Why is 'browning up' acceptable in Hollywood?

[Athos]

You're having to come up with rather extreme examples to make your point, though.

I don't think any actor should need to be from a particular background to play a part. That's where the 'acting' bit comes in. But Spanglechick is completely right that this is nothing whatever to do with a lack of suitably talented black actors - there are far more talented actors around than there are parts, for people of whatever colour. In an ideal world, this wouldn't matter. We don't live in that world, though, so it does matter, and the forces in operation that bring it about are to be resisted.

For me, this is a smaller issue than another one wrt parts for black actors. Being black is still a 'thing'. In the US, UK and elsewhere, being white is a default, 'neutral' position. This is changing very very slowly, but I still see an imbalance here - I still see very few non-white actors playing parts where the race of the character is not important. I think this has possibly changed more on TV (here in Britain, at least) than in the cinema. But I suspect that it is still a far greater impediment to black actors getting decent roles (or even auditions for decent roles) than the occasional white actor browning up.

I agree with all that.

 

[Citizen66]

My reply to your last point on the derail lol:

It now seems we're relying on context where you've been basing the majority of your arguments on hypothetical situations. You can't have it both ways.

I could agree that there might be more professionally trained actors in the available pool of talent for a production that are white than are black. Which then exposes race (and class) opportunities when it comes to opportunities in the dramatic arts. Given that backdrop there might be white actors who are more suited to playing black roles than black people. But that doesn't bolster the argument for blacking up, if anything it proves and argues the reverse.

 

[Treacle Toes]

For me...one of the lasting frustrations of conversations like these is that instead of dealing with/focusing on the way things are and why, endless hypotheticals are posed so that some people can give their positions credence and value. Those endless, pointless hypotheticals boil my piss, and are absolutely condescending/dismissive of the lives, experiences and intelligence of real people.

 

[Athos]

My reply to your last point on the derail lol:

It now seems we're relying on context where you've been basing the majority of your arguments on hypothetical situations. You can't have it both ways.

I could agree that there might be more professionally trained actors in the available pool of talent for a production that are white than are black. Which then exposes race (and class) opportunities when it comes to opportunities in the dramatic arts. Given that backdrop there might be white actors who are more suited to playing black roles than black people. But that doesn't bolster the argument for blacking up, if anything it proves and argues the reverse.

I can't tell whether your still being disingenuous, or really are too thick to grasp the point.

This isn't about relative numbers (about which I agree with you, by the way), but rather whether you believe that a character consists of more than just a skin colour.

But, ultimately, you've said that "there might be white actors who are more suited to playing black roles than black people". Which goes further than what I said, in any event! And is a complete reversal of the point you made earlier in the thread:

I don't think the best white actor in the world is good enough to play a more convincing black man than a black man could.

Flip-flop!

 

[Citizen66]

I don't think a white person (in the uk) can ever fully grasp the constant background hum of how structural racism feels daily to a POC and it boils my piss when I'm dismissed as playing to identity politics in order to close down the debate when what I'm actually trying to do is to understand and empathise with those in that position. If anything throwing the identity politics card out is attempting to stifle the debate. The reason why identity politics exists is because class politics has completely failed to draw ethnic minorities into its sphere. The answer isn't to attack identity politics. The answer also isn't to tell people they haven't thought things through. That's why the identity politics you supposedly loathe exists ffs.

Can you join not join the dots or something?

 

[Citizen66]

I can't tell whether your still being disingenuous, or really are too thick to grasp the point.

This isn't about relative numbers (about which I agree with you, by the way), but rather whether you believe that a character consists of more than just a skin colour.

But, ultimately, you've said that "there might be white actors who are more suited to playing black roles than black people". Which goes further than what I said, in any event! And is a complete reversal of the point you made earlier in the thread:

Flip-flop!

I honestly feel like lamping you out. The answer is to fight for equality in acting circles, not argue in favour of blacking up you fake cunt.

 

[Athos]

I don't think a white person (in the uk) can ever fully grasp the constant background hum of how structural racism feels daily to a POC...

I agree with all that.

and it boils my piss when I'm dismissed as playing to identity politics in order to close down the debate when what I'm actually trying to do is to understand and empathise with those in that position.

If you don't want to be accused of that, don't do it. I know you subsequently conceded that you shouldn't have highlighted my race and poptyping's, but you did.

If anything throwing the identity politics card out is attempting to stifle the debate.

Not at all. I was willing to engage with the substance of arguments; by contrast, you've consistently sought to play the man rather than the ball, including the ridiculous cross-thread diversion.

