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BBC Cast a Black Woman as a Historical English Queen.

Reply 180

DanteTheDoorKnob

5

Original post by Venusian Visitor

You're a cuck,.

Never gets old :rofl:

Reply 181

Greenlaner

11

We wuz quangz n sheeeeiit!!

Reply 182

Vanny17

19

This really is just much ado about nothing in "Shakespearian" language or simply creating mountains out of molehills. What ridiculousness.

The woman in question is a mixed race London born Jewish actress which does not make her "black" (NB: Mixed race people are called that in Britain, mixed race, we don't practise the one drop rule like America, and acceptance and tolerance is part and parcel of British culture, which reflects in the Queens ancestry). This thread is pedantic and ludicrous, I hardly comment on race threads, but just had to comment on this one, due to it's asinine nature.

Only knew about "race"/ skin colour differences when I joined TSR some years back. Used to laugh about it, but this thread takes the biscuit.

For all the positives TSR provided me with, if I didn't join TSR, I wouldn't had known about people's "race" or racial inclination as some people seem to depict some "races" on TSR.

So sad that people see colour and make pessimistic assumptions based on one's skin colour and judge people by their skin. :sigh:

.

Posted from TSR Mobile

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 183

Undec

17

Original post by Dodgypirate

Hypocrisy.

People claimed that replacing Hermione with a black woman isn't bad because Hermione is fictional... which is fair enough, I wouldn't care if a black man was cast as James Bond.

Outrage when a white person replaces a historical non-white person in a film or TV show... which again is fair enough...

Nothing when a black woman plays a historically white person... not even a peep from mass media.

See it only matters if a white person does bad.

Finally someone that shares the same view as me.

Reply 184

FredOrJohn

5

I think the bigger problem in the UK is not colour but how many top actors in the BBC come from sink estates - or indeed pop starts or news announcers .... We don't want to swap white posh people with black posh people.

We want a quota of ultra POOR people to be given a chance in life. If 15% of people come from sink estates than 15% of all people on the BBC should be people from sink estates.

The BBC is paid for by the people of this country and it should represent the 15% of ultra poor.

Reply 185

Phipp91

10

Original post by nulli tertius

Yes, here is an accusation, not of racial hatred but of racism.

French queens can be played by English actresses. Parts that were written for teenage boys can be played by mature women. Richard II can be played by an Irish woman. Battles that were fought in the open air can take place on enclosed stages. The ages of historical figures can be mangled. Events that spanned decades in real life can be compressed into a few months in a play. Bohemia can acquire a non-existent coastline. You don't care about any of that. But cast a black actress in a part written for a white boy and suddenly you are spitting bile at the BBC.

And by the way here is Bob Hoskins playing Othello in a BBC production

[video]https://youtu.be/t9-VolqfNPk?list=PL6pVoqUpYJd-73maMCJfUMCR6P7GPYEqP[/video]

Well you don't have to be a pedantic d*** either with that racism Vs racial hate comment. Well I don't really care about nationalities playing a particular character, but I do happen to like the characters having a physical appearance that would've been at least semi-accurate to the story. To be honest, my real gripe is with the BBC's Casting. To quote Dodgypirate, the issue is how it is so hypocritical for the BBC/ Mass Media to be careful not to cast a white person as a historically black character, but not vice versa.

Yes, I know that Shakespeare was a playwright and not a historian, and his Geography probably wasn't all that good either, i.e with the "Bohemian coast". But the point is, he was still trying to portray what he considered to be at least a semi-accurate character demographic. I'm sure Shakespeare would not have considered this particular actress to be of the right "demographic" to play this particular role, regardless of how good an actress she may be. Again, I know about the men playing women in Shakespeare's time, but that's a different issue.

And it was a bit stupid for the BBC to cast Bob Hoskins as Othello too. It misses the point of the anti-racist message/moral of the story. And I'm still a racist am I?

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 186

AperfectBalance

21

So stupid, no problem with black actors but in England you simply would not have had that it is factually inaccurate at that time much like how Zulu was not white or mlk was not white.
No reason to do this at all

Reply 187

nulli tertius

21

Original post by Phipp91

Well you don't have to be a pedantic d*** either with that racism Vs racial hate comment. Well I don't really care about nationalities playing a particular character, but I do happen to like the characters having a physical appearance that would've been at least semi-accurate to the story. To be honest, my real gripe is with the BBC's Casting. To quote Dodgypirate, the issue is how it is so hypocritical for the BBC/ Mass Media to be careful not to cast a white person as a historically black character, but not vice versa.

Yes, I know that Shakespeare was a playwright and not a historian, and his Geography probably wasn't all that good either, i.e with the "Bohemian coast". But the point is, he was still trying to portray what he considered to be at least a semi-accurate character demographic. I'm sure Shakespeare would not have considered this particular actress to be of the right "demographic" to play this particular role, regardless of how good an actress she may be. Again, I know about the men playing women in Shakespeare's time, but that's a different issue.

