what would be even better would be to tell more black stories, rather than regurgitating the bloody Tudors again.

Wonder if they would have considered casting Henry 8th as black?

@Councilworker

I assumed it was as a nod to the outrage some people had to Megan Markle. The sheer disruption caused to court life by Henry marrying someone else while C of A was still alive. A woman who was not "pure" and called a whore and who did as she pleased and put a lot of noses out of joint. If people weren't especially bothered that Jonathan Rhys Meyers who is distinctly not gingery and didn't dye his hair or have a ginger wig and beard (which is important because that was how Elizabeth I showed she was her daughter) then why is it so different to cast a black woman?

Actually I was bothered by JRM playing Henry VIII. If its a historical figure who was famous for being ginger then why cast a non ginger actor? Kind of distracting for me personally.

PS coming at this from a male / female angle. Personally think they need to make more diverse historical shows. Tudors is over done.

Male figures have dominated English history, few women other than monarchs had a voice or recorded presence in this period. Anne Boleyn was an educated strong women who dared to stand up to a king (and paid the ultimate price). As a female historian, she has always been a fascinating figure for me.

It feels that portraying her as black tells a different story.

@lljkk

Mmmm... I guess colour-blind casting works for me. It's fine. Race wasn't part of AB's story. It's not denying reality.

And sometimes when race is part of the story, it still doesn't undermine the truths in the story (eg., Hamilton )

Yes I agree. Race is very much a part of MLK or Ghandi or Muhammad Ali's stories so it would be massively insensitive to cast a white actor to portay them. Anne Boleyn suffered, not because of her race but because of her sex.

I'd be offended if a man played her though.

@Frustratedbeyondbelief

My issue is that it simply isn't true .. wanting it to be so .. doesn't make it so... just strange and for me , beyond wioke. Literally re-writing history .

But the fact it isn't true doesn't stop me enjoying a good show/programme. Does it have to be 'true'?

Opportunities for black and other non-caucasian actors are very sadly limited, especially with regards to major roles.

On UK TV? Are you sure?

She is widely believed to be mixed race. Her skin, as described by her physician, was ‘mulatto’ and ‘sallow’ was used a lot too - both of those words were used for mixed race people in those days

There are paintings of her. We know her ancestors and descendents. This is just a nutty statement.

Honestly I think it's a bit weird and patronising to wildly miscast a black person in a historical, just for the publicity.

Sorry, but however you feel about casting choices, Anne Boleyn was not black.

There are zero primary sources that suggest she was. Swarthy was used as a signifier she was not as pale as Catherine of Aragon ( who was red haired and fair, yet is usually played by Spanish actresses with dark hair and eyes for... Reasons)

She had dark hair and eyes which was in direct contrast to the fair skinned and haired ideal of the time. She was flat chested where the ideal was voluptuous. That's what was shocking at the time. She had great eyes that she knew how to use (even her enemies gave her that) she was french in her mannerisms so came across as exotic. As in, exotic due to the fact most people never traveled far beyond the next village.

There is zero credible data to suggest that she was black in any way.
Her pale, ginger daughter is a bit of a giveaway for a start.
Hundreds of thousands of historical accounts of her and people think she might have been black but no one mentioned it?!

Anyone saying otherwise is applying modern language and sentiment to the past.

Also, they're just stupid.

I may just be old and therefore stuck in my own ways .. just can't help think that there are SO MANy BAME stories to be told that accurately portray their lives that this is where it should be focussed ... I fucking love Maya Angelou's story .. can't begin how angry I would be if she were to be portrayedas a white Woman.

Does reality now. I longer matter ? I lost that memo....

Anyway, which tv series are you referring to op? I'm always up for watching some Tudor shenanigans.

I was also bothered by jrm as Henry.
I let it slide because of Henry Caville.
Plus Natalie Dormer was so good.

I'm pretty ambivalent, I understand the angle of historical inaccuracy but also think it's always good to give opportunities to disadvantaged groups- and POC are massively underrepresented in film and TV.

I don't think paintings can be considered especially reliable, as they were well known to be altered in order to cater for the desirable look of the time- obviously very much white then.

For what it's worth, the earliest known Englishman had dark skin. Black people didn't just pop out of the ground in the 50s.

Generally, i prefer historical characters based on real people to match the race they were. Fictional characters can be any race.

Does reality now. I longer matter ? I lost that memo....

It does. In documentary. This is entertainment.

Picking somebody who has zero resemblance to the very real person they are portraying is unnecessary and divisive.
Have to say I agree with this. When a real person is portrayed they choose actors who bear a resemblance and they gain weight or wear false teeth or prosthetics to increase the resemblance even further. The actor makes a huge effort to copy the person’s mannerisms and speech patterns to give the most realistic portrayal. In this case they’ve totally abandoned realism and as pp said, if it was a white actor playing a non-white historical person there’d be an outcry.

It's interesting that colourblind casting doesn't stretch to Caucasian people. You're right, you'll never see a white person cast as a character that was historically known to be any other race.

There's no justification for creating space for white people. We already have the monopoly on so many areas, television and film included. But POC don't have the same advantages that we do and so it's good to create some.

That being said, fiction and fantasy should always be cast based on talent but I feel as though a fact based portrayal should be respectful and effort should be made to make it historically accurate, race (or appearance of at least) included.

I agree, but in real life I probably would not say this. Bridgerton was different, as they explained the multi-racial element as part of the story and it was fictional, anyway.

Anne Boleyn was not. I find this approach distracting when watching historical shows, because it feels contrived to please the wokesters. Agree with the poster who called this ‘colour conscious’ rather than ‘colour blind’- colour blind casting would involve casting fictional characters with no particular race in mind (eg: they did this for Grey’s Anatomy, and ended up with a very diverse cast.) When casting a real person, it feels like a statement.

In truth it also undermines and trivialises the history of ethnic groups and the struggles they went through in our country.

@DarcyLewis

It’s not actually the real Anne Boleyn.

It’s an actress pretending to be a fictionalised version of her.

Whether her skin tone, hair colour, height, weight or shoe size is the same as the actual Anne Boleyn is irrelevant to the story.

So why not cast a 57 year old Chinese man then?

There were hardly any black women in Tudor England. Certainly none at the Tudor court. The idea that a king could marry a black woman and nobody would think anything of it totally distorts the history, so unless they're going for a totally fantastical interpretation of the period it makes a nonsense of the whole thing.

I think it's fine. People know from her portraits the colour of her skin. They will know this is historically inaccurate. If it's being filmed for entertainment and not a factual documentary then why not? Where is the issue?

Unfortunately I think the actress was cast purely to generate publicity.