They Cast Whom?! Actor Choices To Offend Every Racial Sensibility

NPR ^ | March 22, 2014 | Kat Chow

[nickcarraway]

As for Mara's ethnicity? She's not Native American. Folks are passing around an online petition that asks Warner Bros. to "stop casting white actors to play people of color."

2. If you're particularly ticked off when a white character is played by a person of color, then you're probably not pleased that Michael B. Jordan (Friday Night Lights, The Wire, Fruitvale Station), who is black, was cast as the Human Torch in Fantastic Four. Human Torch is a superhero who, as his name hints, can engulf his body in flames, control nearby fires and fly. When he's not on fire (though he usually is), the comics show that he's a blonde, white guy named Johnny Storm. (There was an android Human Torch once. To the extent that androids have ethnic identities, the android's was probably Anglo-Saxon.) If casting a black actor to play a white superhero irks you, this probably will, too.

[Kirkwood]

They’re both right if you are the right color (not white).

[Impy]

I’m sure she can act, and perhaps casting actors of a different race than their characters is a bad idea all around (John Wayne as Genghis Kahn!! The role that gave him and a lot of other people cancer), but that misses my point.

A big Hollywood movie will generally want to cast name actors in major roles to draw fans of that actor to see the film. Compared to Ms. Mara, Ms. Kilcher is little known.

I’ll mention strange casting that really gets to me. In some depictions Cleopatra and Hannibal are portrayed as Black (Hannibal looked liked “The Rock” on the History channel). Ancient Egyptians were not Black and Cleopatra was an inbred Greek anyway, it’s entirely mystifying why some people want to insist she was Black. And while there were Blacks in Carthage, it’s very unlikely the upper-class Barca family was among them. Roman busts of Hannibal looked nothing like the actor who played him on the History Channel thing I saw (Bald, Shirtless, Beardless, light skinned Black man).

[Impy]

I saw a car commercial recently with several English actors (Ben Kingsley, Mark Strong) that made light of this fact.

[laweeks]

Yeah, but don’t ya’ just love it when every single damn movie has to have at least one “black” somewhere in it, even in a Robin Hood movie, and most certainly one woman, who by the way, is the probably the lead character in any action film, and who, by the way has extraordinary strength.

And how about all commercials (99%) that also have to have at least 1 “black” represented somewhere (but there are all “black” character commercials).

And don’t ya’ just love it that all thieves and crooks in all commercials are “white” guys.

[Beowulf9]

Yes, and while we’re on the subject let’s get an AMERICAN to be the PRESIDENT.

[FAA]

Ah, Dawn Wells.

Were she 40 years younger or I forty years older, we would have had so many kids.

[stylin19a]

ooooh ! pick me ! pick me !

sacrilegious...Cedric the Entertainer as Ralph Kramden

[boop]

And don’t ya’ just love it that all thieves and crooks in all commercials are “white” guys."

Yes. And instead of the more realistic, scarecrow thin, toothless meth head, they are all well fed white guys with a few days stubble. To indicate "burglar".

[BillyBoy]

>> perhaps casting actors of a different race than their characters is a bad idea all around <<

I don't think the actor's ethnicity or race is a problem at all it (it was silly when Mexican-Americans went nuts because a Puetro Rican actress had been cast to play Mexican singer Selena). The issue is believability. Neither Ricardo Mountlebaun or Benedict Cumberbatch is remotely related by ancestry to someone from the India subcontinent. But Richardo Moutanlebaun could believably portray a suave, arrogant former Sikh warlord named Khan Noonien Singh, whereas Cumberbatch was just some obviously British guy doing a sinister Hannibal Lecter type character:

>> A big Hollywood movie will generally want to cast name actors in major roles to draw fans of that actor to see the film. Compared to Ms. Mara, Ms. Kilcher is little known. <<

Lou Diamond Philips is another good example of the above scenario. He gets cast as American Indians all the time. Ethnically, he's only 1/8th american Indian ancestry. But nobody has a problem with the casting, because Lou Diamond Philips is believable in the roles and looks more native american than he is:

Now, compare Ms. Kilcher to Ms. Mara and which one fits how people would imagine "Tiger Lily" from Peter Pan if she was a real life person:

>> Ancient Egyptians were not Black and Cleopatra was an inbred Greek anyway, it’s entirely mystifying why some people want to insist she was Black. And while there were Blacks in Carthage, it’s very unlikely the upper-class Barca family was among them. <<

I agree, Cleopatra was definitely not black. I've seen Hollywood depict her as such, but the only people I've seen in real life argue that she's black are black people (who don't seem to be aware that she is NOT a positive role model in history). But they argue Jesus was black, too. A bit off topic, but some talking head informed me that Carmen Sandiego of the "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? is supposed to be "latina" and that she's an "inspiration to young latinas all over the world" (news to me, if that guy ever played the game, he'd figure out she's the antagonist that the player is trying to catch and send to prison because she's a pathologically lying thief).