And it was a bit stupid for the BBC to cast Bob Hoskins as Othello too. It misses the point of the anti-racist message/moral of the story. And I'm still a racist am I?

All theatre involves the suspension of disbelief but the one thing over which you are not willing to suspend disbelief is the race of the actor. It matters to you more than whether Tinkerbell can really fly, whether a pitched battle of 20000 men can take place on a small stage or whether cats can sing the poetry of Elliot.

Othello is still black whether or not he is played by a white actor.

Reply 188

username1204031

14

Original post by nulli tertius

All theatre involves the suspension of disbelief but the one thing over which you are not willing to suspend disbelief is the race of the actor. It matters to you more than whether Tinkerbell can really fly, whether a pitched battle of 20000 men can take place on a small stage or whether cats can sing the poetry of Elliot.

Othello is still black whether or not he is played by a white actor.

Internal consistency is a fairly fundamental concept. People can suspend their disbelief because the other elements of the plot and the world are grounded in reality.

Reply 189

TimmonaPortella

21

Original post by JordanL_

Internal consistency is a fairly fundamental concept. People can suspend their disbelief because the other elements of the plot and the world are grounded in reality.

I don't think you know what 'internal consistency' means. We are talking about consistency with an external fact here, namely that people at the relevant time in England, and this particular person, were, in reality, white.

Quite why you find it harder to suspend disbelief in relation to someone's skin colour than in relation to the fact that the characters all talk to each other in verse (which, you may be surprised to learn, is not historically accurate either) I don't know.

Reply 190

Underscore__

21

Original post by NickLCFC

That is just a fantasy character however. The difference with this is that it's a real historical figure being represented inaccurately. Just imagine the outrage if someone like Martin Luther King was cast as a white guy.

I had the same feeling about a similar point before. I changed my perception based on what someone else said: MLK's skin colour is of paramount importance to his legacy,so casting a white person as an iconic 'black rights' activist is somewhat different to casting a black person as a white queen who's skin colour was of no real significance. I would agree with you if you'd quoted the person I was debating with once who complained about there being no black people in The Danish Girl.

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Reply 191

FigurativeTart

14

It's got Buffalo Custardbath it in, so I wouldn't take it seriously anyway.

Reply 192

BaconandSauce

5

Original post by LaMandarine

It's got Buffalo Custardbath it in, so I wouldn't take it seriously anyway.

In his next film he's playing Shaka Zulu. :biggrin:

Reply 193

Phipp91

10

Original post by nulli tertius

All theatre involves the suspension of disbelief but the one thing over which you are not willing to suspend disbelief is the race of the actor. It matters to you more than whether Tinkerbell can really fly, whether a pitched battle of 20000 men can take place on a small stage or whether cats can sing the poetry of Elliot.

Othello is still black whether or not he is played by a white actor.

Tinkerbell is fiction. And of course there are dramatic concessions made on Stage, i.e with the battle thing. But once again, if this drama is indeed set in the period it was written about, then using a black woman to portray this character is pretty ridiculous, especially when it is set in the 1400s, when there were very few, if any, black people in France/ Britain! And definitely not in the nobility/ monarchy.

Now if the drama's setting is moved to be set in the present day, perhaps it would be more viable, as there is now a significant Black/ African-descended community in this country. Again, my annoyance is not with the Actress/ the black community, but with the BBC. In their obsessive "Racial diversity quotas" and pandering to Political Correctness.

Re. with Othello, the point of his character in the story was how he was black. So much so, that he was often performed in Blackface back in the day. Not out of racial hatred/ stereotyping, (like Minstrel shows etc), or racism (if you're going to be that pedantic again), but to Physically hammer home the point of the story; that he IS DIFFERENT. Plus there wouldn't exactly have been many, if any at all, trained black actors in England at the time. Not saying it would be acceptable to do so now, but if they were to cast a White guy as Othello, surely they should just go the whole hog and do it in Blackface? (Or even better, cast a black guy as Othello in every performance, when possible).

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 194

QE2

20

There is only one issue here. Nothing to do with "defending culture" or "the regressive left" or whatever.
It is simply "do real people need to be played by actors of the same race, or not?"

Personally, I would say no.
I love to see Dominic Cumberbatch as Malcolm X, or Tom Hardy as Mike Tyson in their respective biopics.
(Seriously, I think they'd both be brilliant)

Reply 195

Betelgeuse-

19

Look at me, Look at me we are da Queen now!

Reply 196

Betelgeuse-

19

Original post by QE2

There is only one issue here. Nothing to do with "defending culture" or "the regressive left" or whatever.
It is simply "do real people need to be played by actors of the same race, or not?"

Personally, I would say no.
I love to see Dominic Cumberbatch as Malcolm X, or Tom Hardy as Mike Tyson in their respective biopics.
(Seriously, I think they'd both be brilliant)

Good god no

Reply 197

Kurosaki_Ichi

9