So, black bird plays Russian countess in something snipped out of Tolstoy:
Back when you were first cast in Natasha, you tweeted that you were so excited to do the show and that a black woman could be cast as a Russian countess. What’s important to you about helping to open those doors of diversity?
Denée Benton
It’s powerful to take down the boundaries that separate us and remind everybody that we’re all human and we all have the ability to tell the human story.
I’m fine with that.
But imagine the outrage if a white actor were to black up to portray a black. Or a cis het male were to portray some trans…..in fact, didn’t we just have that protest, that trans actors should be playing trans characters?
It’s a musical based on War and Peace. It’s about as much Tolstoy as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat is biblical. She’s playing a copy of a Russian countess, not a Russian countess, the part might as well go to a homeless person.
A musical based on War and Peace…
And I thought Hamilton had to be avoided at all costs…
In a story of how polite Muscovites discovered their Russianness when Napoleon invaded…
Which is why the BBC and Keira Juttingjaw failed miserably in their remake: they didn’t understand Russianness and turned it into a pretty costume drama.
They’re not nuts, they’re winning.
Just because they’re winning doesn’t mean they’re not nuts. Crazy ideologies succeed all too often.
Wayne Rooney would make an interesting Elizabeth Bennet in “Pride And Prejudice”.
in fact, didn’t we just have that protest, that trans actors should be playing trans characters?
Yesterday on 5Live there was a discussion centred on the fact that short ‘normal’ actors were undercutting dwarf actors in this year’s pantomime season. The presenter was trying to get the featured dwarf to say that it was offensive for non-dwarf actors to play dwarf roles, when he pointed out that it was panto and that the men were playing women and vice versa… OK let’s cut to the news.
A musical based on War and Peace…
How long is it? A week?
“Witchsmeller Pursuivant
Yesterday on 5Live there was a discussion centred on the fact that short ‘normal’ actors were undercutting dwarf actors in this year’s pantomime season. The presenter was trying to get the featured dwarf to say that it was offensive for non-dwarf actors to play dwarf roles, when he pointed out that it was panto and that the men were playing women and vice versa… OK let’s cut to the news.”
Radio 5 also did a bit moaning about pantomime dames always being played by a man.
There is nothing the BBC can’t turn into a story about down-trodden women being exploited by evil men and/or down-trodden non-whites being exploited by evil whites.
MOBO awards?
Black Police Association?
And our very own Beeb’s #blackbritain?
The list of things I can’t do is rather longer…
It’s because most people don’t actually notice or care, and that does not correlate with their other political views. Black cast in white roles in the excellent but sunk without trace “Tom Jones a Foundling” from the mid 1990s. Who cares?
Same for trans playing gays, or straights playing trans, or . Fuck’s sake, it’s acting. That’s the bloody point. Not so long ago all female roles were played by men, and that really was discrimination. Drag and pants have never gone out of fashion. Who is that offending?
Some tiny handful of professional victims, that’s all. You don’t have to be a “rightist” to not pay them any attention. Stop, please everyone (but especially Ecks), dividing the world into those who are with you and those who are against you, because those of us on the “right” side are losing those who would be our allies by sneering at their views we regard as incorrect. It’s not just the “left” who has lost friends and voters by sneering.
The Russian national poet was mixed race. Don’t these people check wikiipdaeia before pontificating?
What it really comes down to is that there are fuck-all parts for black people (because so much current stuff is remakes or sequels or whatever of things originally written back when racism was still a thing) so white actors playing black parts takes away one of the few roles that a black actor could hope for, while the reverse just evens things out.
For instance, there is only one major black part in Shakespeare (Othello), and one other that’s arguably non-white (Cleopatra, though she’s really Greek, but you could play her as Egyptian).
The UK is about 10% non-white, split roughly half-and-half between black and Asian. If Othello and Cleopatra are the only big non-white parts, then you’re not going to have anything like 10% of the actors with Shakespearean experience being non-white… and if you’ve never done Shakespeare, then that’s a big disadvantage on your CV.
On the other side, cast a white person as Othello and it’s going to look like you’re squeezing black people out altogether (unless you’re making a point, like when Patrick Stewart played Othello in an otherwise all-black cast).
What it really comes down to is that there are fuck-all parts for black people
Well, er, no, I don’t agree. With the exception of Othello, which is explicitly a part for a black man since much of the dramatic tension depends on the fact that he is a black man with a white wife, all the other parts are just parts for people, of any color. They could be played by anyone without affecting the play, if we (spectators, actors, directors, etc.) were as enlightened about race as the Left always pretends that they are. But clearly they are not. When a black actor complains about being denied a role portraying a black person, he implicitly validates the racialist world view that categorizes people according to the color of their skin and not according to the content of their character.
