IBAR Week: Issues in multiracial casting, Part II
This is Part II of a post on casting. Please take a look at Part I if you haven't read it already, as I will refer back to it.
Today I’m looking at the different types of stories, and how the type of story interacts with the type of casting. Again, I am specifically discussing visual media, though some of the issues are applicable to the written word as well.
I am assuming here that a multiracial cast is a desirable outcome. This does not mean that a monoracial cast is necessarily bad. Some types of stories and settings demand them: most of August Wilson’s gorgeous black history cycle, for instance, or a movie set somewhere where absolutely everyone is white, perhaps a small town in Utah. However, for the purposes of the discussion, I’m going to assume that we’re talking about works that don’t fall into those categories. (If the race of every character is essential to the story and written into the script, there are no race-related casting decisions to discuss.)
I am also not going to attempt to cover every possible type of story, just a few that highlight particular issues in casting.
Remember what I wrote about choice? That every single tiny detail in a TV show, play, or movie was the result of someone's (usually the director's) conscious choice to put it there? That every detail has a reason for existing, and is supposed to convey something to the audience?
That goes for casting too. Actors are cast very deliberately, to convey qualities that the director wants to be conveyed. The way they look is a big part of that, as is the way they speak and the audience's prior knowledge of them. (Some roles play off of a star's existing image; some roles are cast with an unknown so the audience will have no preconceived notions about the actor, but will only see the role.) So when you see a movie that is entirely white when nothing in the script demands that, it's because someone decided to make it that way. If you see a movie that is multiracial, it's because someone decided to make it that way.
1. An original, contemporary story, in which all characters play a variety of non-stereotyped roles. If it’s a TV show, themes will develop as the series progresses, so racial issues can be written in later and tailored to the way the show has been cast. For instance, an ensemble cop drama or a comedy about a group of friends.
Color-blind casting is ideal for this sort of story. Especially if it’s a TV show, it doesn’t even prevent you from writing about racial issues, because you can tailor them to the actors you end up with. In some cases you can also do genderblind casting: if the role of the obnoxious but brilliant diagnostician was written for a black man, but an Indian woman comes in and wows everyone’s socks off, it can be cast and then rewritten.
However, there is nothing wrong with writing in roles for actors of specific races, so long as the writer avoids stereotypes and shares the roles out fairly. If racial issues are significant, and if it’s not an ongoing series where they can be written in, this is almost the only way to go, though one might combine some race-specific roles with colorblind casting for roles in which race is not significant.
The biggest pitfall with this type of story is not usually stereotyped roles, as there may not be any roles that fit into any racial stereotype, but casting all or almost all the characters as white, because it is just assumed that the characters will be white unless otherwise stated. Sitcoms in particular tend to be monoracially cast, with the pathetic excuse sometimes given that a group of friends must all be of the same race (usually white.)
2. A historical story.
Color-blind casting may well not be appropriate, though that depends on where and when it’s set. This does not mean that the filmmakers are off the hook and everyone should be white.
The first question is, just how historical is the story supposed to be? Is it anachronistic or fantastical when it suits the writer’s purpose- the likable heroes never utter ugly yet historically accurate racial slurs, dragons and elves and squid-men exist, and the women have feisty dialogue about being equal to men that’s phrased in a very modern manner- but very carefully “historical” when it comes to making sure that minorities have small and/or stereotyped roles?
Often minorities are shut out for no better reason than that it never occurs to anyone that there is no law forbidding them to be cast, only the artistic team’s preconceptions that stories are about white people.
If the story is supposed to be absolutely accurate, the question becomes, do they really know the period, or are they just going by unexamined assumptions about the period? This is also a frequent problem with depictions of women in historicals- they were often not as marginalized, oppressed, or invisible as one might assume.
oursin wrote: "'But it's historically authentic' seems far too often to be a bleat meaning 'it conformed to my unexamined preconceptions about life at that time' rather than 'I actually know quite a bit about the period in question'. We may note that Patrick O'Brian included a number of female presences on Aubrey's ships - but the movie was massively mono-sexual except for some native wenches in canoes, sigh, because eny fule no that there were no gurrls on ships in Olden Tymes."
(Context here.)
The third question is, is there a real reason why all the characters are white? Did minorities have really boring lives in historical times? Or did their lives consist of such dull and grinding misery that no one could bear to watch a movie about that?
