#based their ethnicities off of their voice actors if anyone was wondering

[insanityclause]

I've only just been introduced to Zawe Ashton and she turns to me and whispers, "Let's make a run for it!" The actress has been holed up in her publicist's office for the past few hours. Her minders are just out of earshot. "I need some natural light," she says as we scarper out the front door and head down a Soho street to a cafe. "I'm going to get into so much trouble," she laughs.

Ashton is very much a woman on the move. And she likes to do her own thing. We might know her best for her portrayal of the wannabe punk Vod in Channel 4's student-life sitcom Fresh Meat but there is far more to her than acting. She also directs, produces, and writes. Over the past decade she's been energetic in theatre and film, and soon she's going to be published. There's just no holding her back, and here she is again, coffee ordered, keeping one step ahead.

She is down from Manchester, where she's been filming the fourth – and final – series of Fresh Meat. Sam Bain and Jesse Armstrong's brilliant creation has helped turn Ashton into one of television's most striking new actresses, but now she is moving on. A new Channel 4 comedy drama – Not Safe for Work, which begins at the end of the month – is going to show Ashton in a very different light.

Following the chaotic personal and professional lives of a group of dysfunctional government employees who have been forced to relocate from London to Northampton, Not Safe for Work sees Ashton playing Katherine, a recently divorced woman coming to terms with her displacement from the capital and having to live in a flatshare at an age when she thought she'd be having babies.

At first the show might seem like a big departure from Fresh Meat; Ashton is playing a proper grown-up, who wears a suit and actually washes. It's a role in which she speaks in her natural voice, too; still low but not as deep as Vod's. But look closer and it's evident that many of the issues facing Katherine and her co-workers are not that far removed from those affecting Vod and her fellow students at the fictional Manchester Medlock University; all are just trying to find their place in a world where things seem less certain than they used to. They're part of a new lost generation immediately recognisable to Ashton.

"My first impressions of Katherine were how on-the-money her struggles are in terms of a lot of people I know," she says. "That postgraduate-in-the-age of-austerity sort of thing. I know people who are moving back home, who can't afford to live in London any more, have long-term relationships breaking down, and are suddenly single in the age of the internet and wondering if they can still meet anyone at work. It felt really well observed."

Ashton has just managed to buy her own place, describing herself as "very, very, very lucky" when so many people her age (she is 30) and older are in no position to. "Living with the notion that you might never have a permanent spot in the world is really quite a powerful metaphor," she says. "I feel it really looms large and it becomes a symbol of lots of other things." Whether it's your career, your relationship, or your home, for people of a certain age, Ashton suggests, nothing seems permanent any more. "There used to be this lovely kind of linear flow."

Not Safe for Work was created and written by DC Moore, a former star of Channel 4's new-talent strand Coming Up, who, like Ashton, attended the Royal Court Theatre's prestigious Young Writers' Programme. A superb cast also includes Sacha Dhawan as Katherine's coked-up boss, and Sophie Rundle as The Most Irritating Girl In The Office. Ashton is not wrong about the show capturing the cultural zeitgeist.

Public-sector cuts are the reason for Katherine's relocation to Northampton so there are implicit politics in Not Safe for Work, but that's not an area Ashton wants to get into. She won't tell me how she voted in the recent election – she offers a firm but jovial "No comment" – but on cuts to the arts she is as forthright as you would expect from someone who, as a child, paid £2.50 to attend weekend drama classes at the Anna Scher theatre, a community-based drama school in Islington, which in its time has also welcomed Kathy Burke and Dexter Fletcher through its doors. Later she joined the National Youth Theatre, itself a registered charity, and she worries about how the next generation will be able to develop if such inclusive facilities disappear. "For students who are attempting to have their life be about something that isn't vocation based, it's harder to just explore your depths," she suggests.

Ashton's family were always supportive of her decision to work in the arts. The oldest of three children, she grew up in Hackney. Her mother, Victoria, had emigrated from Uganda as a teenager and became a teacher in London. Her English father, Paul, also worked as a teacher before moving to educational programming at Channel 4. The considerable amount of time she spends with them is, she admits, "embarrassing". Her newly purchased home is close enough that she can call by whenever she wants.

