Anne Boleyn

The church is going to have an enormous amount if work to do.

Chestnut

If we are going to enter fantasyland then why not get Bart Simpson to play Churchill?

One thing leads to another...
One minute you have a woman with dark skin playing a woman with pale skin;
the next a yellow cartoon character playing a legendary war time leader.

Where will it all end!
Will someone pay some respect! ?

And to quote from the Simpsons....

Will nobody think of the children!

Alegrias1

White man, blacked up, to show how the KKK dealt with people they thought had broken the rules.

Its from Birth of a Nation.

The fact that you think its irrelevant is quite telling.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_a_Nation

You'll have to explain what that has to do with a discussion on casting for movies and TV productions. I find that a really vile thing to post in connection with this and you should be ashamed of yourself. You are so desperate to turn this into a racist issue, which it absolutely isn't.

Chestnut

theworriedwell People want accuracy but the only accuracy that seems to count is colour. Why? When Ingrid Bergman played Gladys Aylward was the whole thing ruined because German Curt Jurgens played Captain Lin Nan and the Mandarin is played by British Robert Donat.
Colour is not the only accuracy that counts! Anne Boleyn should not be played by a short obese white woman of the wrong age with blonde curly hair. The whole package counts, not just colour. There have been many examples of bad casting in the past, and now we have this one, a completely different race!
In old movies white people have often played other races. Maybe that was wrong, but at least they tried to make them look authentic. Robert Donat was made up to look Chinese, so was Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu.
If you believe they were wrong to do that then why are you now saying this is right? It's a contradiction.

Did I say it was wrong? None of those actors spoiled anything for me, although unlike you I thought the attempts to be authentic was unnecessary and inappropriate. I think the one I loved most was Hugh Griffith as the Sheikh. I mean he was so good and so hilariously Welsh as an Arab sheikh, it was totally brilliant.

Omar Sharif could have played a Martian warlord let alone an Austrian prince and I'd have still paid good money to see him.

One I didn't add to my list was Ben Kingsley as Gandhi, would I have avoided that film because they didn't cast an Indian as Gandhi? Not at all, really good film.

theworriedwell Kingsley's father was of Indian descent

FannyCornforth One minute you have a woman with dark skin playing a woman with pale skin; the next a yellow cartoon character playing a legendary war time leader. Where will it all end! Will someone pay some respect!
Agree absolutely! Respect should be shown to both white and black historical characters by portraying them accurately instead of changing their race or their sex.

FannyCornforth

theworriedwell your posts are brilliant. Thank you

As an aside, I watched a bit of West Side Story a couple of days ago. The amount of greasy orange foundation that the blokes were wearing was quite alarming.

Glad you like them.

I loved West Side Story, it was probably the first grown up love story I watched. Totally ruined it when I found out about all the bad feeling on set, Rita Moreno about Natalie Wood, Natalie Wood not wanting Richard Beymer to be Tony as she wanted Robert Wagner to get the part and then ignoring Richard Beymer for the whole project. Having said that what acting, you'd never have guessed (well I wouldn't) that she was being horrible to him and he was hurt and upset.

?

FannyCornforth

theworriedwell Kingsley's father was of Indian descent

And Gandhi was Indian with 2 Indian parents. Not very historically accurate but he was perfect.

Sorry, my emoji was in reaction to Chestnut's comment about my comment

Yes - theworriedwell Kingsley was perfect. I only recently knew of his heritage - it never crossed my mind to think about it.

Chestnut

Alegrias1

Fiona Shaw as Richard II.

He was a real man, she's a woman.

Honestly, its acting...

It was also acting in old movies when people of a different race were made up to appear like the person they were portraying. That included eye make up for Chinese roles (Christopher Lee) and skin darkening for various other roles. But doing that is now racist apparently. But as you say....... it's acting. As far as I know, facial make up has long been used in acting and it was never considered racist to try and portray someone of a different race.

But they didn't need the eye make up, it wasn't convincing, we knew Christopher Lee wasn't Chinese, he convinced he was Fu Manchu (or failed) by his acting skills.

FannyCornforth

Yes - theworriedwell Kingsley was perfect. I only recently knew of his heritage - it never crossed my mind to think about it.

That's exactly it, it just wasn't relevant was it because he acted the part brilliantly.

Okey dokey Chestnut, as the relevance of this seems to be escaping you.

Your words were: it was never considered racist to try and portray someone of a different race.

"Birth of a Nation" was arguably the first true feature film made in the US. One of the main characters is a black man attacked by the KKK. The "black" man is actually a white man in blackface. The film is generally thought to be one of the most controversial features in film history, especially for the way it portrays people of colour, both in their appearance and their character.

It set the tone for how people of colour were portrayed in later films, including the practice of blackface.

So, it is relevant to the casting of movie and TV productions because it is the prototype for how "blacking up" was done in later productions.

