David Badiel thinks jewish people are the group that has been neglected in considering diversity. Hmm, i think he may have forgotten women

[JustcameoutGC]

I dont yet know where i stand on the principle that only gay / trans / NB / jewish etc people should play characters that are the same. The question for me instantly flips the other way, so if you are gay you shouldn't play straight characters? I also put my faith in the training and skill of actors. But there is still much to do to open up the entertainment industry to minorities.

But read some of these passages.

Casting is about respect. There is something disrespectful about casting an able bodied person in a disabled part. A deaf actor coined it when she said "deaf is not a costume"
The deep truth of any marginalised identiy is only available to those who live that identity. The deep truth of any marginalised identity is only available to those who live that identity. Casting a non-minority actor to mimic that identity feels, to the progressive eye, like impersonation, and impersonation may carry with it an element of mockery – or at least seem reductive, reducing the complexity of that experience by channelling it through an actor who hasn’t lived it.

Yet, Eddie Izzard can choose to be in girl mode, or boy mode, and we are supposed to celebrate that.

Drag queens are essentially woman face, and now they are reading stories to early years kids in libraries.

Really made me quite grumpy this morning

Is your point that there is a whole conversation about whether people should act a role of a community/ group they are not part of - but that conversation is not happening about males performing womanhood/ feminine stereotypes?

yes - was it that badly made?

Not only in acting though - trans ideology depends on the concept that womanhood can be performed, or identified into. We are THE ONLY marginalised group where this concept is viewed as acceptable - nay - in the case of Eddie Izzard - celebrated.

@JeshusHChr

Is your point that there is a whole conversation about whether people should act a role of a community/ group they are not part of - but that conversation is not happening about males performing womanhood/ feminine stereotypes?

This is exactly what I was thinking.

With regard to the current issues about Helen Mirren playing Golda Meir, should a Jewish man play the part? Would he give a more authentic portrayal? Does ethnicity or religion or disability trump sex?

It does all seem to sidestep the fundamental issue that acting is about playing somebody else.

Well, women are often excluded, I have now realised, from concepts that apply to other groups. Such as basic safeguarding. Fairness in sport. They make huge efforts in paraolympic sports to try to ensure people compete against those with a similar level of disability, in recognition that physical differences are real and affect sporting achievement levels. But not when it comes to transwomen.

The double think in so many areas is extraordinary. And shows that women are at a deep and fundamental level not regarded as equal humans with men.

I thought Baddiel's article was very good at addressing the complexities around casting Jewish characters.

You'd probably need a whole other article on cross-sex casting. It's now become quite normal for women to play male roles in Shakespeare, and there has also been an all-male production of Twelfth Night at the Globe.

Obviously you also have men playing women for comic effect, eg Mrs Brown's Boys - and it doesn't happen very often in the other direction, though Kathy Burke's Perry was a notable and very funny exception.

But if only trans women can play trans women, then perhaps only women should be allowed to play women?

I think there are other people than David Baddiel to pounce on. He's under the radar kind of GC and he writes about the marginalisation of Jewish people as that's his area of experience/interest. He doesn't have to focus on women's issues.

I look at is as cosplay. Eddie Izzard and drag queens are playing at being a blokes in dresses. Its when it becomes appropriation that it pisses me off, when they start to take places that should have been for women.

Agree with @Doyoumind

If we agree that acting is acting, putting on costumes, accents, pretending to be someone other - where do we draw the line? (Does a line need to be drawn?)

The rise of casting women in Shakespearen male roles was celebrated. But we don't like men appropriating womanhood so much - because of the underlying structural power inequality?

Jodie Turner as Anne Boleyn or Gemma Chan as Bess of Hardwick weren't so universally accepted, did anyone bat an eyelid over Dev Patel in the Dickens film??

Perhaps again it's down to the fact that it's women trying to break out of our little box and society tells us no...

'Scuse my bumbling thoughts, still a work in progress.

