Comments on Shoryland: The Rules of Proper Racial/Ethnic Casting in Holly...

So, can a white guy finally play Othello?

2010-05-31T20:14:22.906-05:00

So, can a white guy finally play Othello?

Anonymous, You know, if you keep contradicting yo...

2010-05-31T09:35:54.616-05:00

Anonymous,

You know, if you keep contradicting yourself long enough you might eventually hit upon a valid argument.

I did address Gyllenhaal. The entire post is about Gyllenhaal. If you somehow missed that, go back to Eng. Comp. 101.

You tell me that the Persia casting IS more important than casting different ethnicities who are "coded white" -- conveniently ignoring those who aren't -- and then, when called on it, your argument devolves into quasi/crypto/crit theory baloney about "neither equal nor unequal, but copresent and intertwined." A convenient way of having your cake and eating it too.

But you don't do half-measures, I'll give you that. You're all in--all in to full-blown, Ivory-Tower, liberal-caricature victimization ideology: the more "disadvantaged" badges you earn, the more important you are. Earn enough, you go to the front of the line. We common-sense liberals spend all our time telling conservatives that that's just straw-man argument, that no one really believes that stuff, and then you come along and prove us wrong. Thanks.

And then the capper: "I never said that because I believed his ethnicity had to match exactly with his role, but because of his race-which I perceive as white, ethnicity notwithstanding."

At the bottom of all this is YOUR perceptions. And we're back to my original question, which you've completely ignored (since it renders your argument absurd): if PERCEPTIONS are what's important, could the Prince be played by an "ethnically correct" person who is nonetheless perceived as "white" (Agassi, for example, if he were an actor)? Could a young Mexican Anthony Quinn could have played the Prince (just as he played an Arab, and of course a Greek)? Do you "perceive" Mexicans as being "coded white," or does his Mexican-ness earn him sufficient "disadvantaged" badges? If exact ethnicity is not important to you, does it all just come down to sufficient brownness?

I am totally going to steal this fucking awesome f...

2010-05-31T07:37:36.925-05:00

I am totally going to steal this fucking awesome fucking shit from Anonymous and turn it in for my fucking paper on race and shit. This is fucking awesome shit. Finally I'll be able to get out of the 10th fucking grade. Hell yeah. Upperclassman, bitches.

Anonymous, Horseshit.

2010-05-31T07:17:15.089-05:00

Anonymous,

Horseshit.

Hello, it's Anonymous again. Your response to my p...

2010-05-28T18:14:27.755-05:00

Hello, it's Anonymous again. Your response to my post makes two mistakes. You falsely assume that I assert racism as the preeminent typecasting issue in Hollywood. You then asserted that this assertion you believe I made was erroneous, a statement which I am about to complicate. Neither of these counter arguments relate to my comment and neither one is true.

As far as me supposedly saying race is the ultimate casting evil, you are mistaken. I never asserted as much. You may have thought I implied it; that however, is irrelevant. I neither said nor set out to prove such a thing. Read my first post again; it contains no such statement.

On to the false dichotomy. When you countered my assumed position by telling me not to say race was more important than gender, age, and white ethnicities, your argument has one huge weakness: assumes that these categories exist in vacuums.

Implying that I would have to choose between all typecasting isms being equal and ranking them is a ridiculous idea. So you believe that ageism, sexism, racism, etc. are all equal. Fine, all are equally bad. To bad a lot of the times they coexist.

This is where your dichotomy falls apart. So women over thirty get sidelined until they can play "matronly" roles. Obviously, there are white matronly roles and black matronly roles, maybe because the families in question are white or black and the matron is a grandmother, or because of setting (the role is in an upscale library in Beverly Hills so a black lady would look out of place). In this case, being a women over thirty obviously shoehorns any potential candidates into a certain age range. If the role is white, then the Black actress going for the role has one more point against her.

Both women face typecasting stigmas, obviously. They are both women and they are both middle aged. Only one of the women is also black. Even if all the isms hurt people equally if you have 3 of them against you instead of two, it doesn't matter much.

And what if some isms are worse than others? How would you even begin to compare them to each other? Is there a "Scale of Badness" which you can place each ism on with a number one out of a hundred which works for every case? How would you convert the badness factor of being a black women followed in a store for no reason to the badness factor of being a white male denied a role because of signs of age? You can't because typecasts of race, gender and age are not abstracts in their own spheres which can (or should) be measured equally to or ranked among themselves. They co-exist in everyone and interrelate to each other. They can mitigate or enhance one another, depending on the circumstance.

