I’m not saying that there should be a law prohibiting cross-racial acting nor am I saying that there should be an internal policy in casting to always, without exception, cast parts on the basis of race.
The only thing I am saying is that it is not racism and should not be frowned upon for a casting director to have a policy that he or she wants a certain race and gender for a role. And that simply reflects the actual policy that is in effect and has always been in effect. When Denzel Washington was cast as Malcolm X do we pretend that his race had nothing to do with it? Do you think that any white actors were even considered?
So if an all black troupe wants to put on a Shakespeare play, then wonderful. If there is a mixed race troupe where the director doesn’t care if a black man is cast as Henry V, then also great. But equally fine is a director casting according to race.
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I’m not aware of any such uproar. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few morons on Twitter have complained about a black actor Spiderman or something like that. There are always a few morons on Twitter. But uproar?
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I’ve read the four articles that you linked to. They confirm what I said. Nobody complains about the casting of a minority actor as Spiderman or in Star Wars or The Hunger Games, except for a tiny number of idiots on Twitter. There is no uproar, no opposition of any significance, to the casting of minority actors. There is opposition to the casting of white actors, in some cases. It comes from prominent newspapers and other supposedly respectable sources, unlike the small number of Tweets opposing black actors.
The facts of this case seem to support that the school had fucked up in putting on a public production without, shall we say, the “expressed written consent” of the owner of the intellectual property (or his/her delegated representative for those rights). They screwed up.
But still the facts do seem to support that the owner of the said intellectual property would have been fine with letting it proceed anyway if there were “South Asians” in the roles … when South Asian actors trying out for the parts did not exist.
It seems to me that he is inadvertently promoting Eurocentrism. This is a small school (less than 5000 total students) that has less than 1% of its student population Native American, about 1% Asian, 7% Black, and 83% White. If they were to universally follow his guideline they would pretty much be restricted to putting on shows that did not have any characters who were Native American, Asian, and even limited in putting on shows that had many Black characters … unless the drama department was overrepresented with minority students.
Personally, given a lack of minority talent in a small college I would not choose forcing the college to only do Eurocentric works. I would think that cause of what Molefi Asante refers to in a defense of “Afrocentrism” as sharing of the intellectual space, is better supported by having non-Eurocentric works be performed than not performed.
This circumstance is in point of fact the exact opposite of what monstro presents: a predominantly White college which, by the guidelines this author promotes, is restricted to putting on shows that are part of the Eurocentric canon.
Nope, you’re a mostly White school … stick with Shakespeare and maybe Fiddler on the Roof (if you have Jews there that is).
Ideal solution that has everyone coming out smelling like roses for this particular snafu? Would have been the author granting the permission with the proviso that he also come out and adds on a session after the show discussing how having the characters be other than the races he intended them to be alters or does not alter experience he had intended.
Perhaps it’s the libertarian in me speaking, but I don’t see any reason why anyone should oppose any casting decision, ever. As I said, acting means a person pretending to be a different person, always. So why should anyone try to prevent any actor from taking any role?
Black guy as Henry V? White guy as Othello in blackface? White guy as Othello not in blackface? Man as Juliet? White guy playing Asian? Disbabled transsexual Choctaw Indian woman as Spiderman? None of it harms me or anybody, so why should I oppose any of it?
If I dislike any casting decision in a play, I can choose to not buy tickets to that play. So can you. So can anyone else. But if there’s a theater troupe that wants to put on a production and an audience that wants to see it, why should anybody ever raise a stink about it just because of the race of an actor?
With plays, the author can maintain some control of how their work is produced. I’m never going to get permission to do an all-nude Phantom of the Opera. That would harm the main brand, so to speak.
The real story here is about a school flagrantly violated a listen every that they agreed to. In other words, who cares? They chose to do it, and the result was expected.
As for colorblind casting, I’m of the opinion that sometimes it matters, sometimes it doesn’t. For most historical and fantasy settings, we’ve come to accept color blind casting. For works directly addressing race, it definitely is something that requires more thought before doing. For realms where ethnic actors have been systematically pushed out for white actors playing broad stereotypes (such as portrayals of Asians), it gets delicate. If you are looking for a hard and fast rule, you aren’t going to find it.
This. You can talk all you want about minorities given roles meant for whites and being fine with it, but overall, IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. That’s why the few instances do stand out, because the opposite is just business as usual.
The college group should have chosen a different play. They don’t have any sort of right to choose this one.
An all white group choosing to put on a play in which the race of the characters really matters is just plain silly. This doesn’t encourage Euro-centrism (and Europe, for those who haven’t looked recently, ain’t all that white), it encourages choosing productions in which race isn’t relevant to the characters. Non-white writers aren’t always writing about race anymore than white ones are.
In general usage, “South Asian” has a very well understood and unambiguous definition—the six countries of the Subcontinent: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
In cases in which say Afghanistan or Burma or Tibet are included, it’s usually indicated in some way. I’ve never seen Iran included in South Asia when people are referring to ethnicity.
