"The Night Of" by Riz Ahmed. Racism and typecasting in Hollywood.

[marylander1940]

'The Night Of' Actor Riz Ahmed Pens Emotional Essay On Race and Typecasting

 

The 33-year-old London native describes race as a "necklace" that he hoped to loosen over time. "As a minority, no sooner do you learn to polish and cherish one chip on your shoulder than it's taken off you and swapped for another," Ahmed writes. "The jewelry of your struggles is forever on loan, like the Koh-i-Noor diamond in the crown jewels. You are intermittently handed a necklace of labels to hang around your neck, neither of your choosing nor making, both constricting and decorative."

 

Beginning his acting career after 9/11, Ahmed recounted a desire to break through racial typecasting that finds many Asian and Arab actors confined to stereotypical acting gigs as terrorists, or cab drivers. He categorizes the aforementioned roles as "stage one" of the "two-dimensional stereotype" in Hollywood.

 

"Part of the reason I became an actor was the promise that I might be able to help stretch these necklaces, and that the teenage version of myself might breathe a little easier as a result," he explains. "If the films I re-enacted as a kid could humanize mutants and aliens, maybe there was hope for us. But portrayals of ethnic minorities worked in stages, I realized, so I'd have to strap in for a long ride."

 

Ahmed also breaks down what he calls the stages that minority actors go through to break out of racial boxes in acting. Stage two, he writes is the "subversive portrayal, taking place on 'ethnic' terrain but aiming to challenge existing stereotypes" and lastly, "stage three" or "the Promised Land," where race isn't a factor in the role.

 

"There, I am not a terror suspect, nor a victim of forced marriage," he writes. "There, my name might even be Dave. In this place, there is no necklace."

 

MORE: NBA Stars Deliver Powerful Call to Action Against Racial Injustice and Gun Violence in America: 'Enough Is Enough'

 

The actor then details an emotional experience of being "attacked" at an airport after shooting his debut film The Road to Guantanamo. Ahmed, who is a British Pakistani Muslim, says he was detained at an airport, after winning a top honors at the Berlin Film Festival.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/night-actor-riz-ahmed-pens-041000840.html

[+ quoththeraven]

BD Wong used to show up at casting calls for 'all-American types' and argue that as someone born in America, he fit the criteria.

[marylander1940]

BD Wong used to show up at casting calls for 'all-American types' and argue that as someone born in America, he fit the criteria.

 

Good point!

 

Why Tom Brady is All-American and Lebron James isn't?

[+ Truereview]

BD Wong used to show up at casting calls for 'all-American types' and argue that as someone born in America, he fit the criteria.

Have you seen BD Wong on Mr Robot this season? Totally typecasted, but he is brilliant in it. I've been a fan for years. Another actor that is often typecasted is Hoon Lee. Love him on Banshee. Strange how both Hoon & BD are playing gender fluid roles.

[TruHart1]

BD Wong used to show up at casting calls for 'all-American types' and argue that as someone born in America, he fit the criteria.

BD Wong also sued actors equity about Miss Saigon, I believe, for casting an Anglo actor (Jonathan Pryce) in an Asian role.

 

TruHart1

[+ quoththeraven]

Have you seen BD Wong on Mr Robot this season? Totally typecasted, but he is brilliant in it. I've been a fan for years. Another actor that is often typecasted is Hoon Lee. Love him on Banshee. Strange how both Hoon & BD are playing gender fluid roles.

 

No, I lost track of BD Wong after Awake was cancelled.

[+ WmClarke]

BD Wong also sued actors equity about Miss Saigon, I believe, for casting an Anglo actor (Jonathan Pryce) in an Asian role.

 

TruHart1

It's a Eurasion role. The character is supposed to be half Asian and half European.

[+ quoththeraven]

It's a Eurasion role. The character is supposed to be half Asian and half European.

 

Still inappropriate since Jonathan Pryce is 0% Asian. They used tricks to make him look part-Asian.

