The Off Topic Topic

[The Brain]

I don't think society is ready for color blind casting in for instance 12 Years A Slave.

[Valmy]

I don't think society is ready for color blind casting in for instance 12 Years A Slave.

Yes...even in a stage play that might be going too far.

[Syt]

I didn't know Allen Ginsberg was a wargamer.

[garbon]

I don't think society is ready for color blind casting in for instance 12 Years A Slave.

It is almost like Sheilbh addressed such a thing in his second paragraph.

[garbon]

Yeah. I mean I generally think we should move to colour blind casting

I don't. I think real people should be represented to resemble the actual person as much as possible. I think people just want white washing to stop, which I completely agree with. It is ridiculous to do so these days anyway, as we have plenty of actors of all different backgrounds now in most big film centers.

But this goes for movies. Movies should, at least mainstream ones, attempt to look like reality. For stage plays I have no problem at all with color-blind casting as everything in a play is representational. You can actually say a lot about the character with what kind of ethnicity you have playing them.

Particularly for period pieces, they are so powerful in creating people's mental take away from that era that I think there is an obligation to make it look accurate (even if obviously everybody isn't going to be speaking accurate languages or dialects and the liberties will be taken with the story itself). I mean you can say what you want about William Wallace, most people think he looked like Mel Gibson subconciously and that medieval Scots painted their faces blue and wore plaid. It doesn't matter how many times you point out otherwise, the image on screen is very powerful.

The fact that Cleopatra and her family are part of a small foreign elite ruling over Egypt is an important part of the story, along with her attempts to pander to the regular Egyptians to get them on her side against her brother.

So non-white people should just accept that they can't be in period dramas set in say a popular place for them, Europe?

[Admiral Yi]

So non-white people should just accept that they can't be in period dramas set in say a popular place for them, Europe?

Hell no.  They should RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE and SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER.

[garbon]

So non-white people should just accept that they can't be in period dramas set in say a popular place for them, Europe?

Hell no.  They should RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE and SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER.

[Admiral Yi]

I was poking fun of your use of the word "accept,"  as if it's an act of submission.

[Josquius]

Got to say. Random black guys in medieval villages visited by Dr who does annoy me.
But then this sort of thing pesters me on other science fiction too.
So your village of 500 people has been cut off from all outsiders from 500 years.... How the hell is there a black guy wandering around? Where'd that come from? Surely the gene pool would have merged into an average after so long.
Vice versa too. In stargate the Chinese goauld.... Had his head guy also Chinese but all his other goons were white. Grahhhh.

So yes. I expect races to be vaguely right at least.

[Valmy]

So non-white people should just accept that they can't be in period dramas set in say a popular place for them, Europe?

No. But if they are going to be in period dramas they should represent actual people. There were black tudors and onward in England. Who were they? What a great way to educate the public about their actual heritage in that country.

There were black people in the Chartist revolt, so a period piece about the 1830s could include those actual people. There were black people in the French Revolution, I have mentioned there on Languish before.

Representation right? There are ways to do it right.

Also hey there might be more diverse stories that could be told as well. People actually want those.

[The Brain]

I don't think society is ready for color blind casting in for instance 12 Years A Slave.

It is almost like Sheilbh addressed such a thing in his second paragraph.

OK?

[Sheilbh]

I don't think society is ready for color blind casting in for instance 12 Years A Slave.

It is almost like Sheilbh addressed such a thing in his second paragraph.

To which I'd add if race is sort of a big topic of the film then obviously it shouldn't be colour blind. Othello doesn't necessarily work if it's colour-blind, for example, similarly Selma would be less effective.

I don't. I think real people should be represented to resemble the actual person as much as possible. I think people just want white washing to stop, which I completely agree with. It is ridiculous to do so these days anyway, as we have plenty of actors of all different backgrounds now in most big film centers.

But this goes for movies. Movies should, at least mainstream ones, attempt to look like reality. For stage plays I have no problem at all with color-blind casting as everything in a play is representational. You can actually say a lot about the character with what kind of ethnicity you have playing them.

Okay - interesting. I think part of this may be that I did English at university. So I think for biopics there's an obvious case for non-colourblind casting, but there are potentially real figures - like Cleopatra, Antony, Julius Caesar, the Henrys, Robin Hood - that I almost don't see this as a biopic or a historical film. They are literary characters. And I don't really see the difference between film and play.