It was Victoria, in particular, who encouraged young Zawe – pronounced Zow-ee – to try out acting, and she bagged her first role when she was eight, as an extra crossing the road in the Channel 4 sitcom Desmond's, which happened to be Ashton's favourite show at the time. She went on to win parts in children's television programmes that included The Demon Headmaster before graduating to, among other things, Holby City and Casualty. She made her big-screen debut in St Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold. Prior to Vod, perhaps her finest moment was in Dreams of a Life, a documentary about Joyce Vincent, a 38-year-old woman whose decomposing body had lain in a north London bedsit undiscovered for three years before it was found in 2006 by council workers. Ashton played Ms Vincent in the recreation scenes, her performance winning her a nomination in the Most Promising Newcomer category at the 2012 British Independent Film Awards.

Later that year she also won the award for Best Breakthrough On-Screen Talent at the Creative Diversity Network for her work in Fresh Meat. With Vod, just as it is with Katherine, the fact that Ashton is mixed race is never made out to be an issue that needs to be addressed in storylines. It simply isn't mentioned. Anyone of any ethnicity could have played these characters. Was that a sense that she had strived to achieve? "I'm glad it seems effortless," she says. "It's something that I've worked really hard at. I think I've always felt that I want to do a very specific type of work and I've made informed decisions. You know, hopefully be part of a quiet movement or revolution." She pauses to giggle. "Without sounding too Che Guevara about it."

She says that as a child she would hand back scripts to her mother and tell her that she didn't like how certain characters were represented. At the same time, she doesn't want her background to be ignored. "I don't want to be 'de-ethnicised'. I hate it when people say, 'Oh I don't even think of you as a woman', or, 'I don't even think of you as a black woman.' Well what do you think of me as then? A loaf of bread? But any actor of any race can tell if a part is well written or not. It's really just about reading stuff that feels well-observed and truthful."

I spoke to DC Moore, Not Safe for Work's creator, about Ashton as both writer and performer. "She really responds to scripts," he said. "There was the odd moment when she sniffed out something that didn't feel right. There's always a difference in someone who performs if they also write. It really informs the conversation. And similarly if you're a writer who has done a bit of acting. It helps to understand the processes."

In the past Ashton has directed two short films and written plays. She has just delivered another, For All Those Women Who Thought They Were Mad, to the National Theatre. She wrote it six years ago for the Royal Court and it was shortlisted for the Young Writers' Festival but nothing ever came of it. It has now been updated and she hopes it will finally make it to the stage.

Then there's the feature film that she is writing and will direct, details of which she says she can't tell me. You get the impression that in the current climate, Ashton is keen to create her own circumstances and opportunities. As with so many of her peers, she pursues numerous outlets because who knows when one might be taken away? Moore says he understands that urge. "It broadens your scope to take on so many things, but it also means you've got other ways of playing what is essentially a big game. It's a wise move."

And there's yet more coming from Ashton. One of the things she is most excited about is the book deal she recently secured. "How can I describe it?" she says. "You know these books of essays by female voices that are very in vogue ? Well it's not that!" She laughs. "It's a mixture of fact and fiction and kind of based on some of the awful character breakdowns that you sometimes receive as an actress – that are really two-dimensional."

Acting, screenplays, directing, books. I can't help but marvel at how prolific she is. "It's quite funny because it's so much more natural in the States to do so many things and, having spent a bit more time there, you just fit right in if you do many, many things. I'm just coming to terms with the fact that I will always do lots of different things and I can't really stay in one place too long."

Our time is over. Ashton politely excuses herself to return to the office and, presumably, call off the search party. Through the window I see her rushing up the street. Will she find her permanent spot in the world? Who knows. Maybe she'll never need to.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Yellowface, You’ve Got The Cutest Li’l Yellowface…

Yellowface -- and its illegitimate cousins black-, brown-, and redface -- carts a long and dishonorable history.

Too often racial impersonation is at the service of racism:  Minority actors simply rejected sight unseen by audiences and casting directors.