Our of interest, why should Othello be black? The character was a Moor from just over the water from me. They ain’t black, nor even particularly brown. And certainly not negro.
Seems remarkably racist to reserve the role for “black” actors & leave out the Chinese.
Comrade Tim’s antirevisionism is misplaced.
Why can’t decadent countess descend from Peter the Great’s great African pal General Abraham Hannibal, just like Pushkin?
I have to disagree with the premise. If you don’t know the story already, then it doesn’t matter whether a particular actor is black or white or green. But if you’re familiar with either the story or the characters, and you’ve seen other productions, then having someone physically different in the role can be quite jarring.
It’s not particularly a black/white thing. I felt the same way when the blond-haired Daniel Craig was brought in to play James Bond. And you wouldn’t have a Korean man play Henry VIII, would you?
Then again, it’s a Broadway musical based on a tiny part of War and Peace. Expectations are suitably low.
I’m sure Morgan Freeman could (and maybe has) played Lear extremely well. There are certain roles where a Korean dwarf, for example, might be a jarring contrast to the historical reality (Churchill or Alfred the Great) but on the whole 99% of people aren’t bothered.
It’s the fucking constant politicisation which gets on everyone’s tits. We are all very, very fucked off at having this stuff thrust down our throats 24×7. Plus the rank double standards of course. Do they think people don’t notice and remember?
Gérard Depardieu would be ideal in the title role of a remake of Lolita, since Arthur Mullard is, alas, no longer with us.
What it really comes down to is that there are fuck-all parts for black people
Depends. RSC set Hamlet in West Africa this year. Very good it was too. Mixed race cast for King Lear. It worked. Pappa Essiedu was brilliant in both.
A Mr Snow in Carousel played (very well too) by a black actor at the National 18 – 20 years ago quite spoiled my evening. Not because he was black, but because I could not help constantly thinking about what the director was trying to say, in those early days of race awareness.
I have to say almost every commenter here, according to the US media be a paid up member of the alt-right.
Does the description/label hold here in the UK?
“What it really comes down to is that there are fuck-all parts for black people..”
Last time I watched a BBC drama or soap, that wouldn’t have been a statement stood up to much inspection. I can imagine them casting the part of Snow White as black. Every other part seems to be.
I recently saw Anthony Sher as Lear with a cast c75-80% black. Magnificent performance by AS, but it was very difficult to keep track of family relationships when a 100% white actor was supposed to be the father of a 90-100% black. All very PC, and part of the anti-colonialist, anti-British ideology that pervades the arts- – particularly the subsidised arts. A sector overdue for an an Ecksian purge…simply by removing funding…
racism in the role of non racism.
What will you all do when the real breeders come into uk.
Learn Mandarin? Claim that Britain was always Chinese.
It is a very big world out there.
I’m kinda hoping that Trump turns up the inauguration in black face. The effect on the heads of SJW’s would be hilarious.
“The Russian national poet was mixed race”. Lots of Russians were mixed race. What you presumably meant is that Pushkin was (approximately) a mulatto.
Dearieme
Pushkin was not a mulatto, ie 50:50. He was 15/16ths white.
@Hedgehog,
The whole point is that we the people are even more enlightened about race than the leftists think we should be. We simply do not notice. I refer to the comments I made earlier. An 18th century British army officer is played by a black actor in a BBC adaptation from about 20 years ago. While very unlikely, it’s not entirely beyond the bounds of probability that the British army did indeed have one black officer back then, but we can be entirely sure he played no part in Fielding’s serial.
Yet the casting of a black actor in that role, and other black actors in other roles, went entirely unnoticed and uncommented. As it should have done, because what the audience wanted was a well-done play, not a historically accurate depiction of what was in any case a fiction.
@Rob,
Agreement in spades. And buckets.
In this context I fully endorse Tim’s repeated observation that the UK is the most colourblind country on earth. If only the race industry would let us be, it would be anyway.
Any mention of race is racist. Everybody should just shut up about it. Next person who mentions race should be told to STFU.
Have seen several Shakespeare plays, often black actors and actresses are used. It really does not matter the colour of the actor unless, like in Othello, its a major part of the character.
You could do Henry V with a chunk of non white actors. Lots of non whites in the UK trading cities at the time. And Merchant of Venice? Please – a trading city and a Jewish part (often played by a non Jew!) – so any colour actor can be used.
I saw a school production a few years back of a couple of the plays, both excellent considering the facilities available. An Asian guy was Hamlet… and he played the part. No need to focus on what he looked like.
But imagine the outrage if a white actor were to black up to portray a black.
It is part of the same logic that says Africa is for Africans, Asia for Asians but Europe is for anyone who wants to come – and it is racism to object.
Black parts are for Black people. White parts are for everyone.