As Mely points out, the fact that minorities have been and still are oppressed does not mean that their lives necessarily make for depressing stories, as many fun stories are about the powerless gaining power, and underdogs emerging triumphant.
Personally, I have a particular fondness for historically accurate stories that focus on the little-known history of minorities in interesting times, like Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series about a black detective in the 1940s or Sarah Waters' novels about Victorian lesbians.
The artists may wonder if audiences will be able to accept historically accurate material that doesn't conform to their preconceptions, or will reject it as "historically inaccurate PC bullshit." I'm sure some audiences will go straight to the latter. Still, that is a pretty poor reason to ignore real history. Others will be intrigued and enlightened. And others, perhaps most, most probably won't care one way or another.
Finally, the fact that racist beliefs were popular in historic times does not mean that the artist is obliged to perpetuate those beliefs. It is one thing to accurately depict characters being racist and minorities being oppressed. It is something else entirely to depict racist beliefs as fact because you’re being all retro-hip cool in unthinkingly copying old racism. (See King Kong, which I discuss in more detail below.)
It is true that Christians once believed that Jews drank the blood of Christian babies. It would be historically accurate to depict some characters claiming that as fact. But it would not be historically accurate to show Jews drinking the blood of Christian babies. That is the difference between historical accuracy and the uncritical passing on of historical racist beliefs.
In conclusion, if directors really wanted to cast more minority actors in historical stories and give them juicier roles, in many or maybe most cases, they could. The problem is not that every historical movie is set in an all-white place and time, but that directors often seem to assume that minorities weren’t invented until 1969.
3. A remake or adaptation of an old and (sometimes arguably) racist story.
This presents the biggest problem of any of the types of stories, for obvious reasons. The crucial issue can usually be summed up as follows: respecting the integrity of the original work vs. not being incredibly offensive to contemporary audiences, and perpetuating insulting and harmful stereotypes and libels.
The classic example is The Merchant of Venice. There are people on my f-list who know more about the performance history of this play than I do and can speak up about it, and I hope they do. In that case, there are two key points: 1) You can’t fuck with Shakespeare. Well, you can, but people will notice if you do. 2) The anti-Semitic nature of the play is at least somewhat debatable, and allows room for interpretation. Generally directors play up the other characters’ anti-Semitism and generally try to make Shylock more sympathetic. (On an artistic note, this does not excuse the existence of The Sledgehammer of Venice.)
Is that being true to Shakespeare’s intent? Well- we don’t know what Shakespeare’s intent was. Even if he was alive, directors would still have to find their own interpretation. I suspect that a director who felt that it was dishonest and untrue to the material to present Shylock as anything other than Pure Jew Evil would not accept an offer to direct the play. And I wouldn’t see that production if she did.
I would never support an attempt to censor the play as a written document, but I’m comfortable with seeing a performance interpretation that I’m not convinced is accurate. This is because performance involves choices. The performance is not the play; it never is; it’s an interpretation of the play. If we want to know what Shakespeare really meant, the play will always be there for us to read, and come to our own conclusions.
This is what informs my opinions on remakes and adaptations in general. The original will always be there; choices and interpretations must be made, even in the most faithful production; and the interpretation of the original varies from person to person.
Generally I prefer to err on the side of faithfulness if the source material is of excellent literary quality (ie, Merchant) and care less about faithfulness if it isn’t (ie, Tarzan). So, since the adaptation is bound to differ from the original anyway, why on earth not make one of the differences be the decision not to perpetuate insulting racial stereotypes?
The recent King Kong remake would not have been a lesser movie if it had cut the crazed black savages; it really wouldn’t have been. The savages were in the original, but there were many, many other differences between the original and the remake. What exactly was so special and terrific and essential about the crazed black savages that they absolutely had to be included?
So, what can you do if you’re adapting an old racist text?
You can cut the racist parts out of the story, especially if they are not essential to the plot. You can change the racist parts, perhaps by casting an actor whose race is not widely stereotyped in a manner matching that particular role. You can give the stereotyped characters more depth and motivation, so they’re less stereotypical.
You can keep the racist parts and critically examine them within the story, though this is very difficult to pull off-- it tends to be either incredibly preachy, or to fail entirely and end up just looking plain racist. Or to come across as preachy and racist, like the horrible indie film (not a re-make) I worked on once in which a very very sincere interracial couple decided to make a semi-autobiographical romantic comedy which would explore and explode racial stereotypes. However, due to a severe lack of craft, it ended up merely displaying every racial stereotype you can possibly imagine.