 

The producers of the show in the US had to demonstrate Pryce was better-qualified for the role than a US actor. It's not as though there weren't any Asian or part-Asian actors available. I say Asian because some people who are half-Asian/half-white look all-Asian.

[actor61]

Still inappropriate since Jonathan Pryce is 0% Asian. They used tricks to make him look part-Asian.

 

The producers of the show in the US had to demonstrate Pryce was better-qualified for the role than a US actor. It's not as though there weren't any Asian or part-Asian actors available. I say Asian because some people who are half-Asian/half-white look all-Asian.

AND he won a Tony for it.

[+ WmClarke]

Still inappropriate since Jonathan Pryce is 0% Asian.

So only people who match the genetic makeup of the character can play the character?

 

Then the entire cast of Hamilton should be replaced with white people?

[+ bigjoey]

So only people who match the genetic makeup of the character can play the character?

 

I have a wonderful recording of Leontyne Price singing Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly: an American black woman, playing a Japanese woman and singing in Italian.

[TruHart1]

I have a wonderful recording of Leontyne Price singing Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly: an American black woman, playing a Japanese woman and singing in Italian.

After Marian Anderson sang Verdi's Ballo in Maschera in 1955 at the Metropolitan Opera, the color barrier was broken at the MET, and made possible the positively sensational debut of Leontyne Price as Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore in 1961. Since then major U.S. opera houses have been mostly color-blind in their casting. If a singer has the talent, no one cares about the color of their skin or even if they are Asian, Eurasian, Maori, etc. any longer.

 

Of course, in pieces such as Porgy and Bess, it makes no sense to be color-blind in casting, although I'm sure it happens now and then with some productions by experimental or avant-garde designers. I always remember an appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show where the great Martina Arroyo, a large-bodied African American soprano with a wonderful sense of humor "accidentally" said she had had such success in the role that she guessed she'd probably continue performing "Madame Butterball" everywhere until she retired! The audience and Johnny laughed uproariously.

 

B.D. Wong's suit, which was also supported by the "M. Butterfly" playwright, David Henry Hwang, alleged that if actors of other races were cast in racially specific roles and talented actors of Asian background were available but not cast, it amounted to racial discrimination. This almost caused the Broadway opening of Miss Saigon to be delayed, since producer Cameron Mackintosh threatened to cancel the production altogether if Jonathan Pryce, who had won the Olivier Award for best actor in the original London production, was not allowed to play The Engineer. Equity ruled in favor of Pryce being cast and he eventually won the Tony for best actor.

 

TruHart1

[whipped guy]

As @TruHart1 notes opera is indeed color blind. I recently saw the rarely performed La Gazza Ladra (The Theiving Magpie) at Glimmergkass Opera. There was a wealthy interracial married couple that had a white son who was to mary the couple's white housekeeper. However, the mayor of the town who was black was also romantically interested in the housekeeper. None of this mattered... Add in another character who was Jewish and the title role being a bird and it definitely didn't matter!

 

Interestingly Glimmerglass is staging Porgy and Bess next season and the singer who portrayed the mayor is to be the Porgy.

[+ Truereview]

Ok, so let's go along with the train of thought that Opera has become color blind. What theory do you all have as to why that is not the case in other forms of entertainment like movies and TV? My theory is that both TV and movies are allowing ratings and target audiences to rule over the art form - which opera, IMO, is clearly one, and so is acting if done well. What say you?

[actor61]

I'm a professional, working actor and I'm always glad when casting directors/producers are color blind and go with talent pure and simple. What I HATE is gender fucking, unless the play is written that way. I never want to see another man playing Lady Bracknell or another girl playing Peter Pan. I'm surprised there hasn't been more outrage from actresses about this.

