There's been quite a fuss over some recent Hollywood casting decisions recently, and I'm wondering exactly what the right answer is.
This recent trend of casting people to portray characters when they are of a different ethnicity, might have started when a Hispanic playwright decided to portray the US Founding Fathers as black rappers in Hamilton. FYI, I've seen no research that indicates that even Hamilton was black. It seems to be more of an attempt to discredit the immigrant who grew up poor, as opposed to an actual provable fact.
I just saw an ad for Hamlet which has the Danish Prince Hamlet cast as a black man. A few years ago, people objected to the casting of a black young woman to portray Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid. Although, it's likely that Hans probably pictured his fictional creature as a white European, I personally don't see expending a bunch of effort complaining about the ethnicity of a mythical, non human, creature some people did.
More recently, there's been concern over the live action Moana casting an actual Hawaiian to play Moana's Hawaiian older sister. Apparently being 100% ethnic Hawaiian just isn't enough for some people.
Finally, Netflix is producing a "documentary" about Cleopatra. They've decided to have a black actress portray Cleopatra. This seems problematic, as all of the rest of these are fictional characters. Cleopatra was an actual human, who had an actual lineage, which is known. The reality is that Cleopatra was ethnically (primarily) Greek/Macedonian, not Egyptian or African. Yet, somehow it's supposed to make 21st century black folks feel better about themselves to portray Cleopatra as something she wasn't.
Now we just had a big budget movie about an historical African Queen that came out within the last year or so. leaving aside the reality that this queen was NOT a good role model, it would have been ridiculous to have a white woman portray her.
We, as a society, seem to have things that are much more important to spend time and effort on than this, yet some folks seem to disagree with that.
2 comments:
On the one hand, when it comes to fictional characters, I can see some who are non-white finding personal gratification playing someone written as a person of high character, courage or the like. The downside is the intention of the author and/or the rationality of putting a non-white in a context in which ONLY whites make sense.
But actual people in history is a whole 'nuther thing. A black George Washington? How about if we have a white guy playing Frederick Douglass? Even a white guy playing Othello likely wouldn't be tolerated as we're to tolerate black people in traditionally white roles. OR...go back and apologize to Mickey Rooney's grave, or to Marlon Brando, or to those guys who played Charlie Chan. Hey...and don't forget the absolutely spot-on portrayal of Genghis Khan by John Wayne!!! Whites had long been cast as indians, too.
I have no real problem with who plays whom in fictional stories, but there's no way the whining wouldn't be louder if certain black characters were portrayed by anyone not also black.
OH! I have another one! Angelina Jolie played the lead in "Salt", which was written for a man. I liked that movie! Never knew until later about the character supposed to be a man.
Idris Elba is often brought up to play 007. I can deal, though, these types of casting decisions are more often than not a matter of social justice warrior crap than for any sincere creative decision.
Denzel's role as Rob't McCall in "The Equalizer" was great, though the character began as a white guy. Then they made a TV show with Queen Latifah in the title role. I have nothing against Latifah, as she's really talented. But nobody watched the show and poor ratings got it cancelled. I never watched an episode because the notion hacked me off. I doubt it was anywhere near as bad as the woman "Ghostbusters" was supposed to be, but the Queen ain't Denzel and they should perhaps try some actual creativity to put these people in totally unique and original movies and shows which don't try to ride the coattails of established stories, characters or historical figures.
By the way, it seems Ian Fleming was none too pleased with the casting of Scotsman Sean Connery as 007. Bond is totally British through and through. Then he saw Connery's portrayal and dug it. A Scottish backstory was created to accommodate the casting of Connery.
There's this thing about acting. It's make-believe. A good actor can portray anybody effectively and ONLY the ability of the actor/actress (women are "actresses"...WTF is wrong with that?????) should matter, but also the reaction of the audience should be considered...or accept the real possibility the project will flop.
Art,
The one that bothered me for a minute was the James Earl Jones role in the Jack Ryan movies. Although the books never make it explicit, it seems like the character is not black. Ultimately, I agree that when it comes to fictional characters, especially mythical beings, I don't have a huge problem with it as long as it's a good actor/actress.
Obviously, the heart of acting is playing someone that you are not. Yet many on the left protest a non LGBTQXYZPDQ actor playing a character who is. My problem is when people protest someone who is literally Hawaiian playing the role of an Hawaiian. Or complaining about the fact that the Hispanic actors in West Side Story weren't Hispanic enough.
I have little memory of the original Equalizer, and am not really invested in the races or sexes of any subsequent actors who play the role. Especially since the role is not necessarily a specific person, rather an individual who provides a service to people who need it. There's no reason to think that there couldn't be multiple equalizers or a series of them who replace the previous equalizers. But, the specifics of the actor doesn't affect the story in any way.
Similarly, the situation with Bond is getting ridiculous. The character if Bond is iconic because of the actors who have played the role. The stories could easily be told with someone else (005) as the main character. This notion that James Bond must be played by actors of various ethnicity or genders is simply absurd. There is absolutely no reason why the series couldn't be continued with an entirely different 00 character completely different from Bond. Hell, you could argue that one massive failing of the Broccoli family is not establishing parallel story lines with different 00 characters as a way of broadening the franchise.
I agree that remaking a movie or show with the main characters of a different gender or ethnicity just as an excuse to make the gender/ethnicity change are idiotic and seem to continue to fail.
Ultimately, this is more about the hypocrisy of certain people rather than about the casting decisions themselves. Although, when a "documentary" chooses to portray something falsely because they want to advance another agenda, we do have a problem.
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