Which brings me back to the assertion that Gyllenhall's casting is racist. I never said that because I believed his ethnicity had to match exactly with his role, but because of his race-which I perceive as white, ethnicity notwithstanding. Additionally, it isn't the casting in and of itself which is bad, but the fact that it occurs in the context of a marginalized group such as Persians. Again, it must be noted that the flexibility aforded to Gyllenhal has not proven reciprocal-Persians are pretty much stuck playing Persians.

The fact that you had nothing to say on the case of Gyllenhall's casting in particular suggests you have conceded that point-you can't argue that laypeople and not just liberals see race in terms of perceptions and not genetics.

Well, now you can wipe the second claim off your list too. Even if all the isms are equal, people who fall into multiple "disadvantaged" categories are effected worse, and even if they aren't the effects of the categorizations intertwine. It's pointless to compare "Hollywood Jackasseries" in the case of typecasting, because they are not equal or unequal but copresent and intertwined at all times.

Anonymous, The point of the post is that while I ...

2010-05-27T08:58:50.123-05:00

Anonymous,

The point of the post is that while I most certainly agree that there's racism in Hollywood and America, and we have a lot of work to do regarding our perceptions of Arabs and Persians, among others (see my last post), I also think it's absurd to argue that any ONE example of Hollwood jackassery is more important than any other.

You say Italians are "coded white." Well how about you go tell that to all the Italians who only get jobs as gangsters. Maybe they can take a "coded white" sign to their next audition. Go tell it to all the women over 30 while you're at it, too. They'll enjoy being "coded white" while they're waiting another 15-20 years so they can get "matronly" roles.

It's not that I don't think you have a point. It's when you start telling me that your issue is somehow more important the others that I have a problem.

Plus, if you make the statement that "we're not in history, we're in 2010," then don't later use the word "longstanding."

A couple more exceptions to the rule: 1) Ben King...

2010-05-27T08:02:28.078-05:00

A couple more exceptions to the rule:

1) Ben Kingsley can play an character of any ethnicity he chooses as long as said character is bald.

2) Keanu Reeves may never play anyone with any sort of an accent, ever.

I think a lot of the posts regarding this issue ar...

2010-05-26T19:49:23.357-05:00

I think a lot of the posts regarding this issue are missing the point.

The fact is that people are upset over Gyllenhal's being a Persian character because he's white. You make a huge fuss over distinguishing Jews v. Italians v. Swedish, and that distinction may have carried weight 50 or 100 years ago (depending on the comparison) but your framing of the issue misses the point.

Race in America isn't about science, it's about perception. The reason why so many characters of different ethnicities can get away with switching, say from Jewish to Italian, is because, by the average American, both groups are PERCEIVED and therefore CODED as "white." I know for a fact that historically it isn't that simple, but we're not in history, we're in 2010.

Second, is the issue that the protagonist played by Gylenhall is representing a race most frequently coded as terrorists. This is where your argument really falls apart. Again, race in America is about perception. Are you saying that just because Jewish people and Arabs are scientifcally of the same race that the fact Gyllenhall is perceived as white (i.e. nonthreatening) is irrelevant. I don't think so. Besides, your logic never works in reverse. Rarely, if ever do white artists dawn makeup to play unrepentant terrorists or gang-bangers (it's easy for them to play the almost-always white heroines though). That's the whole point. White people play anything-"other" races get the stereotyped leftovers.

Doting over ethnicities of characters in roles that are perceived as white in modern society just skirts the issue of racial portrayal of marginalized groups like Persians. It's not so much the fact that it is so in the case of Gyllenhall, but that a)terrorist representationa are 99 percent of Middle Eastern characters in modern movies b) in a rare depiction of a positive Persian character, a white actor gets the role.

Bottom line: the scientific angle on the issue is bunk since race is a social construct dealing in majority perceptions, and whether or not Gyllenhall is technically Persian is irrelevant since his casting reflects the long standing Hollywood maxim that white actors can play anything while other races get stereotypical roles.

So what about Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in...

2010-05-26T11:36:06.878-05:00

So what about Idris Elba being cast as Heimdall in the new Thor movie?

As far as racial heritage goes, it's hard to know for sure, but if language is any clue, then the Swedish side of Gyllenhaal's heritage is closer to Persian than the Jewish side. Persian is, after all, an Indo-European language, and Hebrew a Semitic one.

There's even a website about it:
http://www.persiansarenotarabs.com/