So I'm not ashamed of myself, no. It is vile, but not for the reasons you think.

trisher

Chestnut

theworriedwell - you've mentioned Hugh Griffith playing the Sheikh in Ben Hur, Natalie Wood and George Chakiris in West Side Story as examples of white people playing non-white parts. But these are from the 1950s! I think we've moved on since then. And at least they tried to make the actor look the right ethnicity, they were all made up to darken their skin.

Oh Boy! Blacking up approved of! Whatever next?
Should they then have painted the black actress white? Would that have made it OK for you?

The examples given show how difficult historically it was for actors who weren't white to get roles in productions. It still is difficult. I hope at some point we canreach a stage where the quality of acting is what counts and not the colour of the skin. We seem to have managed this to some extent with male/female roles. But there is still a long way to go.

I hope we do get to the point where the quality of acting is what counts not the colour of the skin. This thread shows we have some way to go.

Although the examples I gave were mainly white actors playing various BAME characters I think they do show that it isn't the skin tone that matters and is just as true when it is a BAME actor portraying a white character.

Apparently the costume designer is going for a modern take on Tudor fashions and not worrying about historical accuracy. I'm fairly sure electric blue didn't exist in the 16th century. Colours like this were a product of the chemical industry in the 19th century. Still we shall soon see how it all works out.

Alegrias1

Okey dokey Chestnut, as the relevance of this seems to be escaping you.

Your words were: it was never considered racist to try and portray someone of a different race.

"Birth of a Nation" was arguably the first true feature film made in the US. One of the main characters is a black man attacked by the KKK. The "black" man is actually a white man in blackface. The film is generally thought to be one of the most controversial features in film history, especially for the way it portrays people of colour, both in their appearance and their character.

It set the tone for how people of colour were portrayed in later films, including the practice of blackface.

So, it is relevant to the casting of movie and TV productions because it is the prototype for how "blacking up" was done in later productions.

So I'm not ashamed of myself, no. It is vile, but not for the reasons you think.

Well maybe you should have made that point instead of posting a random picture with no explanation.

I didn't say I agreed with white people playing different ethnicities in movies. I made the point it was a long time ago and we've moved on since then. But it was done, and back then Hollywood attempted to make the white actors appear authentic in the role they were playing. That was called acting, and no-one considered it racist at the time, it was an attempt at getting the part right. I'm not saying it was right, but this is what happened.

Today we have moved on, and should be attempting to get it right, with black historical figures portrayed by black people and visa versa. We usually know real people's race or sex, and for some more recent figures we know their appearance too. In The Crown they made every attempt to get the hairstyles, the make-up and the costumes right for the people being portrayed, as well as their race and sex.
As I keep saying, it is disrespectful to change a real person's race or sex when portraying them.
What if a blonde haired, blue eyed actress played Tina Turner in a biographical drama? It would be daft. I want to see someone who looks like Tina Turner. In fact Anna Bassett portrayed her brilliantly in What's Love Got to Do With it and I would have been disappointed to see someone blonde and blue eyed who looked nothing like her in the role.

I saw Birth Of A Nation in 1966. I don't think we found it particularly racist because racism wasn't part of our world. As art students we really weren't that bothered what people looked like, only what sort of work they were producing and probably what music they liked. Extreme tunnel vision I suppose, our's was a very small world. I believe the film has been banned for a long time but it was an amazing piece of work for the time and not such an endurance test for the viewer as Intolerance.

Chestnut

If we are going to enter fantasyland then why not get Bart Simpson to play Churchill?

Bart Simpson is a cartoon character not an actor Chestnut. Actors are real people. If you don't know the difference I understand it must be difficult to appreciate what is happening.

The woke posters are enjoying revelling in their wokeness!
What larks they are having. ?
I can only sit back in amazement at the weirdness of their views regarding casting.....although I think they are probably saying things for the effect, egging each other on ( as they giggle).I hope it’s that, and not that they really believe such daftness.Mind you, it’s GN so you never know.

So, Damien Lewis as Martin Luther King? Reece Witherspoon as Rosa Parks?
Meryl Streep as Oprah Winfrey with a black sales assistant refusing to serve her?
Hugh Jackman as Barack Obama?

It's called acting and they are all very good.

trisher

Chestnut

If we are going to enter fantasyland then why not get Bart Simpson to play Churchill?

Bart Simpson is a cartoon character not an actor Chestnut. Actors are real people. If you don't know the difference I understand it must be difficult to appreciate what is happening.

You've missed the point completely. ? Perhaps you need an explanation. You took us into fantasyland by suggesting Idris Elba or a woman to play Churchill, and I was just playing along with this silly game by suggesting something equally ridiculous. (I'd have thought that was obvious actually).

Tell me why do they have look alike actors to play certain people as in The Crown, or the new Canadian production about Meghan and Harry? Why not have a black actor playing Harry?

Because different productions do things differently.