There is a debate that has been raging passionately but quietly for a few weeks now that I wanted to share with the Dopers.
The school where I work puts on four plays a year, with the last being a musical, a collaboration between the music and drama departments. The musical chosen this year is “The Lion King” As most of the parts involve both acting and singing, casting decisions were made jointly by the school’s music teacher and drama teacher. Shortly after the cast was announced and rehearsals began, a teacher who had not seen any of the auditions attended one of the rehersals and accused the two teachers who had cast the play of racism.
The undisputed facts are these:
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A white boy was cast to play Simba, a Hispanic boy to play Mufasa, and an Asian girl to play Nala.
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Black girls were cast to play Zazu and Saribi, and black boys were cast to play Rifiki and Timon.
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Scar and Pumba were both played by Hispanic boys.
The argument made by the teacher claiming racism is as follows:
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Because the characters are Africans, first preference for all of the roles should have been African American students.
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Black students tried out for each of the lead roles, but none of the lead roles was cast to black students.
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The most prominent part cast to a black student was Rifiki, a monkey, which is a blantant example of racist stereotyping.
The response by the teachers who cast the play is as follows.
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The characters are animals. The race of the person playing an animal character is irrelevant.
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All roles were cast without regard to race. The only criteria were acting and singing ability.
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Every play put on this year has been cast without regard to race, resulting in black students sometims playing traditionally white roles: Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Hildy Johnson in the front page, Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath.
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Several important roles were cast to black students; Saribi, Zazu, Rifiki, and Pumba. This means that four of the 9 most prominent characters are played by black students.
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Applying this logic, Italian students should have gotten first preference for the leads in Romeo and Juliet, which would have prevented a black student from getting a lead role.
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Several black students tried out for the part of Rifiki; it would have been racism not to consider them for the part merely because they were black.
If you need any more details, I would be happy to supply them.
I have two questions.
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Is the specific example I cited racism?
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Under what circumstances should a role be cast only to a person of a particular race, and when should race be considered irrelevant?