The current territories of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka form the countries of South Asia.
I have a feeling this is going to vary by country. In the US, “South Asia” is a new term, not much in use. Perhaps in Britain is more established. We’re used to “Ease Asia” and, of course, “Southeast Asia” (thanks to the Vietnam War).
I don’t QUITE get how libertarianism gets you to that conclusion. I sorta kinda see it, but I’m not 100% there yet, especially since one of the major ways a minority, for example, would make their displeasure with a casting decision known IS to oppose it, either personally to register their displeasure, or publicly so audience members of their group would know not to see it. Isn’t that part of the free market making decisions libertarians go on about? How is opposing casting decisions NOT part of that choice?
Anyway, some would argue that what we have now is the result of people trying to read the market: producers in movies, e.g., who want to attract white audiences at the expense of everyone else (for fear their picture will be cast as a niche movie, no doubt, on the assumption that white = default). Why else would they have specifically rejected non-white actresses to cast Tiger Lily in the last Peter Pan flick?
“When a person tells you that you hurt them, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.” — Louis CK
A few “morons on Twitter” are certainly a small sample of the larger group of people who feel the same way. These comments come up all the time, and they often become a big enough issue that the actors themselves or the production people have to address them. It’s perfectly reasonable to call these situations “uproars” considering the context, and the fact that many reporters have used the same characterization. More importantly, given your history, I doubt there is any reasonable threshold where you would concede the point, as I am sure you would contend the KKK at their height were “just a few idiots”.
Obviously anyone who wants to organize a boycott of a play, solely because they dislike the skin color of an actor, can legally do so. The point I was making is that it’s a stupid thing to do. I believe that no one should be hated or rejected due to skin tone or ethnicity. But even if one must hate certain plays because of an actor’s race, why not adapt a live-and-let-live approach? You see the plays you want and I will see the plays I want, without trying to stop you. That’s what I meant.
The choice of who is cast makes a statement. It’s art, that’s how art works. You can’t say one bit is meaningless. It’s either all intentional or you are bad at making art. So even if it is accidental, and accidentally statements happen, when you chose to put white actors in blackface you are making a pretty strong statement… And it’s usually a racist one. There is history there that can’t and shouldn’t be ignored.
In the case of this play of you then aren’t putting the actors into south Asian face, then you are saying that, contrary to the text, the ethnicity isn’t important. So then you are fighting the text to shoehorn in more white actors rather than giving opportunity to actors of color.
If it’s done because you don’t realize what you are doing or if it’s done intentionally… It’s probably pretty racist no matter what. I’m not saying it’s impossible for it to work, but this director doesn’t sound like he had a plan to make a statement about racial politics. It sounds like it was negligent passive racism.
The playwright didn’t want his play to be used, without his permission, as a vehicle for this kind of racism. He has the right to say “no, don’t do that” . The world of theatre gave him that power back in the 1800s. They didn’t ask his permission and made what he saw as fundamental changes to his play. He gets to say no. They should have asked. That the playwright is getting called a racist, by white people, in this situation adds a layer of irony which is pretty stunning.
A friend of mine in college who was a theater major once mentioned that the performance license for contemporary plays often restricted the kind of casting choices the director could make. (This would not be an issue for public domain works like the plays of Shakespeare.) IIRC she specifically said that the license commonly would not allow for an actor whose gender or race did not match the character description to be cast in that role.
Does anyone with more theater experience know if this is true? If my friend was correct then I think that if a student knew this then the director at Clarion should have known it too.
What part of “Clarion University, with about 4,900 students, has a student body that is 0.6 percent Asian and that no Asians auditioned for the play.” did you not comprehend?
The issue in this particular case is not “not giving opportunities to actors of color” … there was not a single actor of color who tried out.
If at a school students of color do not want to be in plays taking the parts of color, should the school drama department restrict itself to plays with no minority characters?
Yes. Playwrights get a ton of control over their work while they are alive. Everyone who works in theater at all knows you have to ask for permission to change anything. The guy who wrote Grease is famous for suing High schools who include songs from the movie in their stage show, and he wins.
The author’s well within his rights. Especially when they didn’t properly license the play or get permission to adapt it to a musical.
Yes. You don’t do Once on this Island in blackface no matter how much you love it. You only have white boys, sorry you can’t put on For Colored Girls. Tough luck. I’ll never get to play Othello. Too bad. 99% of theatre would have been appropriate. Pick a play you can do
Just because they didn’t have a choice in casting doesn’t mean it wasn’t wrong.
Ok, let me see if I have this right: Racist playwright says college can’t stage his play because he doesn’t approve of the ‘race’ of the actors. College never had the right to produce this play in the first place so playwright is entitled to put the kibosh on it. Everybody gets in an uproar just like when Miss Saigon and Thor opened because Gasp! actors did not look the way people expected them to. Is that right?