[whipped guy]

Ok, so let's go along with the train of thought that Opera has become color blind. What theory do you all have as to why that is not the case in other forms of entertainment like movies and TV? My theory is that both TV and movies are allowing ratings and target audiences to rule over the art form - which opera, IMO, is clearly one, and so is acting if done well. What say you?

Other forms of entertainment are usually depicting reality. That has never been the case with opera as we don't exactly sing to each other in real life. I should have added that in my example above one of the other characters is a teenaged boy who is played by a female mezzo-soprano. There is also a tradition of females portraying adult male characters. Mezzo Marilyn Horne virtually made a career of portraying such characters many of whom were princes and warriors. Her nickname was "General Horne". Hardly reality, but something that opera goers have accepted from day one. Plus, we are used to the fat lady singing as in a singer of any age, size, or color portraying the teenaged Madame Butterball.

 

Of course this has all been parodied in opera as in Le Comte Ory when the tenor disguises himself as a nun to gain entrance to the home of a certain countess. He jumps in bed with her, but the guy who really loves the countess and is played by a female jumps in bed between them so we have a guy who is disguised as a woman making love to a woman portraying a man while he thinks that he is making love to a woman. It gets more complicated from there. Oh, and it has been done with singers of color and various ethnic backgrounds as well!

 

Perhaps opera goers, composers, performers, and producers were and are a cut above the rest of what's out there... Who knows?

[+ quoththeraven]

So only people who match the genetic makeup of the character can play the character?

 

Then the entire cast of Hamilton should be replaced with white people?

 

No, because in Hamilton the non-traditional casting is part of the story.

 

Take a look at the statistics on representation of Asians in mass media (films and TV). Offensive, stereotyped portrayals still exist (2 Broke Girls) as well as more nuanced ones (some, although maybe not all, of the roles on Fresh Off the Boat; Det. Kimball Cho on The Mentalist; Steve Yuen's role on The Walking Dead; possibly Grace Park and Daniel Dae Kim's roles on Hawaii 5-0; I wouldn't know because I don't watch the show.)

 

Your first question ignores what is really going on: historically, all parts belonged to nondisabled cis white actors. If they did not look like the ethnicity they were playing, they were made up to look like it. Non-white actors simply want a fair shake. Why shouldn't they clamor to get parts they are more suited for culturally and physically than white actors who have for many years benefited from a system gamed to favor them?

 

The same is true for trans actors, who are fed up with cis actors being cast in trans roles, and disabled actors, who are fed up with nondisabled actors being cast (and then roundly praised). It is as much or more outrage at having employment opportunities denied in favor of the already privileged (in the sense of getting far more opportunities) as it is wanting representation.

 

Why is it okay to bypass Asian actors in the name of some mythological colorblind casting? Other than Middle Eastern/Arab actors, who get bypassed for leads all the time (think Ridley Scott's recent fiasco Exodus: Gods and Kings), specifically Hispanic and African-American roles are cast with actors of that ethnicity. Even native American roles get cast with actors of that ethnicity these days. Or are you advocating, say, casting a white actor to play James Brown or Rosa Parks?

 

Outside of The King and I and martial arts movies, Asians are rarely leads. The roles they get fall into predictable stereotypes (martial arts, computer geek, scientists and doctors). There are very few well-rounded roles for Asians on TV or in films.

 

While the representation of blacks has improved, on TV especially they are either guest stars who are killed off, not regulars, or guest-starring villains. When they are regulars, they are the muscle (Gunn on Angel, Morgan on Criminal Minds). But they do sometimes get leading roles that aren't dependent on their ethnicity.

 

I'm not sure about Latinxs, who used to be stereotyped as drug dealers, but Middle Eastern and Arab actors don't show up in many roles outside of terrorist. That's why the decision to cast a bunch of white dudes in Exodus: Gods and Kings hurt so much. The excuse was commercial viability, but maybe it was having leads who had no background in the culture they were portraying that made the movie the mess and commercial failure it was.

