Casting
What? You say I haven't made enough postings about the diversity of Doctor Who casting? No problem, here's another! :-)
A mate emailed me their thoughts on the casting in Voyage of the Damned. I got their permission to quote them here:
"I do wish Davies'd think his racial casting through. His Political Correctness--forgive me, but that's what it comes across as--is a bit knee-jerk and he doesn't work things out far enough. Right, let's have some heroic fat people. AND, let's make them poignantly in love so that she commits suicide when he dies. That'll show all those people who are nasty about obesity. Oh, and I think I'll make them yet another inter-racial couple just to score an extra point. Myself, I would have cast a black actor as Midshipman Frame or as the businessman-asshole and avoided the problem of the husband's death, indeed of the death of a black character altogether. In fact, there's no reason Frame couldn't have been cast with a black actor anyway.
I honestly think what we're talking about with Davies isn't a lack of morals but a lack of skill. (Kind of like the way in the old action pictures or TV shows, when the hero and heroine were fleeing she always broke her heel or twisted her ankle and fell, etc. Misogyny? Or just easy-solution writing?) But that won't make any difference to the people who want, indeed need, for him to be a racist."
I agree with much of this. The casting in VOTD isn't evidence that Hitler was Welsh1; it's just rather clumsy.
I was thinking about the complicated ways that someone actually ends up being cast in the show. Sometimes the scripts specify a character's race, sometimes they don't. How many decisions are made by the writer, how many by the casting director, how many by the producers? How many decisions are made even before the script is written - eg, how does the chance of notable guest stars, such as Kylie Minogue or Geoffrey Palmer, affect the process? In the commentary, RTD explains that he'd previously worked with Debbie Chazen (Foon Van Hoff) and was looking for a part for her in Who - but then, he also says he had "Foon in mind already", so is this a case of writing a fat2 character for a fat actress, or the other way around?
(I'm not looking for excuses for the show's makers, who can and have done better. I'm just trying to get some understanding of what the casting process actually is. Nor am I looking to minimise the importance of who's in front of the camera, vs, say, who's behind it.)
1What the heck show was the "Was Hitler Welsh" sketch in? Not The Nine O'Clock News?
2Not a derogatory term; I myself am fat.
A mate emailed me their thoughts on the casting in Voyage of the Damned. I got their permission to quote them here:
"I do wish Davies'd think his racial casting through. His Political Correctness--forgive me, but that's what it comes across as--is a bit knee-jerk and he doesn't work things out far enough. Right, let's have some heroic fat people. AND, let's make them poignantly in love so that she commits suicide when he dies. That'll show all those people who are nasty about obesity. Oh, and I think I'll make them yet another inter-racial couple just to score an extra point. Myself, I would have cast a black actor as Midshipman Frame or as the businessman-asshole and avoided the problem of the husband's death, indeed of the death of a black character altogether. In fact, there's no reason Frame couldn't have been cast with a black actor anyway.
I honestly think what we're talking about with Davies isn't a lack of morals but a lack of skill. (Kind of like the way in the old action pictures or TV shows, when the hero and heroine were fleeing she always broke her heel or twisted her ankle and fell, etc. Misogyny? Or just easy-solution writing?) But that won't make any difference to the people who want, indeed need, for him to be a racist."
I agree with much of this. The casting in VOTD isn't evidence that Hitler was Welsh1; it's just rather clumsy.
I was thinking about the complicated ways that someone actually ends up being cast in the show. Sometimes the scripts specify a character's race, sometimes they don't. How many decisions are made by the writer, how many by the casting director, how many by the producers? How many decisions are made even before the script is written - eg, how does the chance of notable guest stars, such as Kylie Minogue or Geoffrey Palmer, affect the process? In the commentary, RTD explains that he'd previously worked with Debbie Chazen (Foon Van Hoff) and was looking for a part for her in Who - but then, he also says he had "Foon in mind already", so is this a case of writing a fat2 character for a fat actress, or the other way around?
(I'm not looking for excuses for the show's makers, who can and have done better. I'm just trying to get some understanding of what the casting process actually is. Nor am I looking to minimise the importance of who's in front of the camera, vs, say, who's behind it.)
1What the heck show was the "Was Hitler Welsh" sketch in? Not The Nine O'Clock News?
2Not a derogatory term; I myself am fat.