If Steve Jobs was portrayed by an actor 5 inches taller than him, we’d be fine with it; if the actor was black, it would be weird. It’s because race is still a really, really significant characteristic to us a society, much more so than hair color or age. Changing someone’s race, for most of the viewing public, essentially changes who they are.
You can argue that it’s racist, that an actor having a different skin color shouldn’t be a bigger deal that an actor not matching Job’s eye color, but it’s a fact of the world we live in. It’s going to take a long, long time to get to the point where “the same skin color as the figure you’re portraying” is just another factor, rather than a required prerequisite. Hamilton is proof that we can do it, but it was helped by the fact that the people it referenced are near-legends in American society, making them easier to experiment with than someone like Jobs. But it’s a start.
So you think Hollywood & the moviegoing public should be perfectly OK with a white man playing Solomon Northup then? Since the race of the actor doesn’t matter and all.
…Hollywood has an undisputed history of race-bending. From here:
Emma Stone just finished portraying quarter-Chinese, quarter-Hawaiian Allison Ng. Christian Bale played Moses.
Yet people are getting the vapours over the mere suggestion that Steve Jobs could possibly be portrayed by someone who isn’t lily-white? Well you don’t have to worry, because Hollywood’s history of bending race is almost entirely one-way. But next time Hollywood hires a white person to portray an Asian or a Black role, we would love to hear your voice speak up.
Who can forget the “Indian” guy on “Short Circuit 2.”
Or Johnny Depp playing Tonto, even though his Native American heritage seems to be more rumor than fact.
Or most of the characters in “21”–the based-on-a-true story film about the MIT students who pulled a heist on a Las Vegas casino. The cast is predominately white, but the real life students were mostly Asian American.
And then there’s Angelina Jolie playing Mariane Pearl, a black woman.
I generally agree. The point is though that acknowledging that above facts should come with some acknowledgement that the situation is based on racial biases, perceived racial biases, racism, or some combination of all the above.
As I said in my initial post, I get why Black actors don’t get cast as White subjects. It’s the above in addition to the fact that the climate of movie making would lead some to believe the choice was artistically meaningful rather than just a casting choice based on merit. However, none of that changes the fact that it’s largely predicated on racial issues that almost always mean fewer choices and options for Black actors and Black people in general.
That doesn’t mean I’m outraged Will Smith didn’t get to play Steve Jobs, or that the casting directors are themselves racist. It’s just that I wish people would stop pretending this is about accuracy rather than just entrenched attitudes towards race. People are interested in accuracy until they are not (eg. casting Whites to play non-Whites).
But the world we live in is shaped by the actions of the people in it. That is just an excuse in almost all cases that doesn’t obviate the moral imperative to not be racist, nor does it account for the sophistication of actual audiences. This guys plays Aaron Burr in the play Hamilton. Do you think that hurt ticket sales at all, or caused people to assume they were being lied to? There is zero evidence it does. More importantly, there is an large percentage of people who fail to understand the deleterious effects allowing the inertia of racial prejudice to continue has. People keep assuming that because they personally are not racist, they don’t need to take ownership of the issue even when they make decisions that enforce and institutionalize the racism on a societal or individual level. There is little functional difference between the casting director who won’t hire a Black actor because he’s Black, and the one who won’t hire a Black actor because he thinks other people will have an issue with the actor being Black. People need to get that moral cowardice can be just as harmful, and almost indistinguishable from the outside.
But you keep saying this in race neutral terms when it’s actually not that way. White actors play non-White people all the time. Ben Kingsley can play a any race despite him (I think) self-identifying as White. You see this in movies like 21 where White actors play Asian subjects, Ben Affleck playing a Hispanic subject in Argo, Jennifer Connelly playing a Hispanic subject in A Beautiful Mind, Kevin Spacey playing a Black subject in Pay It Forward, etc. Notice how it’s not “the same skin color as the figure you’re portraying” being an issue; it’s almost always non-White skin being as issue. That’s why it’s racial bias and a double standard and not just people thinking race in general is important.
Maybe, but how would we know if nobody ever does it. In the few cases where casting against type comes up, people often don’t have an issue. Louis CK does this in his show, and it generally wasn’t a big issue.
When the above happens more often, people will get over it. You can’t keep using fear of judgement by racists as a rationale for discrimination.
Kevin Spacey did not “play a Black subject” in the film. “Pay it Forward” is a fictional story about a fictional character who in the novel was a Black man (with a different name.) The film rewrote the character as white when Denzel Washington backed out. If you think that it’s wrong that the character was rewritten as white instead of finding another Black actor for the part, I can understand that. But Spacey did *not *play a Black man.
If there is an “overepresentation” of blacks for next few years it is just as reasonable to assume it is due to discrimination in a different direction then as it is for people to assume that the underepresentation now is due to discrimination.
Here is an interesting data point. Add up the net worth of Will Smith, his wife, and Spike Lee, three of the biggest complainers in this.
Comes to about 300 million.
Let the three of them keep a whopping 30 mill each for a safety net so they don’t end up homeless.
That’s 200 million dollars they could invest in movies that star good black actors with good black people stories. And because they know such things so well, they shouldn’t even be risking their money. They should just get richer because they KNOW this stuff.
That money would barely get you off the ground. And that’s making the dubious assumption that they have that much liquid cash. Regardless, what makes you think they know how to start and run a movie studio?
Not to mention that that has no relation at all with the issue. Good and successful movies have already been produced by and with black people. The issue is the underrepresentation of said movies.
All they have to do is invest in black people movies so to say. To hear them say it, black people movies are just as profitable as non black people movies. If so, there is money in them there race free hills. Why aren’t THEY working that gold mine?
Though to be fair to Spike Lee he sorta DOES do that.
And lets flip around. If THEY don’t know how to make black people movies and maximize profits, WTH are they telling the people that DO know what they are doing how to do it?
Fair point. I chalk this up to white being seen (by mainstream white society) as the default option. It’s certainly frustrating when you (impersonal “you”) restrict white roles to white actors, then give many of the few non-white roles to white actors. With that said, there are still limitations; I can’t imagine a Ray Charles biopic casting a white guy, even if he was the best actor in auditions.
And I also see your point that when directors do make “risky” decisions with regards to race, there’s rarely significant audience pushback (almost the opposite, in fact - looking at Hamilton again, Lin Manuel Miranda said it ended up being a great way to get audiences to leave their preconceptions about the Founding Fathers at the door). But big budget Hollywood films aren’t really known for their willingness to take even minor risks in order to try something new. For the studios, I don’t think it’s fear of judgement as much as the desire to maximize profits. Which doesn’t absolve them of moral responsibility, but we’re dealing less with pure racism and more with the people in power catering to perceived racism.
What a moronic retort. Of course they’d need to know how to do that. If money is all it took to run a profitable business, no rich person would ever go broke.
He does that already through his production company, Overbrook Entertainment. They already produce movies starring Black people. Movies like:
The Karate Kid
Love and Basketball
Ali
I, Robot
Hitch
ATL
Annie
Hancock
So your concern about why Will Smith isn’t making Black movies is unfounded.
Maybe because it’s incredibly expensive and risky no matter what type of movie you are making?
Oscars nominate the best films, actors, directors etc.
I think it would be highly insulting to create a black film or black actor category. Affirmative action for actors in 2016? How backwards is that?
The actors in a great film will get nominated regardless of the melanin in their skin.
A lot of roles are race neutral anyhow. Action movies for example. Wesley Snipes can play the role, Jackie Chan, or Arnold Schwarzenegger. It can still be a successful hit.