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' ...

What was the problem with the adaptation of ‘Anne with an E’?!!

@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.

This as a fellow BAME I completely agree

Anne Boleyn is such a controversial and divisive figure. In some parts of Europe they still burn effigies of her and she is widely known as the great whore. Whilst this is grossly unfair for the most part, it's problematic to cast, the historical figure who is widely considered as the baddy, as black.
Association of accusations of promiscuity, witchcraft and deviousness with a black person is much more problematic than say, Othello, which was written hundreds of years ago yet still imho has more racial sensitivity than this choice.

It’s only a matter of time before a progressive studio has a Caucasian female playing the role of Ghandi. My vote is for Julie Walters.

@Lovelanguedoc

Casting Anne Boleyn as black is nothing more than a ridiculous sop to today's politically correct society. If you think of 'The Crown,' the actors were chosen for their ability to resemble, or to be made up to resemble, the real people. Anne Boleyn was real, and definitely white. I didn't even like a black actor playing David Copperfield, and the adaptation of 'Anne with an E' would have L.M. Montgomery turning in her grave.

I didn't even like a black actor playing David Copperfield, why? he's a fictional character

@StColumbofNavron

Maybe it’s not trying to achieve anything except entertainment.

Except any historical drama based on real people that makes zero attempt at historical accuracy is always criticised. Why bother making a drama based on a real person if you are going to ignore basic facts?

It's completely ridiculous and unnecessary but hey, it gets people talking so maybe that's the idea re ratings...

I remember last year when similarly stupid casting happened in the ITV drama 'Quiz'. A black woman played a real life character who was white. It's crazy PC crap that helps no-one.

We are supposed to pretend that we do not see colour and that racism does not exist. Sigh.

I’m excited to watch it as I love anything Tudors - it looks like it will be good and I’m happy with colour blind casting when it’s done well (great in David Copperfield - half hearted and pointless in Mary Queen of Scots). As a pp said this does seem a bit divisive though - with a white actress it would be just another Tudor program, it’s like they purposely chose a black actress to garner more attention for it.

Another issue is that colour blind casting does nothing to help tell BAME stories - there are still so many BAME historical figures who’s stories could be told on film, rather than telling the story of Anne Boleyn for the umpteenth time (I say that even though I’m fascinated by her and watch anything to do with Tudors).

@southeastdweller

It's completely ridiculous and unnecessary but hey, it gets people talking so maybe that's the idea re ratings...

I remember last year when similarly stupid casting happened in the ITV drama 'Quiz'. A black woman played a real life character who was white. It's crazy PC crap that helps no-one.

Regarding "Quiz", it was a minor character that no one in the audience would have a clue what their actual ethnicity was. It would make no difference to the story or to the "accuracy" of events. It was a bizarre thing for people to comment on or get bothered about.

@AssassinatedBeauty would you think the same if it was a white actor playing a minor character of a real-life black person?

I've thought long and hard about this. My first reaction was "it's ridiculous and ahistorical and it misleads people about the past." But then I stopped to think harder... here's what I concluded:

• almost EVERYONE will know that Anne Boleyn was white. She is a well-known figure from history and Anne's race really isn't important to the story (unlike making a drama about Maya Angelou, where race is actually part of the story. If you made a programme where Hitler is portrayed by a black person that would be more controversial as Hitler was a racist; his race is pertinent.)
• The program isn't making a point about race in the past and the intended audience is adult, and should have some critical faculty to know that all sorts of historical inaccuracies are depicted in drama on TV or film.
• this isn't a history lesson in a school. It's entertainment.
• if we ONLY allow white actors to represent notable white historical characters on TV, we reduce the number of lead roles open to people of colour. I know there is a well-established method-acting convention for actors to look like, talk like, and behave like the people they are representing on-screen. But does it ALWAYS have to be that way? No of course not. This is a new genre, I think - a genre where we imagine a character from history in a different way without trying to persuade ourselves that the person on-screen "really could be this person, wow."

So yes. I'm pretty unruffled about the prospect of seeing a programme with a black actor in the role Winston Churchill or Beethoven or Florence Nightingale. As long as they arent taking liberties with the core historical details , it honestly doesn't make any difference to your viewing pleasure.

It's just a new approach and change unsettles people.

If you look back, similar outrage occurred when black people were shown on TV kissing white people and so on. Now, who bats an eyelid?

Change is gonna happen. Best to roll with it.

@ChelseaCat

I’m not sure which program you’re referring to but, like with Bridgerton, I assume they’ve gone for colour conscious (very different to colour blind) casting. Opportunities for black and other non-caucasian actors are very sadly limited, especially with regards to major roles. I think it’s fantastic to see more diversity on our screens.

It’s a very different situation to portraying MLK or Ghandi as white men (which would be extremely insensitive and likely offensive, in my opinion)

I've never seen Bridgerton but I guess it's the same concept as Hamilton casting?

