On the Emmy awards the other night, whatshisname from “Will & Grace” accepted an award and thanked his wife; which I took to mean he’s not gay, but he plays one on TV.
Please don’t take this as wise-ass or insensitive…
We’ve come a long way (and rightly so) from the days when caucasians played asians (as in Charlie Chan movies, or Boris Karloff as Fu Manuchu); and half the black roles in Birth of a Nation were filled by whites in blackface. Why is sexual preference different? Is anyone incensed that gay actors don’t play gay roles? If not, why not?
If anything, it may be much safer for a straight man to play gay roles than for a gay actor to play them.
Tom Hanks, Tom Selleck and Michael Caine have played gay roles, but were able to go back to playing traditional macho roles, because everyone KNEW it was just acting. But an openly gay actor who plays a gay role may be permanently stereotyped. In spite of the fact that he was handsome and popular, I don’t think Rock Hudson could have held on to his fans if he’d ever dared play a gay role.
And there was something more than mere panty-twisting going on. Equity, the stage actors’ union, has specific rules with respect to non-minority actors playing minority roles - a reaction to times both past and present, when it’s difficult enough for minority actors to find roles. Most shows are not written for minority roles, and although the trend towards “non-traditional casting” continues, there’s still a disparity.
Equity was merely seeking to enforce the rules it imposes on all its members, and on productions in which its members take part.
WTF do you want? Aids patients playing aids patients, drug addicts playing drug addicts, dead people raising from their tombs to play themselves in biographical motion pictures?
Come on dude, acting is impersonating somebody you are not, whether that somebody is gay, straight, hermaphrodite or whatever. That’s the merit inherent to acting, abstracting from your real life persona and becoming consumed by your character.
If casting were as you propose, instead of movies we would have stupid reality shows like Survivor and Big Brother where everybody plays themselves. And we have learned from experience how boring that is.
White people play white people and so on because no matter how great an actor is, you can’t change your physical appearance. Gays don’t have this problem so I can’t see why people would care about sexual orientation in auditioning for gay roles.
Gay and lesbian actors have played straight characters (Rock Hudson, Anne Heche, Charles Laughton, Rupert Evert, etc.); do you see a problem with that? As Master Thespian would say, “It’s just ACTING!” Sure, I have a problem when they portray the gay/Asian/Black character as a stereotype, but that’s not the case with what’s his name on “Will and Grace.”
What do I want? Doesn’t matter…I was just posing the question, pondering the imponderable. Personally, I’m OK with the status quo. I was just wondering how sexual preference is different than race, in how casting decisions are made.
If an audience–which includes producers, casting agents, etc.–knows an actor is gay in real life, they’re more likely to be continuously conscious that he/she is “gay.” His or her sexuality is likely to be at least the subtext of any mention on Entertainment Whenever, and will always be present in any reference to them. This is an unfortunate truth about today’s media.
Consider: A gay character in a novel must be identified as gay; if no reference is made to his sexuality, we assume unconsciously that he’s straight. Just like it always kind of bothered me that black characters in novels are identified as black, but white characters are rarely identified as white: they just are.
This is how a gay actor tends to be typecast: the public can’t let go of the fact that he’s gay and smallmindedly can’t “accept” him in a straight role.
This is not the case with straight actors. When a straight actor plays a gay character, he’s “acting.” When a gay actor plays a gay character, he’s just being gay. (This is the public perception, not the truth.)
But when is it appropriate to worry about race and ethnicity in casting?
Can I cast an interracial couple for “Barefoot in the Park?” The dialog never touches the issue, obviously; still, as a director, I might well infer that the audience will focus on the interracialness to the exclusion of the play’s planned dramatic elements.
Plays which deal directly with race almost demand racial casting. I would be hard-pressed to produce “Showboat” with a white Queenie or a black Magnolia. Desdemona must be a different color than Othello.
I saw a production of Othello with Patrick “Capt. Picard” Stewart as Othello, not in blackface, but with an almost-all black cast. (He and one actress were the only whites.) Fantastic performance!
They didn’t change any dialog, so the line where Othello says something like “I am black!” was rather strange.
That’s similar to Kenneth Brannaugh’s film version of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Denzel Washington was cast as a 15th Venetian noblemen, who referred to the other nobles (all white)as “cousin” or “kinsman.” No reference was made to skin color. I thought it was great.