There are many choices. My point is that using a racist source does not oblige the artists to be racist themselves.
4. Fantasy and science fiction.
We’re talking about made-up worlds here. They can be whatever you want them to be, so long as they have internal logic. You can probably guess by now that I’m going to say that the internal logic does not have to decree that everyone must be white.
In science fiction in particular, it requires little suspension of disbelief to accept that in the future, a Latina woman could rule a planet. Or, since we know that empires rise and fall, that Africa will end up a dominant culture and Japan will be marginalized and poor. Or anything at all, really. There is no reason why the future, or another planet, has to be all white.
This goes for aliens and fantasy beings too. Why is it more logical for elves to be played by white American actors than by, say, black British actors? They are not playing humans- they are elves. Why is a non-elvish white Australian actor any more believable than a non-elvish Asian-American actor?
Ah-ha, you say, but elves are part of white people's cultural heritage, so they must always be played by white actors. Just like zombies are part of black people's cultural heritage, and that's why zombies are always played by black actors.
My point is that there are a lot of unexamined and not especially logical preconceptions underlying casting in fantasy, and they tend to come together as "Must... cast... white... actors." (Except for a few non-speaking and heavily made-up villains, like orcs or trolls.)
However, I am not advocating that since imaginary creatures know no race, all the non-human characters should be played by racial minorities. That tends to put the minorities in the role of the (sometimes literally) alien Other. As I mentioned in the other post, it is very possible when creating a story to end up making some kind of weird statement that you didn’t intend, and only casting minorities as aliens, elves, or robots does make a statement.
But non-human races do not all have to be played by actors of the same race. They can be played by actors of a lot of different ethnicities. In fact, a big artistic problem with believable portrayals of non-humans is that they tend to be portrayed as a monoculture. Just casting across race, even if not a single other thing was done to differentiate them, would help with this.
It also helps if the human characters aren't all white. Which is what both these long-ass posts come down to: Everyone in the world is not white, so there is no good excuse for the disproportionate numbers of movies, TV shows, and plays that make it look like everyone is.
Tomorrow: A (probably much, much briefer) post on issues specific to written fiction.
Today I’m looking at the different types of stories, and how the type of story interacts with the type of casting. Again, I am specifically discussing visual media, though some of the issues are applicable to the written word as well.
I am assuming here that a multiracial cast is a desirable outcome. This does not mean that a monoracial cast is necessarily bad. Some types of stories and settings demand them: most of August Wilson’s gorgeous black history cycle, for instance, or a movie set somewhere where absolutely everyone is white, perhaps a small town in Utah. However, for the purposes of the discussion, I’m going to assume that we’re talking about works that don’t fall into those categories. (If the race of every character is essential to the story and written into the script, there are no race-related casting decisions to discuss.)
I am also not going to attempt to cover every possible type of story, just a few that highlight particular issues in casting.
Remember what I wrote about choice? That every single tiny detail in a TV show, play, or movie was the result of someone's (usually the director's) conscious choice to put it there? That every detail has a reason for existing, and is supposed to convey something to the audience?
That goes for casting too. Actors are cast very deliberately, to convey qualities that the director wants to be conveyed. The way they look is a big part of that, as is the way they speak and the audience's prior knowledge of them. (Some roles play off of a star's existing image; some roles are cast with an unknown so the audience will have no preconceived notions about the actor, but will only see the role.) So when you see a movie that is entirely white when nothing in the script demands that, it's because someone decided to make it that way. If you see a movie that is multiracial, it's because someone decided to make it that way.
1. An original, contemporary story, in which all characters play a variety of non-stereotyped roles. If it’s a TV show, themes will develop as the series progresses, so racial issues can be written in later and tailored to the way the show has been cast. For instance, an ensemble cop drama or a comedy about a group of friends.
Color-blind casting is ideal for this sort of story. Especially if it’s a TV show, it doesn’t even prevent you from writing about racial issues, because you can tailor them to the actors you end up with. In some cases you can also do genderblind casting: if the role of the obnoxious but brilliant diagnostician was written for a black man, but an Indian woman comes in and wows everyone’s socks off, it can be cast and then rewritten.