In any case, I don't think Cleopatra looked anything like Elizabeth Taylor, either. The 1999 Cleopatra was a pretty crappy movie, but I did think the casting of the title character was done well:

Actually, the one that irks me the most is the way Hollywood depicts an entirely fictional fantasy character. It's the tooth fairy! They keep casting fat ugly middle aged men in the role. I don't know if they're trying to be "funny" with the people they cast or whatever, but it doesn't work at all. All kids think the tooth fairy looks like this:

NOT this:

[xrmusn]

Back when “The Sopranos” were rolling, there was a huge uproar regarding stereotyping.

My ‘solution’ was just keep the same actors and call the characters “O’Brien, O’Connell, O’Reilly, Kelly etc etc and put the setting in an ‘Irish Ghetto’.

Burt Lancaster,Jeff Chandler, Debra Paget were a few who made a ‘life’ of playing Indians in the old Westerns...

[BillyBoy]

>> Worst casting choices in Hollywood history had nothing to do with race and ethnicity. Some actors just plain suck at certain roles. Redford sucked as Gatsby and Cruise sucked as LeStat. <<

I agree with your first statement (some actors just plain suck in the role, regardless of how much they look or sound like the character). But for your second example, I actually thought Redford was THE definitive version of Gatsby, and Cruise was THE definitive version of Lestat. Both casting choices worked perfectly.

Gatsby is SUPPOSED to be a good looking, shallow, vapid, snooty rich guy. Redford could just pretty much be himself and pull it off. (DiCaprio was excellently cast as the 2013 Gatsby for the same reason... that's not to say the rest of the movie is good, it isn't) The more controversial casting in 1974 was Mia Farrow as Daisy. People apparently had a hard time buying that in the 70s, but now the movie is so well known its hard to imagine anyone else as Daisy.

Lestat's casting was up there with the announcement of Michael Keaton as Batman. Everyone hated it at the time and couldn't picture the actor in the role (especially since Lestat is supposed to be a 6'4 tough guy with beautiful blond hair in the book, whereas Cruise is a 5'7 mellow guy with dark brown hair). But Keaton shocked everyone with how much he owned the Batman character, and Cruise did the same with Lestat -- he captured the character perfectly on screen -- the smug cocky "brat prince" who was depicted in the original novel as a completely unfeeling sociopathic killer that you hated but still came across as charming and likeable. Anne Rice even hated it but changed her mind after she saw the movie and praised his performance.

[NoLibZone]

Just as bad is when a liberal portrays an American.

[pogo101]

In the past 4-5 years I’ve seen a skit-comedy show — I forget which; it could have been SNL, Key & Peele, dunno — did a parody of a TV ad for an ADT-type of home-monitoring service.

IIRC, in the ad, a white mom (calling herself a “white mom”) explains (as the video dissolves to show) how she returned home early one night to find “a white man burglarizing our house!” So she called [ADT], “and I was immediately put through to a white man to help me!”

Protect your home from white burglars! ADT: With white men to help you.

I about laughed my butt off.

[boop]

LOL! Exactly.

[boop]

I didn't know that Lou Diamond Phillips was only 1/8 Indian. He really looks like one.

I don't know what his ethnic background is, but he also played Richie Valens in La Bamba.

I remember reading that Randolph Mantooth, Johnny Gage in Emergency was offered Native American roles, but turned them down.

Why? Because he's 1/2 N.A. and felt the roles should go to full-blooded Indians. He didn't want to be "insulting" to their culture.

[Impy]

I saw the tooth fairy once, she bore a striking resemblance to my mother.

The 1999 Cleopatra was a pretty crappy movie, but I did think the casting of the title character was done well:

Billy Zane as Mark Antony on the other hand......