I think you mean "never mind her colour, they should have picked a beautiful actress", but your words could mean "black women aren't beautiful". This being t'internet it might be worth clarifying.
"I have never actually watched Xena: Warrior Princess, but everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound so delightfully wacky that some day I may have to give it a go."
Same! Unfortunately it's not currently available for streaming in the UK
I also want to rewatch the Ray Harryhausen films I think I last saw on rainy bank holiday weekends on BBC2, and watch the ones I haven't seen, like the Sinbad ones, and that one with a cavewoman in a bikini
Enjoyed this. Favourite example is Morgan Freeman being cast as "Red", in the film of the shawshank redemption. In the original novel Red is actually Irish but the film has a nice little joke about this by having Freeman say his name is Red because he's Irish. My view is that creative casting works because it shows there's a bit of irony involved, which is usually part of the appeal of a story. This is also why it fails when it seems like it's being motivated by concerns about political correctness. Basically, we don't care about canonical casting if we get the sense it's being done in the service of story telling, which relues heavily on irony
There is one example of an upcoming play at the National Theatre where colour-blind casting fails. This is the revival of Caryl Churchill's "Cloud 9". The details of the original casting of the play are on its Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_9_(play)) and as you can see the black colonial servant, Joshua, was played by a white actor for reasons that are clear in the text. The NT have chosen to cast a black actor in this role which, I would suggest destroys the playwright's original intention. I have no objection to the actor concerned; just to the director's failure to recognise why the playwright chose to write the play as she did.
Good article, I like the examples of Andromeda and Xena.
However, I think you need a section for "if you have colour blind casting then you also have to have colour blind dialogue". If you have an old money noble in Georgian London played by a black actor, you cannot also have a speech about the discrimination his skin colour has brought on him. Yes, I'm looking at you Mr Malcolm's List.
Good article, particularly the point about children from non-white backgrounds being disenfranchised.
I saw Death of a Salesman in the theatre where Wendell Pierce (of The Wire fame) played Willie Lomax and that worked really well, as his race became a thematic undercurrent to the work. Nothing changed in terms of dialogue, but the historical context gave new meaning to what was said
I try to be sympathetic to colour blind casting, for all the reasons you gave. My husband is less forgiving, especially in historical productions. There needs to be a coherent reason for the character to be black and for nobody to mention it. We had a debate about the casting of Merlin in the recent adaptation of The Winter King, an Arthurian story by Bernard Cornwell.
Me: Merlin can be black! He's the only one that's black and Merlin is supposed to be a weird half-demon magic guy, that's how they would have seen the one black guy they'd ever seen back then. Maybe he's a hold over from Roman Africa or something, that's why he's so wise.
Him: no, Merlin is Welsh
Me: wait a minute that random palace guard is black as well, I hate this
Wasn't Helen supposed to be beautiful?
That was my first thought too
I think you mean "never mind her colour, they should have picked a beautiful actress", but your words could mean "black women aren't beautiful". This being t'internet it might be worth clarifying.
"I have never actually watched Xena: Warrior Princess, but everything I’ve heard about it makes it sound so delightfully wacky that some day I may have to give it a go."
Same! Unfortunately it's not currently available for streaming in the UK
I also want to rewatch the Ray Harryhausen films I think I last saw on rainy bank holiday weekends on BBC2, and watch the ones I haven't seen, like the Sinbad ones, and that one with a cavewoman in a bikini
Enjoyed this. Favourite example is Morgan Freeman being cast as "Red", in the film of the shawshank redemption. In the original novel Red is actually Irish but the film has a nice little joke about this by having Freeman say his name is Red because he's Irish. My view is that creative casting works because it shows there's a bit of irony involved, which is usually part of the appeal of a story. This is also why it fails when it seems like it's being motivated by concerns about political correctness. Basically, we don't care about canonical casting if we get the sense it's being done in the service of story telling, which relues heavily on irony
"Basically we don't care about *non* canonical casting..."
There is one example of an upcoming play at the National Theatre where colour-blind casting fails. This is the revival of Caryl Churchill's "Cloud 9". The details of the original casting of the play are on its Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_9_(play)) and as you can see the black colonial servant, Joshua, was played by a white actor for reasons that are clear in the text. The NT have chosen to cast a black actor in this role which, I would suggest destroys the playwright's original intention. I have no objection to the actor concerned; just to the director's failure to recognise why the playwright chose to write the play as she did.
That does indeed feel like they missed the point the author was trying to make!
Good article, I like the examples of Andromeda and Xena.
However, I think you need a section for "if you have colour blind casting then you also have to have colour blind dialogue". If you have an old money noble in Georgian London played by a black actor, you cannot also have a speech about the discrimination his skin colour has brought on him. Yes, I'm looking at you Mr Malcolm's List.
I have not seen that programme, but I agree that sounds remarkably stupid!
I did like this Tweet:
https://x.com/i/status/2018198275237556472
That is very good!
Good article, particularly the point about children from non-white backgrounds being disenfranchised.
I saw Death of a Salesman in the theatre where Wendell Pierce (of The Wire fame) played Willie Lomax and that worked really well, as his race became a thematic undercurrent to the work. Nothing changed in terms of dialogue, but the historical context gave new meaning to what was said
I try to be sympathetic to colour blind casting, for all the reasons you gave. My husband is less forgiving, especially in historical productions. There needs to be a coherent reason for the character to be black and for nobody to mention it. We had a debate about the casting of Merlin in the recent adaptation of The Winter King, an Arthurian story by Bernard Cornwell.
Me: Merlin can be black! He's the only one that's black and Merlin is supposed to be a weird half-demon magic guy, that's how they would have seen the one black guy they'd ever seen back then. Maybe he's a hold over from Roman Africa or something, that's why he's so wise.
Him: no, Merlin is Welsh
Me: wait a minute that random palace guard is black as well, I hate this