Occasionally it is a little less offensive; there’s at least an attempt to portray the minority character benignly.

Charlie Chan is the most notable example, with the four actors playing him in the sound era all being whites using tinted skin and eyefold appliances.

Chan was intended as a positive role model, and watched in that context the movies are not consciously insulting.

But in a wider context, casting against ethnic or racial type is fraught with danger.

On stage, where a multi-ethnic cast may play the Scots of MacBeth or the Thais of The King And I or the Ozark hillbillies of Li’l Abner, the sheer artifice of theatricality allows audiences to overlook casting against ethnicity.

Patrick Stewart famously played Othello against an all African-American supporting cast, and stage productions where multi-ethnic casts play biological family members are readily accepted.

But film and TV impersonations (with the exception of comedy skits that play towards theatrical tropes) are supposed to be real and convincing.  Trying to pass off any performer as a different ethnicity, particularly a significantly different one physically, risks alienating a huge portion of one’s audience.

But…it can be done…if one earns it…and The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao earns it.

It is not a universally loved film:  It’s corny and derivative and producer / director George Pal steers the production with an unsteady hand, but it also possesses heart and soul and more than a little philosophy that turns out to be surprisingly profound.

If you love it, you’re going to really love it.  If you’re going to stub your toe on the clunky parts, there’s a lot of clunky parts for a lot of toes.

So, is Tony Randall’s turn as Dr. Lao + 6 other characters an acceptable case of cultural appropriation / ethnic impersonation or not?

Well, consider…

In the context of the story Dr. Lao is a quintessential Trickster come to a remote American West town to teach the good -- and not-so-good -- citizens a thing or two.  As a Trickster, he employs a variety of methods to divert attention and deflect questions, including a grab bag of voices, accents, and dialects.  He speaks most often in refined, flawless, unaccented English, but switches to sing-song “Chinee” pidgin when people start getting too inquisitive.  Exactly who he is could be anyone’s guess since most of his cultural references are European and Greek while his few Asian references are dismissed as lies and fabrications.  So for an Asian character to be portrayed by an Anglo-looking Jewish-American actor works in the story itself since Dr. Lao as a character is shown to be a fictional construct overlaying the real yet still hidden persona.

In the context of the film, Randall the actor plays a wide variety of human and non-human characters:  Dr. Lao (presumably Asian, not necessarily human), Merlin (Anglo, human), Apollonius (Greek, human with disability), Pan (Greek, non-human), Medusa (Greek, non-human female), The Abominable Snowman (Asian, non-human), and the voice of The Great Serpent (Biblical, presumably Middle-Eastern, non-human).  (Randall also appears in a one-shot cameo sans make-up as a spectator at Dr. Lao’s circus.)  So the film sets itself up as the kind of movie where part of the deliberate artifice is that one actor will play multiple characters and actively invites the audience to search for him among the rest of the cast (the irony being that The Abominable Snowman in the film was played by a bodybuilder made up to look like Tony Randall wearing Snowman make-up; Randall only donned the make-up for publicity photos).  From that perspective, Randall could have been replaced by any comparable actor of any ethnicity or gender and the end result would have been the same.

In the context of theme, transformation and illusion are crucial foundations upon which the story is built, with several characters loaning their appearance to others (including a sea monster that sprouts 6 extra heads, all of them characters Randall played).  And this does not touch on transformations of heart and soul and mind and body that also take place, nor does it take into consideration that Dr. Lao never appears in the same shot with any of the other characters, suggesting all of them are really him (in fact, except for the Abominable Snowman pulling The Great Serpent’s cage in the parade and the aforementioned sea monster scene, none of the characters played by Randall appear together).  The possibility that anything and everything is either malleable or an illusion permeates the film and calls into question whether Randall’s various performances themselves are self-referential to this theme.

The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao is based on Charles G. Finney’s novel The Circus Of Dr. Lao and bears the same relationship to its source as the film L.A. Confidential shares with James Elroy’s novel (i.e., same theme, and several characters and plot points port over, but otherwise totally different).