Agree tis a work in progress for me too. An I am certainly not piling on David Baddiel, I think his article was beautifully nuanced and really made me think. It was the stark contrast with the concept that males can totally identify as a woman, no probs. It is the one area where lived experience just doesn't count, that a weekend wearing lipstick and sparkly nail polish is totallly the same as living life in a female body. It gives me the rage

I thought it was a great article. You don't often see the layers of an issue set out like that in a short article. He thinks that in an ideal world non Jews should be able to play Jews. bBut given the current (near) consensus within casting that a white person should not play a minority ethnic character, a straight man shld not play a gay man etc, Jews are not included as a minority for this purpose. Not only this, anyone who questions it is harangued. Its really interesting and is a good example of how 'Jews don't count' in identity politics.

I see the parallels you are making OP, and it's true, but I don't think baddiel could or should have addressed it.

You are sort of making Baddiel’s wider point for him by missing the point about Jewishness.

I dont think i am missing the wider point. As a society we are hopefully progressing in terms of inclusion and diversity. Black face is now consigned to the past, racist/homophobic tropes and stereotypes are no longer tolerated. But some groups, like jews, have been left behind and just dont count in identity politics. But here we are, with prominent jews speaking up, writing books, posing really challenging and nuanced questions about who should portray jewish characters and why. This is a good thing.

Compare with Mrs Browns Boys and Drag Race on Prime time telly, and Eddie Izzard celebrated for being able to identify into womanhood at choice. If even a suggestion of edging into caricature is offensive to jews, why are women expected to tolerate the full on embracing of stereotypes we regularly see on our screens.

David Baddiel is fiercely intelligent and insightful, and also (I believe) has a pretty good level of self-awareness and ability to reflect. I'd be incredibly surprised if he was on board with the TWAW believers.

Steeling myself for someone to provide evidence to the contrary...

there has also been an all-male production of Twelfth Night at the Globe.

in 1601

Not so many women on stage at the time though.

@Lovelyricepudding

there has also been an all-male production of Twelfth Night at the Globe.

in 1601

Ba da boom and, indeed, tish

The internet is yours @Lovelyricepudding, for at least the next 2 hours

in 1601

Very good. Also in 2012, but I'm sure you knew that!

@Doyoumind

I think there are other people than David Baddiel to pounce on. He's under the radar kind of GC and he writes about the marginalisation of Jewish people as that's his area of experience/interest. He doesn't have to focus on women's issues.

Yes. I agree. And - while I hate the opression Olympics - as marginalised groups saying 'we're the most oppressed' go I tend to think it's OK when it's the Jews. Anti-semitism is bizarrely overlooked in modern Britain, when there are still people alive among us who were actually in Auschwitz for Gods sake.

Completely agree with others here that the article is very much part of Baddiel's ongoing argument that Jews are treated differently under racial identity politics to other ethnic minorities (which I agree with). The one exception - which Baddiel doesn't mention - might be the role of Shylock, where there is a longer-standing debate within theatre about whether it's right to cast a Jew or not. But that is exceptional and because it is the most famous/notorious Jewish role in Western theatre.

I don't think there is a direct parallel with the casting of men/transwomen in women's roles, simply because it's not routine in the way it is to cast gentiles as Jews. And I suspect it never will be, because it just won't be box office. The issues around men/transwomen in female/transwoman roles are different - it's more that they tend to suck up attention and energy away from women actors.

I think it's totally fine for Baddiel to confine his focus to Jews - he doesn't have to campaign on every bad consequence of identity politics.

I think there are a variety of worthwhile topics for debate around how men directly or indirectly represent women.

However, I don’t think jumping on an argument about the representation of Jewish people is the place to do it.

I thought it was a great article and I highly recommend his book.

He was a bit shit on JKR though in the book, if I remember correctly. I may be wrong but I think he did the lazy thing is saying that she is transphobic. Or he mentioned transphobic tweets or something. Maybe someone else can remember?

Tbh it undermined his other points as I thought that he had swallowed the lib party line on that.

But I still thought the book was great.

@RoyalCorgi

in 1601

Very good. Also in 2012, but I'm sure you knew that!

How very regressive

I saw one in about 1985. It was actually v good and lots of the bawdier jokes had an extra layer (possibly of homophobic hilarity) because of the women being played by men. But my main memory is of my dad and the husband of the couple we had gone with leaving at the interval saying, 'we're off to the pub'

He can’t write an article about Jewish people being marginalised without focusing on other groups? Why not?
Also, Jewish has a capital J.