The reason why identity politics exists is because class politics has completely failed to draw ethnic minorities into its sphere. The answer isn't to attack identity politics. The answer also isn't to tell people they haven't thought things through. That's why the very identity politics you loathe exists ffs.

With respect, I doubt you have the answers to anything.

 

[Athos]

I honestly feel like lamping you out.

 

[Citizen66]

I really can't be arsed with entitled liberal knobheads. At least I now know you're not consistent enough to self identify as anarchist I can safely dismiss you from now on. Sacking the cleaner changes fuck all. I've got no time for supposed radicals using right wing arguments (identity politics to stifle debate is the new playing the race card) to bolster their position.

Kindly piss off.

 

[Athos]

I really can't be arsed with entitled liberal knobheads. At least I now know you're not consistent enough to self identify as anarchist I can safely dismiss you from now on. Sacking the cleaner changes fuck all. I've got no time for supposed radicals using right wing arguments (identity politics to stifle debate is the new playing the race card) to bolster their position.

Kindly piss off.

I really can't be arsed with flip-floppers who make racist comments, then get so up-tight when called on it that they start some cross-thread beef.

Mate, you should have given up when I made the offer on the other thread that we'd both stop and pretend you'd 'won'.

 

[Citizen66]

Ive flip flopped over nothing you delusional cunt. I'll leave that to others to decide if I have.

 

[Athos]

Ive flip flopped over nothing you delusional cunt. I'll leave that to others to decide if I have.

Suits me.

... there might be white actors who are more suited to playing black roles than black people.

I don't think the best white actor in the world is good enough to play a more convincing black man than a black man could.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I deny it, yes. If the skin colour is such an important part of the character, then the actor who matches that tone is more likely to have experience of whatever that factor is.

Rider Haggard, who wrote Tarzan and King Solomon's Mines; and Rudyard Kipling who wrote Kim and The Man Who Would Be King, are both white. Many characters in their books, are African or South Asian. But... the characters in the books are Africans and South Asians as created and scripted by a white author.

If these books were to be made into films yet again, would South Asian or African actors be the ones to best portray people of color.... as envisioned by a white author?

 

[Orang Utan]

Yes. What an odd question.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Just taken that weird Canadian off ignore for a second to see him claim Rider Haggard wrote Tarzan??

What a strange thing to say.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

That weird Spanky is right: of course it was Edgar Rice Burroughs. Brain fart.

Now that that's corrected, interesting to see if anyone actually responds to the point. The argument over who best portrays what sort of character misses the point that all actors are doing, is creating a live enactment of words written by a writer or screenwriter. And most of those, are white males.

There is no more intrinsic truth in a black character in some film or tv program, than the writer is able to bring to the table.

The Wire, for instance: every word spoken by every black actor, was penned by one or a combination of the four white male writers.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

The concensus is that actors shouldn't 'brown up' for a role, that they can't bring the requisite experience to the role. But the actors are in essence self-propelled marionettes, acting out words and scenes written by others, under the direction of others.

Should writers be writing characters who are of a race/ethnicity different from that of the writer? Should African American roles only be written by African American writers? Can a white writer bring the necessary experience to the process of creating and writing the role?

Should white directors be directing actors playing such roles?

Arguably, a white writer writing a POC role, is guilty of literary 'browning up'; same with the white director.

 

[Greebo]

Just taken that weird Canadian off ignore for a second to see him claim Rider Haggard wrote Tarzan?? <snip>

Tbf Haggard and Rice Boroughs have similar styles and were writing at more or less the same time.

 

[hot air baboon]

Ethnic Minorities, Comedy and British Television. Interview with Sharat Sardana. London, Friday 26 of November 2004

http://lisa.revues.org/664

AD: But what about having Michael Bates as a blacked-up Indian servant in It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum?

SS: We did not mind because he spoke the language and something about him was okay in the way that it was okay for Peter Sellers to do it in The Party. It was affectionate. Peter Sellers loved India and Michael Bates loved India, he spoke Hindi and I think you can just tell. The blacking-up does not become a prop; it’s not part of the joke, it’s just something they have to do because they happen to be the best actors to play the part. When the blacking-up is a prop, and made to look like a joke, like in Curry and Chips for instance, then yes, I object to it, though I love Spike Milligan8. But it is silly blacking-up really.


.....my mum & dad used to know Michael Bates....served in the Ghurkas iirc...( he was good in IAHHM...Sellers was pretty dodgy though )


..presumably actors in small rep companies have to do this sort of thing all the time anyway..

 

[Orang Utan]

The Wire, for instance: every word spoken by every black actor, was penned by one or a combination of the four white male writers.

