Yes, but Shakespeare is so important for theatre and global culture in general, that this kind of exception is justified. Also, if I'm not mistaken, it happens in case of stage plays - I cannot think of a Shakespearian movie that would do this kind of thing.
So if something was low culture like a scintillating romance TV serial that's not important at all for culture, why would there need to be any justification for color-blind casting? Why must it take the most important thing ever to finally loosen some strict requirement? Why is race that important?
With due respect, I honestly feel you're reaching here. Yes, English nobility might've been ethnically distinct from the rest of English population, but they were all still white-skinned Europeans. It's not about the line being drawn at "white vs black", it's about "white vs non-white". Because the differences in appearance between most brands of European whites, when compared to non-white ethnicities, are really miniscule.
We can have an entire thread about this, but I assure you I'm not. What you're describing is our modern opinion that there's no difference between these groups. Benjamin Franklin used to write about how visually different German immigrants were, that he was 'white' while they were 'swarthy'. The same was thought of Catholic immigrants for much of American history, too. 'White' is a changing perspective in our history, and it would be cruel to decide 'no, this time we finally got it right, the line is drawn here and no more.' If you were born a century ago, seeing a Sicilian man on screen would have similarly annoyed you, because of how 'obvious' the visual difference was to the 'white' actors around him.
It matters, because when you see the actress, you can immediately see that she belongs to the ethnicity completely different than real Ann Boleyn's. Differences between European ethnicities aren't pronounced enough that you, say, cannot find an Italian actress that would look convincingly as a Tudor-era English noblewoman. Meanwhile, when it comes to a black actress, not only wasn't Ann Boleyn black, there were no English noblewomen in that era that were black. Using such an actress completely destroys the suspension of disbelief for the whole story.
Note the word convincingly, because this is still about the audience. If a non-white actress can play a convincing Anne Boleyn on radio, then the only issue on TV is that the audience is not color-blind, that they can't ignore such a thing like the actors can. As I've said, those differences you don't consider as pronounced now between Europeans were actually major issues for prior generations, and only through normalization have we gotten over them.
Okay, so... let's say we're making a biopic about Nixon. Would you have a Japanese actor play Nixon?
Why not? Factual realism is a fairly modern thing in cinema and art, driven by modern advancements in costuming, makeup, and effects. There's no reason to think it'll continue this way forever, and someday we may live in a world where a Japanese actor plays the best Nixon ever and no one cares all that much that he looks a little different (because those differences are no longer vast in the eyes of a future viewer).
Okay, wait a minute. When women were allowed into acting, they weren't cast in all roles. They played female roles that were, until that point, played by men for wider societal reasons. Yes, we get cases of female actors playing male roles, but it's not a common practice. And, when it happens in the movies or TV, it usually involves a serious effort to *conceal* the actresses' actual gender. For example, the Suspiria remake *had* Tilda Swinton play an elderly man... but she was made to look like a man. They didn't just put her into a suit and asked the viewers to suspend the disbelief.
A black actress playing a white role is similarly not a common practice, and they did take the effort to help suspend one's disbelief by putting her in period clothing and acting like a historical aristocrat. She presumably looks like royalty. But just like they can't give Tilda Swinton a man's bone structure, they didn't make their black actress white. They could have, mind you, but they decided that wasn't the right thing to do, either for the art or for respecting social mores.
But if we assume that most of the viewers are so unaware of historical details, then don't these details become even more important? Seriously, do you honestly believe that a TV series about black Ann Boleyn won't make some people believe that Ann Boleyn really *was* black? I fear that would the case. And then, when another Ann Boleyn movie comes out, with a white actress this time, these people will start raging and cancelling due to Ann Boleyn being white-washed...
This happens all the time with Cleopatra roles, and it turns out the world doesn't end, the study of history goes on quietly as it always has, and nothing much comes of it except a few weird articles in the leadup to the next inevitable Cleopatra role. I think the anxiety of historical ignorance through mass media is less important than issues of integration and normalization for historically segregated and discriminated people, because the former happens all the time to no one's detriment (only when ideology comes into play is it ever a problem) while the latter is driving innumerable social problems to this day.
Sure, some folks will walk away misinformed, but they were going to do so anyway. They'd have learned that Anne had a dozen affairs with random courtiers, or that Henry had six-pack abs and looked like a GAP model, or that soldiers all dressed like London Tower guards all the time, or that they sounded just like modern day Londoners, and on and on it goes. Seeing a black Anne doesn't actually do anything in the end outside of creating some new, short-lived and fringe idea that'll die out and get replaced by something else ridiculous years later. All we've done is make history teachers work a little harder, yet again.
