I am curious about films in which extras are used on the basis of their ethnicity or nationality.
For example, the Indian slavers/temple worshippers in Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom.
I know these people are doing it for the money. But I wonder if many of them resent being asked to play exaggerated or stereotypical versions of themselves in a movie that they might feel disrespects their culture.
Isn’t it humiliating to get the vibe of “Well, you’re from India, so I hope you don’t mind playing this crazy cultist or this cruel slaver. Because this film is meant for Americans, and this is our stereotype of you—your foreign customs and rituals…they might as well be this exaggerated parody for all we know. You guys probably do eat monkey brains and the like…”
I mean, American movies take great pains to point out how different other cultures are to the white protagonist, often to parodic or mocking extremes.
Or in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, where the white protagonist and his parents experience an exaggerated version of Greek culture. It’s obviously a parody, but isn’t it a little sad to be a Greek actor/actress and see them playing your culture for laughs, and pointing it out to be “different?”
I just feel that when you are a native something or other it would hurt to see these stereotypes (the bizarre Indian, the overprotective Greek, etc.) perpetuated and actually participate in the perpetuation of these stereotypes. Wouldn’t you want Americans to know the beauty of your culture?
I don’t know if these examples are bad, but I know there are more. I hope my question makes sense. Natives being okay with getting paid to be a party to the active stereotyping of their culture seems weird to me. Like it would be a betrayal of some kind.
This has been going on for 70 years that I can identify.
Yes, it’s work and there are always people willing to jump through whatever hoops required.
“Stepin Fetchit” became a millionaire playing the dumb n***** stereotype that whites believed.
The story is that he was troubled by the damage his character did to the “cause”. OTOH, nobody was going to hire him to play Hamlet if he didn’t want play the stereotype.
The 1943 Looney Tune/Merrie Melody “Snow Black and de Sevven Dwarfs” was voiced by well-known black actresses and a musician.
Wizard of Oz was the largest gathering of “midgets” ever in Hollywood (the orgies are legendary). Were there any who refused to be cast? Probably not.
If the Navajo was offended by the costume because it look more Cherokee than Apache, why didn’t he get offended at being asked to play Apache? That was simply bizarre.
“Beaver Breath”, on the other hand is inexcusable.
Ask Jay Silverheels about playing Tonto. At least they cast a real “Indian”.
This is just another take on “choose your battles”. Burning capital on minor costume issues detracts attention from real offense.
Should a white actor walk off the set because his French Revolution costume has a shirt seen only in England in 1790? He couldn’t expect much sympathy.
Some excellent actors have made their start by playing “Terrorist No 3”. Art Malik for instance.
It would be worse for some ethnicities, blacks, East Asians for instance. Their is enough cross over in phenotypes between Middle Eastener/S Asians and Europeans that one actor could quite easily play those roles; Omar Sharif for instance played a German and a Russian.
It would be hard for Denzel Washington to play those, without their being an explanation given.
Which means for a lot of the time; those roles are the only ones available.
While the disrespect, stereotypes and plain bad scripts represent a battle, there is also an ongoing one to have characters of more varied ethnicities, and to have characters played by actors of an appropriate ethnicity. Sometimes putting up with the crap is viewed as part of the price to pay for a membership in the Screen Actors Guild; how much crap one takes will depend on how much one wants that SAG membership. For a foreign actor who’d like to be able to work in American movies it’s worth a lot, for an American mechanic who never expects to be in a movie again, zero.
For the record, were I ever asked, I would reply that I would be honored to portray an Apache on film. I have been to Goyathlay’s (Geronimo’s) grave many times and know Apaches to be a great people. I would insist on dressing Apache and, failing that, would decline the offer. We are distinct peoples, distinct cultures and have distinct histories. We are not cookie cutouts to be put in an Adam Sandler movie satirizing The Magnificent Seven because some Injuns are needed for verisimilitude.
To the OP:
I think the thing you’re overlooking is that: it’s a job. If they are offended, they can always say “no.”
What you may not consider is the possibly many extras who turned down a given role because they found it offensive, degrading, whatever.
So those who do partake in such roles, despite being offended or feeling the role is not depicting their culture respectfully, the paycheck is more important to them.
I’m sort of shocked to see the way blacks are portrayed in old movies. The racism is so blatant I wonder how the actors feel.
One movie I saw a while back from the 40s? (not sure of the name) was about circus who traveled by train. They stop in a field and various circus workers come to to the owner asking what they should do. Most are told to setup tents, take care of animals, etc. Then the black workers come out and they portrayed in a very stereotypically racist way that almost seemed like a parody. They were hunched over talking like ‘yassir whatcha wana us do?’ The owner says “Well, I saw a farm a ways back with a field full of watermellon and I bet they have lots of chickens”. The workers eyes light up with excitement and they run off in that direction. It was presented in such a matter-of-fact, that’s just how it is way that I imagine it was commonplace for black actors to play roles like that.
You get to be in SAG after you have one film gig. If you want another, for most productions, you have to join. No one asks you about your opinions of the role or of casting. And no one kicks you out of SAG for turning down roles. (What your agent does might be another matter.)
BTW, the SAG application is an HR nightmare, asking all those questions you are not allowed to ask on interviews. And also if you know how to ride a unicycle and other such stuff.
While I can certainly see someone refusing to be in a production they object to for some reason, professionals draw a distinction between the actor and the character. Good reviewers will always say the John Smith character did something in a movie, not that John Smith did.
Supposedly, Hattie McDaniel (who won an Academy Award for her role in Gone With the Wind) said, “Why should I complain about making $700 a week playing a maid? If I didn’t, I’d be making $7 a week being one.”
And the OP suggested that the portrayal in My Big Fat Greek Wedding of Greek culture (or perhaps Greek-Canadian culture) might have been offensive to any actors of Greek origin in the movie. I don’t know if he is aware, but the writer/lead actress of that film was of Greek origin.
I did not know that, thank you. But I then would ask the converse. Do movies not made in the USA ask for American extras to parody themselves or their culture? Can anyone provide an example?
Something else you may not be aware of is that an extra in a movie is a non-speaking role, usually in the background. So few actors parodying someone’s culture are going to be extras.
I was an extra once in a Hollywood movie doing location shooting in my town, and based on that experience I’d say that many extras probably wouldn’t even know if they were in a movie that involved ethnic stereotypes until they saw it in the theater. We didn’t get to see the script, or even a synopsis of the movie. We were given some basic direction as to where we should be and what we should be doing, but unless we were close enough to hear the actors talking during the shoot we didn’t know what was going on even in the scenes we were actually in and had no idea what the rest of the movie was like.
I was a white boy extra in the move Tai-Pan. What can I say, I wanted the experience and the $30/per day. I was in a palanquin and possibly in less than 1 second of the film if at all.
No freaking idea of how the movie was going to portray Chinese, British, Americans or Caucasians during the filming…
