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jemck at 05:45pm on 12/11/2006
jemck at 05:45pm on 12/11/2006Once upon a time, film and television actors were almost always white and well-spoken, products of the Hollywood Studio System and the Rank Charm School and the like. If any kind of coloured/ethnic/exotic character turned up, chances are they would be one of the aforementioned white and well-spoken under a heavy layer of make-up.
Happily we've come a long way since then, on all sorts of levels. A talented actor like Adrian Lester can excel in the con-artist drama "Hustle" and the colour of his skin makes no odds at all. We've even (mostly) gone beyond the attitude that says 'you can't cast a black man as a crook coz that's racial stereotyping'.
In the new Spielberg drama, "Into the West" we're seeing the cowboy era in the US as no longer exclusively populated by white males in the John Wayne/Gary Cooper/James Stewart tradition. In the first episode, Our Hero gains an pal among the trappers in the distant mountains who happens to be black, an escaped slave. Which actually makes the programme truer to life than the westerns of the dead white male era, since the old West was an escape for all manner of runaways.
And then we have last night's "Robin Hood". Where a nun turns up, in full habit, announces herself as the Mother Superior of Somewhere - and nobody blinks an eye or so much as remarks on the fact she's black. When it's 1192 - we know this for a fact, it was shoehorned into the script.
Oh come on! I'll cut them a lot of slack as per the knitted string proviso, but this? It's just plain silly. You know it and I know it - and I don't even need to go into any detailed explanation of mediaeval attitudes to race or colour. I find this far more irritating than any amount of knitted string chainmail and ropey swordwork.
What makes it worse is the script-writers have already shown they can do the lateral thinking necessary and desirable to get round the default white male domination of the traditional cast of characters. Last week saw Jack (sp?) added to the outlaws, a girl enslaved in the Holy Land. Better yet, she gets to be a proper outlaw, having promptly explained that she's a rubbish cook. If her vowels occasionally hint a touch more at Bollywood than Byzantium, who cares? It's a fun and intelligent response to an issue that should be addressed.
Default racism, sexism and homophobia is a recurrent problem in historically based fantasy and a set of stereotypes that I and many other writers work hard to avoid perpetuating. This is not the way to do it.
Happily we've come a long way since then, on all sorts of levels. A talented actor like Adrian Lester can excel in the con-artist drama "Hustle" and the colour of his skin makes no odds at all. We've even (mostly) gone beyond the attitude that says 'you can't cast a black man as a crook coz that's racial stereotyping'.
In the new Spielberg drama, "Into the West" we're seeing the cowboy era in the US as no longer exclusively populated by white males in the John Wayne/Gary Cooper/James Stewart tradition. In the first episode, Our Hero gains an pal among the trappers in the distant mountains who happens to be black, an escaped slave. Which actually makes the programme truer to life than the westerns of the dead white male era, since the old West was an escape for all manner of runaways.
And then we have last night's "Robin Hood". Where a nun turns up, in full habit, announces herself as the Mother Superior of Somewhere - and nobody blinks an eye or so much as remarks on the fact she's black. When it's 1192 - we know this for a fact, it was shoehorned into the script.
Oh come on! I'll cut them a lot of slack as per the knitted string proviso, but this? It's just plain silly. You know it and I know it - and I don't even need to go into any detailed explanation of mediaeval attitudes to race or colour. I find this far more irritating than any amount of knitted string chainmail and ropey swordwork.
What makes it worse is the script-writers have already shown they can do the lateral thinking necessary and desirable to get round the default white male domination of the traditional cast of characters. Last week saw Jack (sp?) added to the outlaws, a girl enslaved in the Holy Land. Better yet, she gets to be a proper outlaw, having promptly explained that she's a rubbish cook. If her vowels occasionally hint a touch more at Bollywood than Byzantium, who cares? It's a fun and intelligent response to an issue that should be addressed.
Default racism, sexism and homophobia is a recurrent problem in historically based fantasy and a set of stereotypes that I and many other writers work hard to avoid perpetuating. This is not the way to do it.
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