Which I'm sure you complained about here when you watched it

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The concensus is that actors shouldn't 'brown up' for a role, that they can't bring the requisite experience to the role. .

I'm not sure that is the consensus, tbf. It's not my contention, at least.

 

[Orang Utan]

I'm not sure that is the consensus, tbf. It's not my contention, at least.

Indeed. I'm not sure anyone is saying that.

 

[SpookyFrank]

The concensus is that actors shouldn't 'brown up' for a role, that they can't bring the requisite experience to the role. But the actors are in essence self-propelled marionettes, acting out words and scenes written by others, under the direction of others.

Should writers be writing characters who are of a race/ethnicity different from that of the writer? Should African American roles only be written by African American writers? Can a white writer bring the necessary experience to the process of creating and writing the role?

Should white directors be directing actors playing such roles?

Arguably, a white writer writing a POC role, is guilty of literary 'browning up'; same with the white director.

The alternative is to have stories that feature only black people, or only white people or whatever. All writers have to climb inside someone else's skin to write convincing characters, and they have to been keen observers of other people in order to succeed at that.

I think the hardest chracters to write are children. Beyond that writing about anyone who is different from you is a challenge, and the fact that the results can be so sublime, or so horrible when executed badly, is why writing is worth doing.

Nothing irks quite like a protagonist who is clearly just the author plonked into a fictional setting. You can't help but feel like the writer hasn't done his job properly, like he's plagiarised the character from himself iyswim.

 

[SpookyFrank]

None of which excuses the shortage of black writers, directors etc in film and TV of course.

 

[Citizen66]

Its slightly different in drama than literature because scripts can be dynamic with actors putting their own spin on things. Children can be the easiest in that context if they're just told to behave like children.

 

[spanglechick]

The alternative is to have stories that feature only black people, or only white people or whatever. All writers have to climb inside someone else's skin to write convincing characters, and they have to been keen observers of other people in order to succeed at that.

I think the hardest chracters to write are children. Beyond that writing about anyone who is different from you is a challenge, and the fact that the results can be so sublime, or so horrible when executed badly, is why writing is worth doing.

Nothing irks quite like a protagonist who is clearly just the author plonked into a fictional setting. You can't help but feel like the writer hasn't done his job properly, like he's plagiarised the character from himself iyswim.

Part of the problem with child roles is the kids themselves, though. Essentially, the mechanics of 'proper' acting* require life experience. Emotional memory, nuance, observation. Equity do not accredit any actor training before the age of 18.

*Children, performing outside their own life experiences, have to be instructed, even to the point of imitating inflection, posture, gesture, facial expression, pace, phrasing... it's more like modelling. (Some shite adults such as celebs who fancy being in a film or whatever, also require this.) But it's not acting as such, and because it isn't connected to the internal life of the character and the actor's own choices. And so, quite often, you can see what is missing in the final performance.

Bad writing doesn't help, but in my experience, there are many decent scripts that have been scuppered by the understandable weakness of the child actors.

 

[Citizen66]

I should probably add to my earlier point. I'm reminded of watching a documentary which covered the scene in The Godfather where Marlon Brando is playing with his Grandson who eventually finds him collapsed. The director had several tricks up his sleeve (techniques) to achieve the desired result. The child was just being a child reacting to situations presented and being filmed in the process.

 

[Crispy]

I should probably add to my earlier point. I'm reminded of watching a documentary which covered the scene in The Godfather where Marlon Brando is playing with his Grandson who eventually finds him collapsed. The director had several tricks up his sleeve (techniques) to achieve the desired result. The child was just being a child reacting to situations presented and being filmed in the process.

Another one that springs to mind is the scene in Mary Poppins where she's pulling impossibly large items out of her bag. It was actually set up like a stage magician's show and the child actors had no idea this was going to happen. The look of amazement on their faces is genuine

 

[Santino]

Another one that springs to mind is the scene in Mary Poppins where she's pulling impossibly large items out of her bag. It was actually set up like a stage magician's show and the child actors had no idea this was going to happen. The look of amazement on their faces is genuine

Like in Alien.

 

[Citizen66]

Another one that springs to mind is the scene in Mary Poppins where she's pulling impossibly large items out of her bag. It was actually set up like a stage magician's show and the child actors had no idea this was going to happen. The look of amazement on their faces is genuine

Directors use these techniques on adult actors too. Obviously a lot more difficult given the adult actors are aware they are actors and are aware that filming might be happening but the element of surprise in a situation where they want a specific reaction rather than an acted one still works if done right. It's just psychological games I guess.