BBC Cast a Black Woman as a Historical English Queen.

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)

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)

What I object to is the lack of actors from "sink estates" . These communities watch the most TV but have the least representation (or role models) on the Beeb.

Why can't Lady Macbeth be someone from "Jeremy Kyle" culture?

The Beeb should be there, in part to help, ESPECIALLY those stuck in "Jeremy Kyle" type underclass culture

On the subject of Lady Macbeth; she was brought up on a council estate in Dreghorn and joined the SNP at 16.

However, the general point is true but it is a relatively new phenomenon. Most actors until the 1990s came from fairly humble backgrounds, even if their "working" accents suggested the contrary.

Yeah before the 1990s hardly anyone had a degree.

Its no point talking pre-1990s, this is a new time where the distance between the Sink Estate and the rest is accelerating. The Beeb should be there to patch it up.

The new series of the 'The Hollow Crown' on the BBC has cast a black woman (Sophie Okonedo) as Margaret of Anjou. This is an actual historical figure who was the wife of Henry VI and thus was Queen of England from 1445-1461 and from 1470-1471.

See the trailer for the new series:

[video="youtube;W0kO-pVsc3E"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0kO-pVsc3E[/video]


The only reason I post this is because there always seems to be an outrage when movies/tv shows are supposedly 'white washed'. For example, more recently, Scarlett Johansson was cast as an Asian character in a Hollywood adaptation of a Japanese anime franchise: 'Ghost in the Shell'. There was outrage because this was apparently 'yellowface' (see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB0lrSebyng).

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.

Accuracy of race is a basic prerequisite for the BBC role surely. As brilliant an actress as Sophie Okenedo is, Margaret of Anjou was French caucasian Queen of England, with light coloured hair the portraits suggest. So how can you put a black woman in the role? It's a grand misrepresentation. Let's keep basics like this accurate.

The crucial difference is that she isn't playing the historical Margaret of Anjou, but the Shakespearean character based (possibly loosely, as is often the case in Shakespeare) on the historical figure. Shakespeare plays are quite often not themed 'historically accurate' - for example, I saw a version of Macbeth a few years ago set in a kind of pagan society, with tropes and themes from various horror films. I've also heard of Julius Caesar done but with the main characters as African warlords rather than Roman politicians. All of this kind of thing is normal for such plays.

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Those examples were different takes on the same play, this isn't as far as I am aware. It's the same play, same everything, except they have replaced white characters with black people. That the white person in question was based on a real life European queen just makes it all the more insulting.

A fair contrast would be, having some white actor hired by an African arts company to play some ancient African leader, to a black African audience.

They would burn the theater to the ground.

But actors are challenging such as approach as being wrong, yet you defend it.

https://www.thestage.co.uk/news/2016/simon-callow-denying-black-roles-to-white-actors-is-nonsense/

Care to try again?

He'd nail it.

Why the **** do people actually care about the skin colour of someone in a role. They gave avatar as an example with them being lighter skinned than the originals, who gives a ****? "sorry guys have to turn you down for the role, too white", that would be racist and ****in ridiculous.

People didn't care when attack on titan live action was played by japanese people rather than Europeans. So why at this?

The crucial difference is that she isn't playing the historical Margaret of Anjou, but the Shakespearean character based (possibly loosely, as is often the case in Shakespeare) on the historical figure. Shakespeare plays are quite often not themed 'historically accurate' - for example, I saw a version of Macbeth a few years ago set in a kind of pagan society, with tropes and themes from various horror films. I've also heard of Julius Caesar done but with the main characters as African warlords rather than Roman politicians. All of this kind of thing is normal for such plays.

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This thread is interesting and unusual because it shows racism in a non-abusive context. You have a number of posters who are racist in that race matters to them above above all else. Various posters have pointed out the extent to which a dramatic production differs from "reality" but for these posters the race of the actress matters more than anything else. They can be blind to virtually any other inauthenticity, probably even as far as gender, but they are incapable of being "colour-blind".

This thread is interesting and unusual because it shows racism in a non-abusive context. You have a number of posters who are racist in that race matters to them above above all else. Various posters have pointed out the extent to which a dramatic production differs from "reality" but for these posters the race of the actress matters more than anything else. They can be blind to virtually any other inauthenticity, probably even as far as gender, but they are incapable of being "colour-blind".