It doesn’t matter except for the politics. Akira Kurosawa did very good Japanese but Shakespeare-based films. It matters not one bit if Lear is played by a Black person. I am even coming around to the idea of a Black James Bond. Audiences suspend bigger levels of disbelief than skin colour.
The problem is that it is part of a concerted campaign to deny British people their own culture and history. Soon it will be a hate crime to assert that Richard the Lionheart was White. As it almost is to point out he wasn’t Gay.
Theo, you’ve missed my point. I object to people trying to use ‘mixed race’ to mean solely white/negro. I have two mixed race friends, neither being part white nor part negro. Lots of Russians of Pushkin’s time were mixed race. That’s bound to happen if you conquer huge swathes of Asia.
P.S. You’ve also missed the point of my “approximately”.
Rob – “I’m sure Morgan Freeman could (and maybe has) played Lear extremely well.”
I bet he couldn’t. Like a lot of American actor, Mr Freeman has a very limited range. He plays …. Morgan Freeman and not much else. Whether he is driving Miss Daisy or helping Batman, he plays the same genial, non-threatening, decent, basically nice guy.
Samuel L Jackson also plays, basically, one key. I would still like to see him do Lear:
I will do such things, What they f*cking are, yet I don’t f*cking know; but they shall be The terrors of the God-damn All Mighty earth.
Tell me Biggie–what “friends” have we on the left whose support we are so ungenerously turning away?
This is your German consensus crap that prob stems from living amongst them for too long.
There is good and there is evil . A barrel of sweet water is no longer any good after even a small turd has been dropped in it.
You can drink such if you like. There are plenty of Merkels to tell you its only a little turd.
And yet apparently students wearing Rastafarian outfits at a party in Toronto is signs of the deep racism at the university and indicative of the ‘culture of whiteness’
SMFS,
“It doesn’t matter except for the politics. Akira Kurosawa did very good Japanese but Shakespeare-based films. It matters not one bit if Lear is played by a Black person. I am even coming around to the idea of a Black James Bond. Audiences suspend bigger levels of disbelief than skin colour.”
I don’t have a problem with a black Bond at all. OK, you can argue about Fleming’s description, but we’re pretty far from Fleming. Would someone with Bond’s job be black today? And the answer is yes, quite possibly. All I ask is that the people casting pick the right actor because he’s the right actor and not because they feel a black Bond is overdue.
I don’t like black actors depicting real, living white people in a jarring way. I don’t mind say, an all-black Julius Caesar. But when it’s played straight and you put a black French princess in there, it breaks the illusion. Likewise, I love Throne of Blood, and it would be inappropriate to shoehorn an African or White actor in there.
It’s actually been why sci-fi is the best genre for black actors. You can have people doing senior jobs who are black, like the president of Earth in The Fifth Element or The Operative in Serenity.
BiG: those who affect colour-blindness are the most racist of all, according to special snowflakes. Hang your head in shame and then check your toxic whiteness or something.
The amusement of this comment is that BiG is very much richer in melanin than most of the people around here. Very much so.
an Ecksian purge
I do hope that term enters the lexicon of future historians.
You can have people doing senior jobs who are black, like the president of Earth in The Fifth Element or The Operative in Serenity.
What I liked about the latter one was that there was no attempt to shoehorn any “black” traits into the character.
Quite a few of the Shakespeare plays (well, not the historical ones) are universal in their values — Romeo and Juliet, anybody?
By the same token, Neil Simon wrote The Odd Couple for two middle-aged white guys, but the play has been redone with two women as the odd couple, and a short-lived TV series had two black men as the odd couple. With the right actors it can work in any of those cases.
TN,
‘an Ecksian purge’
I’m going to try to wedge that phrase into at least three conversations this week.
Tim Newman,
“What I liked about the latter one was that there was no attempt to shoehorn any “black” traits into the character.”
That’s a general thing with space sci-fi and fantasy. It exists in the future where people are so mixed together that racism doesn’t exist (and we’re getting there). The characters of The Operative, or Captain Sisqo in DS9 could have been played by white men.
Most movie/TV genres still have a problem with black people. You won’t see a black man kiss a white woman, except in a drama that’s all about race. Or they’re magic negros like Morgan Freeman. Or the sassy black friend in the rom com that tells the girl to sort herself out and “go get that maahhhyynnn”.
I’m looking forward to the complaints about Idris Elba playing the gunslinger in the Dark Tower; ’cause it’s a cowboy movie. Except, er, it’s set in the future.
I would just like to be able to continue not giving a fuck about this whole thing in peace.
It seems the British army’s first black officer was Second Lieutenant Walter Tull, a Barbaduan. Commissioned on the recommendation of his superiors despite military law prohibiting non-whites from serving as officers.
Apparently he was also the third black man to play professional football in England (for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town) in the UK.
Tull was killed defending his King and Country in 1918. We will remember them. Even if some here cannot bring themselves to do so.