rants R us
Oct. 19th, 2006 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
molly_oI was surfing around on a couple blogs the other day and ran across some debate about Angelina Jolie being cast to play Mariane Pearl (who has Afro-Cuban ancestry and in the U.S. would be considered black) in an upcoming movie.
One crowd seems to be arguing that "blackface" (apparently Angelina is wearing some fairly dark self-tanner/foundation in the film, though I couldn't really tell that from the publicity still) is inherently offensive; the other crowd says people of color play white people all the time, and the best actor should take the role, regardless of color, and it's racist to say Angelina shouldn't play Mariane. I found myself getting really frustrated, because I disagree with *both* sides.
Here's my thing: in the abstract I don't think there's anything *inherently* wrong with an actor portraying someone of another race or ethnicity. In an ideal world, I don't think wearing makeup to change one's skin color would be prohibitively different from changing hair color or wearing a nose prosthesis (e.g. Nicole Kidman in The Hours), or whatever.
HOWEVER, in the real world, there is a serious dearth of meaty roles for women of color, and here you have a great role, and who does it go to? Not someone of color -- not Thandie Newton, for example, who is a decent actress and would've been a good physical match for Mariane Pearl -- but a *white* actress. And that has to be incredibly frustrating for actors of color.
Sure, there are examples of things going the other way -- "Beverly Hills Cop" was written for a white guy, but Eddie Murphy got it; Halle Berry is currently signed to star in a movie based on the true story of a (white) teacher who ran for Congress; Michael Clarke Duncan was cast as the Kingpin; and Jessica Alba played Sue Storm (although I don't know if I'd consider that cross-racial casting; it's true that Jessica is Latina and Sue is not, but Jessica didn't have to make any dramatic changes to her appearance to play Sue, nor did the movie suggest that Sue is Latina).
But the fact is, there's a much longer history of white actors portraying characters of color, and it’s hardly ever because the actor is so right for the role hir performance transcends color. Most of it is pretty embarrassing. You have minstrel shows: white people dressing like black people in order to dramatize racist stereotypes for the entertainment of white audiences. You have all those Westerns with Hollywood bit players in bronzer playing legions of Indians. For every Sir Laurence Olivier changing his appearance to play Othello, there are 10 John Waynes playing Genghis Khan.
There are also the cases where a role *written* as African-American is changed to fit a white actor -- Kevin Spacey in "Pay It Forward" played a white character that was originally written as African-American, and practically the entire cast of the Earthsea movie was originally written as dark-skinned.
Even if a white actor in one of these roles does a phenomenal job (and I haven't seen Olivier as Othello, but Spacey was only so-so), still, it’s a role that could have gone to a black actor and *didn't*. (And typically a plum role as well -- it's not like white actors are petitioning to take the more prevalent "angry pimp" and "crack ho #2" roles.) In the context of a scarcity of plum roles for actors who aren't white, this just seems wrong.
A couple final points: First, it's worth mentioning that Brad Pitt's company is producing the movie, and Jennifer Aniston was lined up for the role before they split. So it's not even like the casting director can use the "we were looking for a darker-skinned actress, but Angelina just blew us away in the audition" excuse.
Second, Mariane Pearl is reportedly fine with Angelina's casting. Some folks have suggested that, living in Europe, she probably doesn't identify as black. I have no idea how she thinks of herself, but I have a feeling her goal is to draw as much attention as possible to her husband's story, and there’s no doubt Angelina will get a lot more asses in theater seats than Thandie would.
One crowd seems to be arguing that "blackface" (apparently Angelina is wearing some fairly dark self-tanner/foundation in the film, though I couldn't really tell that from the publicity still) is inherently offensive; the other crowd says people of color play white people all the time, and the best actor should take the role, regardless of color, and it's racist to say Angelina shouldn't play Mariane. I found myself getting really frustrated, because I disagree with *both* sides.
Here's my thing: in the abstract I don't think there's anything *inherently* wrong with an actor portraying someone of another race or ethnicity. In an ideal world, I don't think wearing makeup to change one's skin color would be prohibitively different from changing hair color or wearing a nose prosthesis (e.g. Nicole Kidman in The Hours), or whatever.
HOWEVER, in the real world, there is a serious dearth of meaty roles for women of color, and here you have a great role, and who does it go to? Not someone of color -- not Thandie Newton, for example, who is a decent actress and would've been a good physical match for Mariane Pearl -- but a *white* actress. And that has to be incredibly frustrating for actors of color.
Sure, there are examples of things going the other way -- "Beverly Hills Cop" was written for a white guy, but Eddie Murphy got it; Halle Berry is currently signed to star in a movie based on the true story of a (white) teacher who ran for Congress; Michael Clarke Duncan was cast as the Kingpin; and Jessica Alba played Sue Storm (although I don't know if I'd consider that cross-racial casting; it's true that Jessica is Latina and Sue is not, but Jessica didn't have to make any dramatic changes to her appearance to play Sue, nor did the movie suggest that Sue is Latina).
But the fact is, there's a much longer history of white actors portraying characters of color, and it’s hardly ever because the actor is so right for the role hir performance transcends color. Most of it is pretty embarrassing. You have minstrel shows: white people dressing like black people in order to dramatize racist stereotypes for the entertainment of white audiences. You have all those Westerns with Hollywood bit players in bronzer playing legions of Indians. For every Sir Laurence Olivier changing his appearance to play Othello, there are 10 John Waynes playing Genghis Khan.
There are also the cases where a role *written* as African-American is changed to fit a white actor -- Kevin Spacey in "Pay It Forward" played a white character that was originally written as African-American, and practically the entire cast of the Earthsea movie was originally written as dark-skinned.
Even if a white actor in one of these roles does a phenomenal job (and I haven't seen Olivier as Othello, but Spacey was only so-so), still, it’s a role that could have gone to a black actor and *didn't*. (And typically a plum role as well -- it's not like white actors are petitioning to take the more prevalent "angry pimp" and "crack ho #2" roles.) In the context of a scarcity of plum roles for actors who aren't white, this just seems wrong.
A couple final points: First, it's worth mentioning that Brad Pitt's company is producing the movie, and Jennifer Aniston was lined up for the role before they split. So it's not even like the casting director can use the "we were looking for a darker-skinned actress, but Angelina just blew us away in the audition" excuse.
Second, Mariane Pearl is reportedly fine with Angelina's casting. Some folks have suggested that, living in Europe, she probably doesn't identify as black. I have no idea how she thinks of herself, but I have a feeling her goal is to draw as much attention as possible to her husband's story, and there’s no doubt Angelina will get a lot more asses in theater seats than Thandie would.