Puja wrote:Son of Mathonwy wrote:cashead wrote:
Maureen Lipman can fuck off. She also might want to rethink what she's arguing here, when it's skating so close to racial antisemitism.
Funny how she brings up Ben Kinglsey, who played a Jewish person in Schindler's List.
It's ridiculous. Would Lipman want Jewish actors not to be cast for non-Jewish roles? I think not because that would be antisemitic.
What she's saying is, or is getting close to, discrimination against a non-Jew ie negative treatment of a non-Jew for no other reason than she is a non-Jew. That would be racism (although I suppose the vagueness of her words makes it borderline).
There are several good reasons for some minority roles to be prioritised for actors of that minority. Out trans actors, for example, will rarely get cast in a cis role because of biases, so it feels acceptable to say that a trans role should be played by a trans actor because otherwise what else are they going to get (not to mention that Hollywood insists on casting male actors to play trans women and female actors to play trans men, as if to ram home that it doesn't consider them to really be the gender they present as and they're still a [gender] underneath the makeup). Asian actors have the same - it's rare that an Asian actor gets cast in a role that's not explicitly written as an Asian character (although that is getting better), so it's not unreasonable to get narked at Johansson or Swinton taking those roles. And white actors playing Native American or black characters brings up a whole lot of historical racism along with the above issues.
So, with the above in mind, I don't think that the general principle is necessarily wrong (or racist against white people, wth).
However, the question has to be whether Jewish people suffer the same casting discrimination that other minorities do. Jewish people are very heavily represented in the film and television industry - ironically specifically due to anti-Semitism, as acting, directing, and producing were seen as disreputable jobs in the 20s, 30s, and 40s and thus weren't an industry that bigots fought to keep Jews from being involved in - and I'd question whether Jewish actors need to have Jewish roles protected. The likes of Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Scarlett Johansson, and Andrew Garfield are often cast in non-Jewish roles (in fact, I didn't know any of them were Jewish before googling) and seem to be treated the same as white actors when it comes to opportunities.
So, while I don't agree with the "anyone should be allowed to play anyone; it's called acting darling, you're *pretending* to be someone else" take on the situation, I don't know how relevant it is to Jewish roles. I reserve the right to be wrong if there's something I'm not getting though.
Puja
Needless to say this is a complex issue. I'll attempt to describe my view on it.
In general I'm opposed to positive discrimination - unless there is a very clear need for it - because it makes discrimination on the basis of race (or whatever) explicit, which causes division (easy headlines for the tabloids) and can be misused (as with Lipman).
The particular case of casting is difficult. Actors are unique. Roles are fairly unique too (except in the case of recurring characters). Someone will be cast for a role for a collection of reasons - popularity, cost, acting ability, similar appearance* to character, vocal similarity to character, physical/althletic skills, availability. Clearly, compromises will be made on these points when an actor is cast, and sometimes this will mean an actor of a different race (or other characteristic) getting the role. I think this should be avoided if possible, but I can accept it as one of many compromises in the casting process.
For me this only really causes problems - and so is particularly to be avoided - where:
1) minorities predominantly get cast as villains, or expendable characters,
2) straight, white, cis actors predominantly get the main roles, particularly the heroic roles,
3) the appearance of the actor (even after make-up or CGI) jars with historical facts or looks ridiculous.
And so, invisible characteristics - like sexuality, or jewish upbringing - don't seem relevant to me. If an actor can be convincing (as the race/religion/sexual orientation etc required) and the casting not malign (or glorify) one group to an unreasonable degree, then I'm happy.
Eg Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. Would a gay actor have been a better choice?
It seems to me that the impact of the role, how minorities are portrayed, is far more important - it impacts millions of viewers - than the impact of casting on individual actors. Although casting has a part to play in this, it's more important that stories and roles are created which present minorities more positively (and less invisibly).
NB this debate on casting will be moot when AI actors take over, leaving all humans out of work.
* Assuming the movie is not using color blind or non-traditional casting.