Particularly for period pieces, they are so powerful in creating people's mental take away from that era that I think there is an obligation to make it look accurate (even if obviously everybody isn't going to be speaking accurate languages or dialects and the liberties will be taken with the story itself). I mean you can say what you want about William Wallace, most people think he looked like Mel Gibson subconciously and that medieval Scots painted their faces blue and wore plaid. It doesn't matter how many times you point out otherwise, the image on screen is very powerful.

I totally agree about the power of screen I just don't think it particularly matters what race or ethnicity the actors are (admittedly I also don't care at all about historical anachronsims). If the intention of the film is to educate then I think accuracy matters otherwise - I don't care. It's the power of the representation and the story you're telling and the way you tell it just like poor, maligned Richard III (I don't actually think this - Ricardians are crazy ).

But in terms of period pieces I think in part it can unlock something in the text - I love Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights for many, many reasons. But one of the things I love most about the film is that she cast a mixed race boy as Heathcliff (and she focuses on the early story), which makes sense in the text because Heathcliff is racially ambiguous: "a dark-skinned gypsy", "a little Lascar", one character says he could be the child of an Indian princess and the Emperor of China. But in film depictions we normally see someone with dark hair - he's been played by Laurence Olivier, Ralph Fiennes, Timothy Dalton () and, absurdly, Cliff Richards. It's a really good depiction that makes you look at something already in the text again.

I've recommended it plenty but please give the new film of David Copperfield starring Dev Patel a go (it's on Amazon Prime in the UK) because I think it's a delight but I also think it's the most successful example I've seen of a proper period piece that's colour blind. And so many adaptations could be - Jane Austen immediately springs to mind, but the rest of Dickens too.

The fact that Cleopatra and her family are part of a small foreign elite ruling over Egypt is an important part of the story, along with her attempts to pander to the regular Egyptians to get them on her side against her brother.

That can be depicted in other ways like writing or acting or even good directing (I think of that scene in Widows which films a conversation from outside the car so you can see the streets reflected in the window but shows so much).

[Valmy]

Okay - interesting. I think part of this may be that I did English at university. So I think for biopics there's an obvious case for non-colourblind casting, but there are potentially real figures - like Cleopatra, Antony, Julius Caesar, the Henrys, Robin Hood - that I almost don't see this as a biopic or a historical film. They are literary characters. And I don't really see the difference between film and play.

Are we talking about the Shakespeare plays? Because again I feel totally different about theatre. The medium matters a lot.

Likewise white Ghenghis Khan might be fine in a play, depending upon how it was done. In a movie well...

[Sheilbh]

So non-white people should just accept that they can't be in period dramas set in say a popular place for them, Europe?

Yeah - on a practical level there is a huge issue for the UK specifically because period pieces tend to be popular and tend to sell really well overseas. But if you're an immensely talented British actor like Riz Ahmed or Thandie Newton or Daniel Kaluuya you are largely not even considered for roles in those films/series. And the lack of decent roles is something all of those actors have said is part of the reason they moved to the US.

If you're a talented white actor in the UK you can earn a fine living on the stage and in period pieces before making a late career transition as English character actor in the US. If you're not then I think you need to make the move a lot earlier.

[Sheilbh]

Okay - interesting. I think part of this may be that I did English at university. So I think for biopics there's an obvious case for non-colourblind casting, but there are potentially real figures - like Cleopatra, Antony, Julius Caesar, the Henrys, Robin Hood - that I almost don't see this as a biopic or a historical film. They are literary characters. And I don't really see the difference between film and play.

Are we talking about the Shakespeare plays? Because again I feel totally different about theatre. The medium matters a lot.

No - although out of interest how would you feel about a film adaptation of a Shakespeare play? Or a film adaptation of another play - you know a colour-blind Ibsen?

As I say I don't really see the difference between film and stage.

Edit: I think the key just reading your point about black Tudors etc which I agree with a lot of, is I don't think films have any responsibility to educate unless that's their aim. I have no more issue with filmmakers taking huge liberties than I do with Shakespeare doing the same. And no doubt in a few hundred years time (touch wood), there'll be students analysing the way that those films are actually partially driven by an attempt to legitimise the Tudor dynasty/whatever the modern day equivalent is (and they'll be right).