The TV Thread redux

[Sweeting]

The first half of the post is historical characters - Cleopatra, Genghis Khan, Ramases II, Alexander the Great etc.

The second half is fictional characters who are non-white in the source material.

By no means are either of these lists exhaustive.

[Rambler]

Well Cleopatra was Greek so Liz Taylor not a bad choice and I don’t know how recent the others are but anyway I don’t want to labour the point. I just believe historical characters should be portrayed by actors who are at least believable. At least to me

[Klopptimist]

@Sweeting

I think some of these casting decisions are made because of quotas but I think even more are made because ideologically the creators of these believe that it shouldn’t matter. There are certain stories though where it does matter.

Nail. Head.

[Limiescouse]

@Sweeting

John Wayne played Genghis Khan.

Alec Guinness played Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia. Faisal was a Saudi, raised in Constantinople under Ottoman rule, and would go on to become the first king of Syria and Iraq. Guinness was so proud of the authenticity of his portrayal because he learned the accent from talking to Omar Sharif, an Egyptian.

By all accounts he actually was a good physical fit for the role according to people who knew Faisal, but it is a funny illustration of the problems that have historically been present in using white actors for non-white roles, because the determination of “that’s close enough” for accuracy is not determined by people who can tell the difference. It why for a generation the most famous Native American actor who presented his characters with all the tropes we are now all so familiar with, was actually Italian and was just making it up with no one present to know enough to call him out for it.

[Klopptimist]

When a fictional charachter’s skin colour and features are absolutely specifically defined, what can the creators do but rip it up and go full DEI?

Actor Paapa Essiedu ‘offered’ Snape role in new Harry Potter TV series

[Sweeting]

As I mentioned above this happens regularly in fiction, taking specifically non-white characters and giving the role to white actors. It’s not necessarily offensive.

"If you also look at white portrayals of fictional non-white characters there are lots of examples…
Kirsten Dunst took the role of a character described as bi-racial in The Beguiled. Jake Gyllenhaal played the lead in Prince of Persia. Scarlett Johansson was the Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell. Angelina Jolie (again) was in Wanted portraying a character who is black in the comic. Liam Neeson was Ra’s al Ghul. Emma Stone was Allison Ng. Laurence Olivier was Othello. Johnny Depp was Tonto. Tilda Swinton played a character who is an Asian man in the Marvel comics. The recent Avatar: The Last Airbender were almost all white people playing Asian characters. Benderdict Cumberbatch played Khan Nonnien Singh in Star Trek, a role specifically described as being a Sikh man. Katniss Everdeen in Hunger Games was supposed to be mixed-race in appearance in the books but Jennifer Lawrence got the part and the casting even specified that they only wanted white actors to audition!"

With regards to Snape in particular I think whoever takes that role is going to butcher it - you simply can’t follow Alan Rickman’s portrayal (and I wish they weren’t trying!)

[Limiescouse]

The Harry Potter reboot is a desperate attempt at generating revenue for a company that has found itself with no valuable fresh IP, but needing revenue to cover the costs of the debts its new parent company put on its shoulders.

Recasting in general is going to be a problem given the original series was probably best known for being a who’s who of the best and most loved actors of British cinema. But factor in that it is coming at a time of historical unpopularity of the creator of the series, and the whole thing is a really badly conceived of idea that is likely going to need to turn to stunt casting to generate interest in it.

It was notable that one of the first stories that broke about their casting was they asked Jared Harris to play Dumbledore in honour of his father’s original portrayal of him in the first two films before his death, and he laughed them out of the room saying the whole thing is a bad idea that needs to go away.

[Limiescouse]

I caught up with the currently released episodes of Silo this week. I was bored by it.

[RedWhippet]

@Sweeting

With regards to Snape in particular I think whoever takes that role is going to butcher it - you simply can’t follow Alan Rickman’s portrayal (and I wish they weren’t trying!)

Maybe that’s why they are looking for a physically different actor - to try and stop comparisons.

Apparently, they tried to fit prosthetic buck teeth to Emma Watson so that she physically resembled the description of Hermione in the book. They gave up when they discovered that the poor girl couldn’t speak.

[Bekloppt]

@Sweeting

My only real issue is that the inclusion of black and asian actors in place of real-life white people might actually serve to lessen the reality of racism historically. Pretending that we were all fine with black people throughout our history seems like a stepping stone to denying racism ever happens

This is an excellent point. I hope this trend ends soon as it is getting tiresome. I get it as a corrective to all that went before as mentioned in previous posts, but it would be great if the Bridgertonisation of history was replaced by something more authentic.

[RedWhippet]

I just found a link on YouTube for one of Alan Bleasdale’s contributions on Play For Today.

Skully’s New Years Eve. I remember the Skully series, which included Kenny Dalglish dressed as a fairy amongst other things, but this is a new one for me:

- YouTube

[Alright_Now_Legend]

Started watching Man on the Inside on @cynicaloldgit’s recommendation. Quite enjoying it. Told my daughter the Susan Yang character is so reminiscent of Cynnie.

[koptician]

Caught up on Dune: Prophecy. Very pleasantly surprised how good it is!

[Limiescouse]

@Limiescouse

Yeah. I read it after the disaster that was Cloud Atlas and saw talk about the “most unadaptable” books with this getting a lot of mentions in that debate. I don’t have much vision for this stuff so for me any adaptation that isnt just a Watchman style frame by frame remake of the book a work of vision that I cannot comprehend, so I don’t necessarily understand those arguments. But it’s also clear there is a LOT of room for this to go wrong.

@Bekloppt One Hundred Years of Solitude was incredibly well done. I didn’t realize and was pleasantly surprised to see this 8 episode run was only part 1. They have apparently finished filming ont he final 8 but have no details on when they will be released.

[Bekloppt]

Cheers. I might give it a go then. Can’t wait until the missus gets round to reading the novel.

[Dane]

ITV 8pm Christmas Day.
Who, in the world of program planning, thought of airing a celebrity Christmas special of a show that is already on our TV’s 6 days a fucking week?

Zero creativity, fucking dull morons.

Bah fucking humbug

[RedWhippet]

I’ve heard a few people complaining about ITV’s Christmas lineup. It sounds like they expect folks to tune in to the King’s Speech on BBC One and then leave the channel dial alone.

[Bekloppt]

@RedWhippet

channel dial

Is that some new fangled invention?

[RedWhippet]

Probably. Channel selector? I can’t think what the thing is called and I apparently have taken my lexicon from a Baird set in the 1950s.

Don’t twiddle the wrong knob or you’ll never get the horizontal hold stable again.

[koptician]

Watching From Roger Moore with Love. Quite excellent!

They don’t make ‘em like they used to. Roger was hilarious in person