The screenplay is credited to Charles Beaumont but how much he actually contributed is in doubt. Beaumont, a prolific short story and TV writer in the 1950s, suffered a severe physiological and cognitive decline in the early 1960s.  Many of his post 1963 credits were actually written in part or in total by writer friends who wanted to ensure his wife and children received health care and residuals after his death.

Most of the script is probably the work of Ben Hecht, the incredibly prolific Chicago crime reporter turned novelist / playwright / movie producer.  Hecht, well known for 1930s gangster films and screwball comedies, also possessed a taste for the fantastic and macabre (read his novel Fantazius Mallare for a sample of his imaginative writing).  He died in 1964, shortly after The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao’s release, but screenplays he’d written or worked on continued being produced for decades after that.

When work on the screenplay started is unclear.  Hecht’s style seems more in tune with Finney’s than Beaumont’s, but Beaumont in his prime would have been an excellent choice as an adaptor. 

The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao addresses the issue of racial prejudice quite directly, and while all three writers involved are known for their firm stands in favor of racial equality, to me the final flourishes belong to Hecht.  Early in the film one grizzled old Western character wonders if Dr. Lao is “a Jap” and is immediately corrected by one of his friends who correctly identifies Dr. Lao (or at least the clothes he is wearing) as Chinese. When asked how he knows this, the friend replies:  “Because I ain’t stupid.”

Through out the film there are examples of racism and racial prejudices being confronted and confounded, and by the end even the chief antagonist has come to change his ways.

Producer / director George Pal holds a venerated place in the history of fantastic cinema, but his own career was dotted with racially problematic works.  Pal, a Hungarian animator who brought his Puppetoon films to Hollywood, did not harbor the racial animosity of many white Americans, but his visual style was influenced by American stereotypes.

Pal made several short films featuring a character named Jasper, based on African-American culture as seen through white eyes.  One can look at those films and tell Pal did not make them with malicious intent, but unintended stereotypes sting just as badly as deliberate ones.

To his credit, Pal responded to criticisms of the Jasper shorts by making John Henry and the Inky Poo, using more physiologically accurate puppets to depict the legendary African-American folk hero.

When Pal segued into live action feature films, he tended to avoid racial issues by avoiding racial minorities.  Conquest Of Space featured a Japanese astronaut but When Worlds Collide shows only white people surviving the end of the world.  The Naked Jungle’s white plantation owner browbeats native workers into fighting off a massive swarm of army ants, and Pal’s last film Doc Savage tried to recapture the feel of 1930s pulp adventures but unfortunately dredged up native stereotypes of that era as well.

Pal’s feature career is rather uneven:   When he made a good film it was really good, when he misfired it was a resounding dud. The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao marks the beginning of the end of his active career.  It faltered at the box office and while it shows he clearly wanted to move into more mature, more thoughtful films, his family friendly reputation trapped him.  It took him four years to produce his next film, The Power, an edgy for the era sci-fi thriller, then seven years after that for his last movie, the remarkably unappealing Doc Savage, a kiddee matinee pastiche.

Back to the issue of racial impersonation.

As stated above, it’s very, very difficult to justify racial or ethnic impersonations today.  The 7 Faces Of Dr. Lao is one of the extremely rare cases where it can be excused, if not justified, based on the particular (if not downright peculiar) elements of the story and the intent behind them. 

 © Buzz Dixon

[little-niggah-sugar]

so bo rhap trailer thoughts:

based on just the trailer, i’m not sure if they’ll use Freddie’s voice for the songs or have Rami or someone else do it. the audience participation thing at the beginning might’ve been Freddie, but i also felt like it might be a good soundalike. it’s definitely not Wembley’s, which is the most commonly heard one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not from another concert

it kinda bugged me that the words that pop up mention their songs, as in Queen, but then say “his story.” like, yes, it’s obvious this movie will mostly be about Freddie, but I highly doubt Brian & Roger would’ve signed off on a movie that doesn’t feature them to a good extent. basically, if they hadn’t had much control over the movie’s production, i think it’d be less about them than it already is. 

seeing Rami perform as Freddie makes me wonder if anyone’s concerned a straight man is playing Freddie who was definitely not-straight. i’m LGBTQA & don’t think it’s a big deal, but since I’m ace/aro & find the other sex aesthetically pleasing, i don’t feel like my opinion on this is as important as, say, a gay or bi person’s. 

similarly, Rami’s not Parsi, but Egyptian American, so i wonder what people think of that. i mean, he’s at least of an ethnicity somewhat close to Iran, so it’s not as off as it could be. they could’ve easily chosen a white actor, but i’m glad they at least went this route. plus, i don’t know that there are any actors who have as high a profile as Rami & are Parsi. again, i’m white, so my opinion hear is definitely not as relevant as a Parsi’s or that of someone of Middle Eastern descent.