53SmidgenofaPigeon.What was the problem with the adaptation of ‘Anne with an E’?!!
Where to begin! Aunt Josephine portrayed as a lesbian, Billy Andrews portrayed as a bully, Miss Stacy wearing trousers and riding a bike, Mrs. Barry as a social climber, Gilbert Blythe travelling to the West Indies, Ruby Gillis not dying of consumption.
Apart from those issues it was a great adaptation!

I'm in two minds about this, because AB was obviously not black, I don't know where the previous poster got that from.

However, the history of AB has been so completely fictionalized that much of what we know about her is just completely false. Even feminist interpretations of her story - that she was a strong powerful ambitious woman brought down by the misogynistic men at court - are also false. The reality is that she was a young woman who, despite refusing Henry's advances many times, eventually capitulated to the power of the king (as you would) . The rest is a tragic story.

As a historian I prefer when films do not show false facts, however we have to réalisé that most history films already play with the truth to such an extent that people's perception of historical reality gets distorted. In this way, the fact that JTS is playing AB is absolutely not going to effect the story. If someone is so ignorant to think that JTS portrayal of AB means that AB was black, well I'm sorry but what can you do!

Also, this can be a good chance for black actors to play historical or classical roles. I'm interested to watch JTS portrayal of AB, the story of AB has been done very often and (in my opinion) has always seemed to follow the same script. So hopefully JTS will bring a breath of fresh air to the role.

So yes. I'm pretty unruffled about the prospect of seeing a programme with a black actor in the role Winston Churchill or Beethoven or Florence Nightingale. As long as they arent taking liberties with the core historical details , it honestly doesn't make any difference to your viewing pleasure.

I’m not ruffled either but I have started thinking about this in relation to telling BAME stories. Another film about Churchill, no matter who plays him, is still another story about Churchill - it’s a white story. As I said upthread how does that support BAME equality? Other stories need to be told. Having black actors to tell more stories about about white historical figures seems like a misdirection - it doesn’t achieve as much as people would like to think.

Yes seems odd to me to, OP.

@Lovelanguedoc fair enough...I did only watch half of series 1. I really liked the way Anne was portrayed.

[quote brondary]@AssassinatedBeauty would you think the same if it was a white actor playing a minor character of a real-life black person?[/quote]
No I wouldn't think the same, because there's no history of white actors not being cast in roles where the ethnicity of the actor is irrelevant, due to their being white.

I would like to be clear that casting actors of different ethnicity/sex/disability to the usual portrayal of a character is most definitely not the only or best way to address issues of lack of representation and racism in film/tv/theatre. I would also like to see historical dramas about a wider range of people, and I really don't see the need for another drama about Anne Boleyn what with the Tudors, the Other Boleyn Girl etc etc.

I can't get worked up about this. I don't really care who plays who so long as they do a good job of it.
I know some people are more literally though and things like this annoy me. I've seen threads on mumsnet before where people declare they couldn't watch x because the accents were wrong whereas stuff like that doesn't bother me.

@Lovelanguedoc

53SmidgenofaPigeon.What was the problem with the adaptation of ‘Anne with an E’?!! Where to begin! Aunt Josephine portrayed as a lesbian, Billy Andrews portrayed as a bully, Miss Stacy wearing trousers and riding a bike, Mrs. Barry as a social climber, Gilbert Blythe travelling to the West Indies, Ruby Gillis not dying of consumption. Apart from those issues it was a great adaptation!

I'm such an Anne fan but I've avoided that latest adaptation because I heard they'd taken more than a few liberties with the story. Ruby Gillis not dying of consumption (brought on by too much flirting) is ridiculous!

A side note; Ben Kingsley played Ghandi in a biopic and he is definitely not of Asian decent, so it works both ways really

Ouch for you. Ben Kinglsey is anglo-Indian.

if we ONLY allow white actors to represent notable white historical characters on TV, we reduce the number of lead roles open to people of colour.

But there's never been an expectation that all actors should be able to play every part. We wouldn't have expected a woman to be cast as Winston Churchill for example. Lots of people rolled their eyes when Carey Mulligan was cast as a woman about 15 years her senior in 'The Dig'. There is usually some expectation of at least some attempt at historical accuracy when a period drama is made.

The fact is that Britain was an overwhelmingly white country until very recently. That means that any drama set in any period of British history prior to about the 1970s is going to be about white people. Pretending that black or other non-white people were among the gentry class of Tudor England, and that one could marry a king without comment, is to make a mockery of history.

So while the vast majority of roles should indeed be open to people of all racial backgrounds, that is not true for historical dramas set in pre modern England, unless they are specifically focussed on ethnic minorities. I'm pretty certain you don't believe that white actors should be playing roles from, say, Chinese or Nigerian history, do you?

The fact is that Britain was an overwhelmingly white country until very recently. That means that any drama set in any period of British history prior to about the 1970s is going to be about white people.

This is completely incorrect. We need better history education and better historical dramas...