However, there is nothing wrong with writing in roles for actors of specific races, so long as the writer avoids stereotypes and shares the roles out fairly. If racial issues are significant, and if it’s not an ongoing series where they can be written in, this is almost the only way to go, though one might combine some race-specific roles with colorblind casting for roles in which race is not significant.
The biggest pitfall with this type of story is not usually stereotyped roles, as there may not be any roles that fit into any racial stereotype, but casting all or almost all the characters as white, because it is just assumed that the characters will be white unless otherwise stated. Sitcoms in particular tend to be monoracially cast, with the pathetic excuse sometimes given that a group of friends must all be of the same race (usually white.)
2. A historical story.
Color-blind casting may well not be appropriate, though that depends on where and when it’s set. This does not mean that the filmmakers are off the hook and everyone should be white.
The first question is, just how historical is the story supposed to be? Is it anachronistic or fantastical when it suits the writer’s purpose- the likable heroes never utter ugly yet historically accurate racial slurs, dragons and elves and squid-men exist, and the women have feisty dialogue about being equal to men that’s phrased in a very modern manner- but very carefully “historical” when it comes to making sure that minorities have small and/or stereotyped roles?
Often minorities are shut out for no better reason than that it never occurs to anyone that there is no law forbidding them to be cast, only the artistic team’s preconceptions that stories are about white people.
If the story is supposed to be absolutely accurate, the question becomes, do they really know the period, or are they just going by unexamined assumptions about the period? This is also a frequent problem with depictions of women in historicals- they were often not as marginalized, oppressed, or invisible as one might assume.
oursin wrote: "'But it's historically authentic' seems far too often to be a bleat meaning 'it conformed to my unexamined preconceptions about life at that time' rather than 'I actually know quite a bit about the period in question'. We may note that Patrick O'Brian included a number of female presences on Aubrey's ships - but the movie was massively mono-sexual except for some native wenches in canoes, sigh, because eny fule no that there were no gurrls on ships in Olden Tymes."
(Context here.)
The third question is, is there a real reason why all the characters are white? Did minorities have really boring lives in historical times? Or did their lives consist of such dull and grinding misery that no one could bear to watch a movie about that?
As Mely points out, the fact that minorities have been and still are oppressed does not mean that their lives necessarily make for depressing stories, as many fun stories are about the powerless gaining power, and underdogs emerging triumphant.
Personally, I have a particular fondness for historically accurate stories that focus on the little-known history of minorities in interesting times, like Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series about a black detective in the 1940s or Sarah Waters' novels about Victorian lesbians.
The artists may wonder if audiences will be able to accept historically accurate material that doesn't conform to their preconceptions, or will reject it as "historically inaccurate PC bullshit." I'm sure some audiences will go straight to the latter. Still, that is a pretty poor reason to ignore real history. Others will be intrigued and enlightened. And others, perhaps most, most probably won't care one way or another.
Finally, the fact that racist beliefs were popular in historic times does not mean that the artist is obliged to perpetuate those beliefs. It is one thing to accurately depict characters being racist and minorities being oppressed. It is something else entirely to depict racist beliefs as fact because you’re being all retro-hip cool in unthinkingly copying old racism. (See King Kong, which I discuss in more detail below.)
It is true that Christians once believed that Jews drank the blood of Christian babies. It would be historically accurate to depict some characters claiming that as fact. But it would not be historically accurate to show Jews drinking the blood of Christian babies. That is the difference between historical accuracy and the uncritical passing on of historical racist beliefs.
In conclusion, if directors really wanted to cast more minority actors in historical stories and give them juicier roles, in many or maybe most cases, they could. The problem is not that every historical movie is set in an all-white place and time, but that directors often seem to assume that minorities weren’t invented until 1969.
3. A remake or adaptation of an old and (sometimes arguably) racist story.
This presents the biggest problem of any of the types of stories, for obvious reasons. The crucial issue can usually be summed up as follows: respecting the integrity of the original work vs. not being incredibly offensive to contemporary audiences, and perpetuating insulting and harmful stereotypes and libels.
The classic example is The Merchant of Venice. There are people on my f-list who know more about the performance history of this play than I do and can speak up about it, and I hope they do. In that case, there are two key points: 1) You can’t fuck with Shakespeare. Well, you can, but people will notice if you do. 2) The anti-Semitic nature of the play is at least somewhat debatable, and allows room for interpretation. Generally directors play up the other characters’ anti-Semitism and generally try to make Shylock more sympathetic. (On an artistic note, this does not excuse the existence of The Sledgehammer of Venice.)