When compared to the sin of marginalizing the already marginalized, and continuing to other a whole minority as outsiders to our national myths and stories, it seems almost frivolous. Because in the end, you can always do both: have a hyper accurate historical drama
and a more loose interpretation, and they don't replace each other. HBO's Rome aired alongside Starz's Spartacus, and everything was okay. It's fine to enjoy both.
As I said: there's enough of ignorance in the world, we shouldn't add it, even for the best of intentions.
I say, it's arrogant to think ignorance is added, not that people already are and simply choose the manner of their ignorance according to whim. A less than perfectly accurate adaptation is always a misrepresentation in some way, and the question is which facts are major misrepresentations, which is a very modern and politically charged debate.
Question about that bullet list: let's say we find a male actor who manages to check all of these points. Does this mean that he should be considered for the role of Ann Boleyn, too?
If in the future we reach a better world were gender politics have normalized, why not? If Shakespeare could get into it, why can't we?
Hmm. I disagree that the question of ethnicity is "being made" into a major issue. Getting basic details about characters' ethnicities wrong really *is* a major inaccuracy. I mean, would you treat seriously a Tudor-era TV show that, say, would insist that the capital of England is in Paris? There are inaccuracies and then, there are... BIG inaccuracies.
Why should a Tudor-era TV show be treated seriously at all? Plenty of folks enjoy these kinds of shows in spite of the inaccuracies - and many because of them. If they don't make it a major issue, are they wrong? If someone thinks, "I know Anne wasn't actually black, but that's not really important to my enjoyment of this TV show," are they wrong to think so? Can you objectively prove that this inaccuracy is in fact a 'major' and not a 'minor' one? Who decided such a thing? What if our great grandkids decide differently? Or our great grandparents ghosts sudden come to us and complain about something else that we don't think much of at all? If you can't enjoy something because of some inaccuracy, then why not ignore it and find a show that you do?
I think an inaccuracy is an inaccuracy, and the distinction between major and minor ones are up to personal preference.
Or, maybe, because the differences in appearance between Romans / Italians and Frenchmen are so miniscule that they don't matter?
You'd get into a lot of hot water saying such things during certain time periods, mind you. And that's the point. And who knows, perhaps in the future we'll have a major falling out between the French and Italians, and both sides now insist on their racial distinctiveness and would be offended at any suggestion otherwise. To many Westerners, there's no aesthetic difference between Arabs and Iranians and Latinos, and they get cast into roles playing each other often enough that actual members of those communities will loudly complain about it. Are they wrong?
It's true that the failure of making a POC cast for Gods of Egypt was white-washing. And yes, I know it highlights the problems within the movie industry. But... let's assume that these problems don't exist. Would you be okay with Nikolai playing Horus, then? Because I wouldn't. Even without the white-washing concept, it would just be absurd.
I wouldn't mind, because I don't let this sort of thing keep me from having a good time, and I'm the sort of person who complains about the lack of peasants and properly populated hinterlands in Medieval/fantasy films that show off big cities surrounded by empty grassland. Race can be a major issue for you and not for me, like any inaccuracy, and that's perfectly okay. But it doesn't feel like a coincidence that a mere annoyance/major misrepresentation happens to be a topic that is highly sensitive with enormous partisan divide in modern politics. I'm sure you have other pet peeves about common mistakes or decisions made in historical films, but chose to make a thread about this instead.
Okay, this I don't understand. Why isn't showing the history as it was a solution?
Because it's not solving an actual problem. Making Anne white doesn't fix the myriad other inaccuracies always getting made but never getting the attention from historians who point it out. It doesn't help the many POC actors in the industry who are always short on work. It sacrifices the artistic freedom of creators for something that most neither care about nor makes any sort of statement or reflection of modern society as art is want to do.
As I mentioned, I really suspect that we're going to get complaints about future Ann Boleyn's being casted as white. As the Amelie Wen Zhao's case shows, there's ignorance on the POC side of things, too.
And that's worth the marginalization of POC minorities? A bit more spilled ink that goes no where? Because I would say, media doesn't make one ignorant, but refusal to engage with it does. Someone isn't made ignorant because of an inaccuracy in a TV show, they choose to be because it doesn't affect them one way or another if some dead person centuries ago was dark-skinned or light-skinned.
Topic: Minority inclusion in TV and movies (Read 865 times)