Hollywood’s Stunt Industry Grapples With Issues of Race and Skin Color

Variety ^ | March 1, 2019 | Todd Longwell

[EdnaMode]

In August, a photo surfaced of a boy in an Afro wig with makeup-darkened skin standing in for 11-year-old African-American actor Keith L. Williams on the Vancouver set of “Good Boys,” a comedy about three sixth-graders who ditch school and wind up on a road trip. The image sparked online outrage, and Seth Rogen, one of the film’s producers, quickly apologized, declaring that on all future projects his team would “take every precaution to make sure something similar does not take place again.”

It turned out that the boy in the makeup, reportedly the son of a stuntman, was African-American but had a lighter skin tone than Williams.

The revelation doesn’t change the disturbing nature of the visual — which summons the racist specter of blackface. But it speaks to challenges facing the stunt community as it grapples to provide minority representation in a charged sociopolitical atmosphere where a job can be lost over an inappropriate tweet.

The producers of “Good Boys” merely needed someone to sit there while the cinematographer lit the scene, so it’s hard to argue that a child matching Williams’ pigmentation couldn’t have been easily found. But when it comes to choosing a stunt double for an actor, matching the skin tone isn’t nearly as important as finding proper skills and a similar facial and body structure, which means that sometimes black stunt workers end up shading their complexions with makeup.

“Black people come in so many colors,” says African-American stuntwoman Jwaundace Candece, founder of Stunt POC, an online directory for stunt people of color. “I don’t think it’s blackface to paint them the same skin tone as the actor or to go lighter. I’ve done lighter; I’ve done darker. It’s not a racist thing.

[LYDIAONTARIO]

“Okay so from now on all actors must do their own stunts and if they die well that would be less horrifying than blackface I guess” .........LOL!!

[cherry]

I’m offended seeing white characters played by blacks.....or vice versa......those old westerns with the Italian actors as Indian chiefs are just silly..

[kearnyirish2]

Pay us - gibs me!

[kearnyirish2]

I encourage my children to look at STEM fields because they are the most viable jobs not of the future, but of the present. Nobody I know complains about racial BS in STEM; if there are minorities present, they worked hard to get there and have no patience for gibsmedats.

While gubmint jobs are lucrative, they expose you to ferals that have no business in a workplace. In my twon here in NJ, a postal worker ran down two others a car a couple of days ago after a dispute (they survived): https://www.nj.com/hudson/2019/02/postal-worker-strikes-2-co-workers-car-after-dispute-police.html

[This I Wonder32460]

It’s like outrage is a nutrient they need to live.

[hanamizu]

Nobody I know complains about racial BS in STEM;

---

But there is an outcry from the usual suspects about the lack of ‘diversity’ in the STEM fields and how steps need to be taken to ‘correct’ it. It’s almost become a cliche how the movie Idiocracy is turning out to be, in fact, a documentary.

[ClearBlueSky]

When you're nothing INSIDE only the OUTSIDE matters. Superficiality. Vapid, shallow people are color obsessed. Ugly , stupid and evil comes in all colors.
How many minorities in stunt work. It's dangerous. If you find the right, competent, body double you paint them orange with dots if necessary.

[kearnyirish2]

I believe the salaries are too high for the normal seeding of departments with useless tokens (as is often done in more clerical/administrative work) - and the skill sets are in such demand that those possessing them won’t tolerate BS from tokens.

[Paal Gulli]

I started watching the new film about Mary Queen of Scots. Queen Elizabeth I of England, it turns out, had a black man on her privy council and an Asian woman for a lady in waiting.

I’m not quite sure why they didn’t just use a CGI Michael Jackson as the Queen of England.