Is that being true to Shakespeare’s intent? Well- we don’t know what Shakespeare’s intent was. Even if he was alive, directors would still have to find their own interpretation. I suspect that a director who felt that it was dishonest and untrue to the material to present Shylock as anything other than Pure Jew Evil would not accept an offer to direct the play. And I wouldn’t see that production if she did.
I would never support an attempt to censor the play as a written document, but I’m comfortable with seeing a performance interpretation that I’m not convinced is accurate. This is because performance involves choices. The performance is not the play; it never is; it’s an interpretation of the play. If we want to know what Shakespeare really meant, the play will always be there for us to read, and come to our own conclusions.
This is what informs my opinions on remakes and adaptations in general. The original will always be there; choices and interpretations must be made, even in the most faithful production; and the interpretation of the original varies from person to person.
Generally I prefer to err on the side of faithfulness if the source material is of excellent literary quality (ie, Merchant) and care less about faithfulness if it isn’t (ie, Tarzan). So, since the adaptation is bound to differ from the original anyway, why on earth not make one of the differences be the decision not to perpetuate insulting racial stereotypes?
The recent King Kong remake would not have been a lesser movie if it had cut the crazed black savages; it really wouldn’t have been. The savages were in the original, but there were many, many other differences between the original and the remake. What exactly was so special and terrific and essential about the crazed black savages that they absolutely had to be included?
So, what can you do if you’re adapting an old racist text?
You can cut the racist parts out of the story, especially if they are not essential to the plot. You can change the racist parts, perhaps by casting an actor whose race is not widely stereotyped in a manner matching that particular role. You can give the stereotyped characters more depth and motivation, so they’re less stereotypical.
You can keep the racist parts and critically examine them within the story, though this is very difficult to pull off-- it tends to be either incredibly preachy, or to fail entirely and end up just looking plain racist. Or to come across as preachy and racist, like the horrible indie film (not a re-make) I worked on once in which a very very sincere interracial couple decided to make a semi-autobiographical romantic comedy which would explore and explode racial stereotypes. However, due to a severe lack of craft, it ended up merely displaying every racial stereotype you can possibly imagine.
There are many choices. My point is that using a racist source does not oblige the artists to be racist themselves.
4. Fantasy and science fiction.
We’re talking about made-up worlds here. They can be whatever you want them to be, so long as they have internal logic. You can probably guess by now that I’m going to say that the internal logic does not have to decree that everyone must be white.
In science fiction in particular, it requires little suspension of disbelief to accept that in the future, a Latina woman could rule a planet. Or, since we know that empires rise and fall, that Africa will end up a dominant culture and Japan will be marginalized and poor. Or anything at all, really. There is no reason why the future, or another planet, has to be all white.
This goes for aliens and fantasy beings too. Why is it more logical for elves to be played by white American actors than by, say, black British actors? They are not playing humans- they are elves. Why is a non-elvish white Australian actor any more believable than a non-elvish Asian-American actor?
Ah-ha, you say, but elves are part of white people's cultural heritage, so they must always be played by white actors. Just like zombies are part of black people's cultural heritage, and that's why zombies are always played by black actors.
My point is that there are a lot of unexamined and not especially logical preconceptions underlying casting in fantasy, and they tend to come together as "Must... cast... white... actors." (Except for a few non-speaking and heavily made-up villains, like orcs or trolls.)
However, I am not advocating that since imaginary creatures know no race, all the non-human characters should be played by racial minorities. That tends to put the minorities in the role of the (sometimes literally) alien Other. As I mentioned in the other post, it is very possible when creating a story to end up making some kind of weird statement that you didn’t intend, and only casting minorities as aliens, elves, or robots does make a statement.
But non-human races do not all have to be played by actors of the same race. They can be played by actors of a lot of different ethnicities. In fact, a big artistic problem with believable portrayals of non-humans is that they tend to be portrayed as a monoculture. Just casting across race, even if not a single other thing was done to differentiate them, would help with this.
It also helps if the human characters aren't all white. Which is what both these long-ass posts come down to: Everyone in the world is not white, so there is no good excuse for the disproportionate numbers of movies, TV shows, and plays that make it look like everyone is.
Tomorrow: A (probably much, much briefer) post on issues specific to written fiction.