[baddestdad]

This might be a tough one but what nationality would you say Robert is? Given his tan I was thinking a mix of Latino or possibly Italian yet his last name makes me think he's just a very tan white guy. Thoughts?

That’s a very interesting question.  To start off with I think we can be fairly confidant that Robert’s nationality is American.  Granted - nothing is ever stated in the game, so it’s possible he’s not - but I think what you’re really asking about is his ethnicity.  That’s something which I think anyone is free to interpret however they want to.  Until the game designers tell us one way or the other, anything goes.  ^_^

I do remember reading an interview with Leighton that stated that a lot of the voice actors ‘matched up’ with their character counterparts - she was talking specifically about how Damien’s VA was a trans man but also mentioned Hugo’s VA, too.  (An interview which, of course, I can’t find now.  :-/)  That being the case, Robert could possibly be of mixed Israeli decent, because Dan Avidan’s father was Israeli while his mother was American.  I did a little research trying to discover her ethnicity, too, but didn’t have much luck.  (I knew nothing about Game Grumps before coming to this game, and had no idea where to even start to find out.)  ^_^;

As for me and my decisions to make Robert mixed race, I did it because I thought his skin was too dark in the game for it to be just a tan. Once I’d decided that, I moved on to creating a backstory that fit around the idea of Robert being a different ethnicity.  I was trying to connect what I wanted from his backstory with the man he was in the game.  And I thought about his fascination with cryptids, and I wondered if that couldn’t have come from a relative who shared Native American stories of the area where I had him growing up (rural New York).

So I have him being mixed race with a Native American father and a Mexican mother.  I chose Mexican specifically because I liked the idea of Robert’s parents both being a part of cultures where family and ancestors are typically important aspects of those cultures, (even though his own family was falling apart at the seams) and where death is often viewed in unique ways - things which I intend to use to help build upon Robert as a character as I write him.  :)

As for his name, in America these days I think names are pretty much a moot point when trying to identify someone’s ethnicity.  It might help you sometimes, but in real life it’s probably best to not ever make assumptions about someone just based on their name and nothing else.  ^_^

Okay - so there you have it.  That got MUCH longer than I intended, but I hope it answers your questions.  And if not, or if I created more, feel free to send more asks.  :)

[her-culture]

Color and Casting

Colorism (According to Oxford’s Online Dictionary): prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

The “Brown Paper Bag” Test:

Black individuals with skin lighter than a brown paper bag would typically gain more privileges than those who had a darker complexion compared to the color of a brown paper bag. This test was mostly used in the 1900s to determine if a black person looked white enough to gain acceptance or admittance into the upper class part of society.

Color has been something that has separated many things - crayons, laundry, and especially people. While discrimination against people of color is often talked about and brought up on various platforms, it does not seem like there is enough being said about colorism within non-white communities, like the black community. As a dark skinned African-American woman in a colorful family, I’ve grown up hearing many sides of how black people tend to receive different treatment based on the shade of brown they are. For those on the outside looking in at this issue, I am going to explain the effects of colorism in two contemporary films.

Hollywood in general often receives a lot of controversy when it comes to who they choose for roles, especially in films that are supposed to receive a lot of attention when they hit theaters. One of the many reasons for why a movie’s casting can be controversial is when a role based on an actual person, a well known fictitious figure, or even an individual who ideally is supposed to be of a certain ethnic background- is portrayed by an actor who does not accurately fit the description. Whitewashing has been a big hot button topic lately, as there is a belief that movies will sell better if there is a well known white actor involved. There are far too many examples to highlight, but a few that caused major discussion were Emma Stone’s portrayal of an Asian woman in Aloha (2015), the three principle actors in The Last Airbender (2010), Ben Affleck portraying a Mexican-American man in Argo (2012), Tilda Swinton as a Buddist monk in Doctor Strange (2016), and Scarlett Johansson playing a character from Japanese anime in Ghost in a Shell (2017).

