Leguizamo:
"How is Hollywood excluding us but stealing our narratives as well?
This is the status quo. The street does not run both ways.
Are you saying that actors, especially non white actors aren’t pigeon holed?
8 Likes
Non-white actors haven’t exactly been flush with role options, trying to suggest otherwise flies in the face of how Hollywood has worked all this time. This is the same argument we hear over and over with diversity in anything - hiring, casting, etc. - the reality is, more than 25% of Americans define themselves as non-white. Until 1-in-4 actors, on average in movies are nonwhite, there is underrepresentation relative to reality. The idea that things are anywhere close to this today is laughable.
Will whites have more difficulty finding leading roles? Absolutely. Have they enjoyed way more privilege in this regard than they should have by population since the beginning of Hollywood? Hell yes. That’s the whole reason this correction is needed in the first place.
10 Likes
Because just as the stories we tell ourselves matter, so does REPRESENTATION.
8 Likes
I know! Let’s cast James Franco as MLK! Perfect casting!!! Blackface is fine, as the only thing that matters is the best actor gets the role, and that must by definition be a white man… /s
Which was the intent, of course, to ensure that minority populations did not have access to these roles so that the stereotypes were reinforced to keep them marginalized. Allowing people who are oppressed into these spaces as themselves to portray themselves only upsets the structures that keeps them oppressed.
4 Likes
I remember watching the Latin Emmys once. The inimitable Hector Elizondo was MCing.
The Latin Emmys have – or had, back in the day, I don’t exactly keep up with them and they might not even exist anymore – a category called “Best Actor in a Crossover Role”. This was awarded to the non-Hispanic actor who best portrayed a Hispanic actor in an eligible TV program in the last year. (Today we’d probably (rightly) derisively consider this “brownface”.)
Anyway, when he was introducing the award, Hector Elizondo, who you may remember is famous for playing the white hotelier in Pretty Woman, defined “crossover role” for the audience:
When a non-Hispanic person portrays a Hispanic character, this is what we call a crossover role. There’s no award for Hispanics playing white people – when a Hispanic person plays someone white… we call that acting.
2 Likes
Since race is a social construct does this allow white-born people like Rachel Dolezal to legitimately identify as black if she truly feels that way? Or is it reserved for mixed-race people like myself to determine which parent’s heritage they mostly identify with? I’m not arguing your point, just trying to better understand.
Choosing is not required.
4 Likes
Not as long as white supremacy and privilege are a thing. If she’s legitimately wants to help the Black community (which did not seem to be the case, it just seemed like she wanted to shed her white privilege and be seen as a Black woman), then she didn’t need to pretend to be something she’s not. She lived her entire life with white privilege, and as such, is not a part of the Black experience in America. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to help and improve the lives of oppressed people and being an ally, but pretending you had an experience that you did not isn’t helpful in the least. Plenty of white people grew up in predominantly Black communities, and are empathetic, but it’s a very white privilege to embrace that upbringing and pretend that you are that, when you can easily slip off that culture and “assimilate” with the “mainstream” (white) culture.
Race it determined in our society in a very superficial way (by how you look), so although there is some choice there, it’s often not up to an individual how society views them. Take someone like Halsey or Megan Markel - both are bi-racial, but extremely light skinned and in the past could have passed for white, though neither do. They both grew up with a Black parent, and were a part of Black culture. Yet they have some “light skin” privilege, too.
It’s a system of empowerment and disempowerment, and historically, the anti-Black ideology has been used to oppress POC, but allowing white people to appropriate at will. She was appropriating a culture that was not her own.
On top of that, as long as it does not work the other way (a darker skin person can not “pass” as white), then the concept of white privilege still applies here.
8 Likes
Thank you for that thoughtful response and explanation!
3 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
