This discussion started in another thread asking people what they would like to see (such as in fiction) that is never shown.
I thought one line of discussion was worth spinning off into its own thread. It started when someone said:
And I replied saying that in the past gays, tribal people, racial minorities, foreigners, etc., used to always be portrayed with demeaning, insulting, or demonizing stereotypes.
Now, when they’re portrayed, the stereotypes are more often positive stereotypes, but they’re still marginalized because the audience is reluctant to accept minorities in the role of everyman.
I said that minorities will not start to be treated with the full range of fictionalized attributes until minority actors are accepted in roles that are not specifically written for minorities.
Then someone asked me if I was whooshing. I was definitely not.
Constanze then posted information about studies showing that movies suffer financially and audiences react negatively when minorities are cast in central roles.
Now I have come across an articleabout some viewers’ reactions to seeing black actors cast in major roles in The Hunger Games, even when the original novel described them as being dark-skinned:
So here we have it. Can we have a discussion about how people classed as minorities–whether based on skin color or sexual orientation or otherwise–still suffer from the assumption that they are not “regular Americans” and the mass audience is reluctant to accept them in mainstream roles? How black actors can’t try out for parts that aren’t pre-labeled as “black”? How black women–even the most spectacular actresses, like Halle Berry–hit a ceiling in mainstream entertainment?
And how all of this ties into the fact that where minorities were once commonly portrayed in the chains of negative stereotypes, have at the very least started to graduate to positive stereotypes, and so it’s not so unfair that when you do see a black character or a gay character that he or she will be “perfect” in some way?
It’s still racist (or some other “-ism”), but it’s a step forward.
didn’t it come up again in the episode where The Doctor wiped his memory and hid out as a schoolteacher in a pre-WWI boarding school? Martha had to disguise herself as a servant, and I recall someone (a student? another staff member?) commenting that she couldn’t be expected to be anything more. When Martha revealed to the school nurse/the Doctor’s romantic interest that she (Martha) was a physician, the nurse didn’t believe it as much because she was black as a woman.