To many, these examples are clear indicators of of casting done incorrectly, but there are also examples with films featuring stories of people of color where the ethnic background is accurate but not the right skin color. Why is this so important? Well to start, many of the key issues and conflicts within these plots tend to stem from not just the background, but the appearance of the character. This is too crucial of a detail to get wrong, especially in films that wish to showcase a portrait of someone’s black experience. Skin color is a character in itself. This can not be overlooked, otherwise the story will lose some important value in its message. No matter how well an actor can transform themselves for a role, acting the part is really half of the battle.

NINA (2016)

Director Cynthia Mort, best known for writing for the sitcom Roseanne , released this film as her directorial debut. This biopic of the late, great singer and artist Nina Simone was already eleven years in the making, and many critics had voiced that it should never been released, as not enough research and care was taken with handling the story of an individual who was more than just a black woman with the blues. Mort had spent a day with Ms. Simone in the early 90s and didn’t know herself that it would one day be the inspiration for her first film as a director. She was no doubt in awe of the singer and wanted to do something to honor her memory. It is evident that Mort did her best to research many aspects of Simone’s life, but I believe that the biggest plight of her life was lost in translation, simply because Mort could not relate to the story. As a white woman, she did not consult nearly enough black women, or even those who knew Nina well in general to be able to authentically capture what really brought out the emotion behind Simone’s voice.

In 2012, it was announced that Zoe Saldana, a well-known black but light skinned actress, would take on the role of Nina Simone in Mort’s film.

This is where any potential for the film finding positive acclaim had diminished. Nina Simone’s daughter, Simone Kelly, had even mentioned publicly that Saldana was not the best choice to portray her mother. Because Nina Simone grew up in a time where she was told “her nose was too wide, her skin was too dark,” casting a woman who couldn’t naturally relate with that struggle took away a great deal of what made Ms. Simone so unique and powerful. Simone’s family and estate denounced any ties to the film and were very vocal about their outrage towards it. A white director sticking to the decision to use a light skinned woman (who in the picture above had to paint her face in order to appear to have ‘dark’ skin) is indirectly a display of anti-black racism and further proof that the closer a black individual is to whiteness, the more desirable they are. Nina Simone’s life and legacy completely defied this notion, yet this is how she is being represented and shown to audiences.

I do not doubt that Mort’s heart was in the right place, but I cannot forgive the fact that her mind was not. Those close to Ms. Simone and those who know well of her personality would agree that even Nina herself would be insulted by this if she were alive and knew that this is how she was being shown in a film.

The trailer of the film Nina:

 I personally cannot bring myself to watch the actual film based on what I’ve seen in this trailer alone. As a dark skinned woman, I know that I would certainly be offended if I knew a light skinned woman would be portraying me, since a huge part of my identity is based around how I learned to love the skin I’ve been given.

MARSHALL (2017)

Chadwick Boseman, a prominent black actor and dark skinned man, portrays Thurgood Marshall on screen. Boseman has actually got a great track record with representing the black community well. His filmography includes other starring roles in biopics such as 42 (2013), where he played the hall of famer baseball player Jackie Robinson and Get On Up (2015), where he portrayed the wild and complicatedly brilliant singer and musician James Brown, not to mention The Black Panther coming out this year in February, where we will see him and a mostly black cast portray heroic individuals who are also African royalty.

This makes me wonder why Boseman wanted to take on this influential figure when, unlike for his roles of Robinson and Brown, he does not carry a believable resemblance at all to the subject.

Hudlin is known for making many cult classics for the black community such House Party (1990), Boomerang , (1992), The Great White Hype (1996), The

Ladies Man (2000), etc but this will be is first time debuting a cinematic biopic. His motivation behind creating the film is pretty clear, but one might question what exactly made him decide on Boseman for the lead role. Boseman is clearly great at portraying black icons, but that doesn’t mean he needs to do it even when he has little to no likeness to the person at all. I guess I do appreciate that unlike the Nina film, Boseman did not have to wear makeup to make his skin appear lighter in order to portray Thurgood Marshall. That would have been another case of insult to injury.

Some would say this is a very minor setback, as it is predicted that Boseman will deliver another amazing performance in this role, but that is not what I’m doubting here. I’m more so worry about Thurgood’s story.

I’m sure that the plot of this film will be very engaging and the story within will have very moving and poignant aspects, but the actual Thurgood Marshall could not do a lot of what he did at that time if he was as dark as Boseman is. It feels weird for me to celebrate the release of Marshall like I did with Selma (2014) and other works that put revolutionary black leaders on the big screen, when I know already that a big part of what made his life what it was, is the fact that he had light skinned privilege. Marshall would definitely pass the brown paper bag test.

My first reaction when I first heard that this film was in the works was confusion rather than outrage. Surely there are great light skinned black men who could have taken on this role, just like there were deserving darker skinned women who could have accurately depicted Nina Simone.

Part of me understands that we’ve seen so much brilliance from Boseman that maybe it’s just assumed that he can play nearly anyone - but that is a very slippery slope and I would hope that Boseman doesn’t repeat something like this in the future. He is a great talent who doesn’t always need to be the lead, especially in a film based on a light skinned black man who used his advantage to help him get ahead in the rankings of the justice system.

I take biopics very seriously. The actor chosen to play the role, as well as the story and the key elements in the plot need to be on point, otherwise I find myself very disappointed. You are essentially showing the life and legacy of someone to people who may or may not know of that person, but feel as though they will learn more about them through watching the film. Some of the best biopics I’ve seen that beautifully capture their subject’s character and adversities are Selena (1997), Ray (2004), and Frida (2002). Not only was the casting nearly spot on, but the performance of the actors along with the story of these individual's lives comes off as authentic without me having to think too hard about how accurate the details are while watching it. I’m not claiming that these are perfect depictions, as it’s very difficult to have a completely truthful biopic and there is always some point of bias being shown, but I have always thought those those three did an incredible job of focusing more on the person rather than their politics.

I do actually plan on seeing the movie Marshall. Even though I am not satisfied with the casting since it will already make the story partially inaccurate, it still presents some type of empowerment for black people.

The trailer for Marshall: 

 The Nina film is unnecessarily dramatized to make Ms. Simone a lost soul, who needed the saving of a kind man to stay by her side even as she grew bitter. Maybe that display of Mort’s version of Nina Simone wouldn’t be that terrible to see if it was an actual dark skinned woman, who was communicating this struggle to overcome oppression along with her personal demons. Having a light skinned woman try to explore that while wearing brown paint is unfathomable. It continues the history of darker black women being treated as jokes, not even worthy enough to play women that were naturally dark like themselves on screen. Though this may appear as a double standard, having a dark skinned individual take the place as a light skinned one does not come off as damaging. It seems that black audiences are still getting used to seeing themselves in mainstream films in a positive light. Rarely do we conquer and outsmart our oppressive white counterparts, or the system which oppresses us in general without facing some fatal retaliation or lesson that will carry on to cause further pain among our our people. Marshall is triumphant. A celebration of the black mind and I will look forward to that more than it revealing a new perspective into the life of Thurgood Marshall.

As an upcoming filmmaker myself, works like these make me more cautious in how I will chose to represent people in the stories I create, whether they are based on real individuals or not. The skin color of a person does not just impact how they will be viewed by others around the world, but within their own communities - and of course, themselves. A message will be sent to the audience merely by the person chosen to lead the story. This alone is a key factor in making a work of film either feel relatable or out of touch with reality.

People should be judged by their content, not by their color; but characters on screen need to at least be the right color in order for us to judge the content of the film or how that person’s life is being visually shown to us. 

Head image sourced from http://everydayfeminism.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/dark_girls_caro_page-bg_29012.jpg