 

(Oddly enough, diverse casting that to some might look like nontraditional casting succeeded in the Fast and Furious franchise, which suggests well-done, diverse films do better than whitewashed ones, which are messes starting with their casting process.)

 

Nontraditional (misnamed colorblind casting) began because without it, certain parts of the repertory (like Shakespeare other than Othello, Restoration drama, and ancient Greek tragedies) would forever be inaccessible to actors of color. That's even more of a problem for opera, where vocal and acting ability is more important than ethnicity and the whole genre is already steeped in fantasy and suspension of disbelief.

 

Non-traditional casting is a way to more fully employ the talents of non-white actors. It is wrong to use it as an excuse to favor white actors at the expense of non-white actors, which is what the above question looks like to me.

 

It would be great if directors and producers cast nonwhite, disabled and trans actors in parts that don't require a particular identity, but it doesn't happen much.

[marylander1940]

It's a Eurasion role. The character is supposed to be half Asian and half European.

 

Eurasian like him?

 

http://www.geekfill.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/What-a-magnificent-beast.-Oh-and-hes-riding-a-bear..jpg

[+ quoththeraven]

AND he won a Tony for it.

 

Terrific. How do you know that someone else less well known would not also have done well in the role if given a chance?

 

Asian-American actors were rightly offended that they weren't even given a chance to audition, and Wong had every reason to file that lawsuit. Equity ruled the way it did not out of principle but because it wanted Miss Saigon here.

[+ quoththeraven]

I'm a professional, working actor and I'm always glad when casting directors/producers are color blind and go with talent pure and simple. What I HATE is gender fucking, unless the play is written that way. I never want to see another man playing Lady Bracknell or another girl playing Peter Pan. I'm surprised there hasn't been more outrage from actresses about this.

 

What about gender reversal a la Ghostbusters or Elementary, in which Lucy Liu plays Joan Watson?

 

I didn't watch Elementary at first because I didn't think Liu had the range for the role, but surprise! It wasn't a matter of Liu's acting range but of the typecast roles she'd been offered.

[actor61]

What about gender reversal a la Ghostbusters or Elementary, in which Lucy Liu plays Joan Watson?

 

I didn't watch Elementary at first because I didn't think Liu had the range for the role, but surprise! It wasn't a matter of Liu's acting range but of the typecast roles she'd been offered.

I don't consider Elementary or Ghostbusters gender fucking productions; they are reworkings and in those cases, it's great. Ghostbusters got a lot of heat and terrible reviews (it was pretty bad) but I thought the idea of reworking the story to suit an all female cast was brilliant - it's just the execution that misfired. I like Lucy Liu a lot on Elementary but again, it's a reworking of a familiar tale. Had they done a Sherlock Holmes show set in its proper period, then I would have had a problem with Liu as Watson. But Elementary's modern day concept fits a female Watson to a tee.

 

Here's an example of a bad concept, bad idea, bad gender fucking: The American t.v. version of Fawlty Towers with Bea Arthur as Basil. They didn't tweak it to suit her; they just set an English show in America but using exactly the same format as the British version, and then put Bea Arthur as the star because she was popular and they thought they were being "progressive" by using a woman for the lead. It stunk in all respects and barely lasted a season as I remember.

 

I saw Brian Bedford play Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Ernest on Broadway and he was brilliant, but I still hated it. I have also seen Ellis Rabb, and Geoffrey Rush play Lady Bracknell - superb actors - but it just became a play about an old man playing an old lady. The only time I've thought men playing women's roles has totally worked is at the Globe in London and when they toured the States. Mark Rylance was the Artistic Director and he played Olivia magnificently in Twelfth Night, and was then equally magnificent playing the title role in Richard III. But these were all male productions based on how they would have been done in Shakespeare's day when women were not allowed on the stage (the basis for Shakespeare in Love), and not shows in which you were meant to believe that the men in drag were women.

 

I once auditioned for a regional production of Ernest and when I'd finished reading for both Jack and Algernon, they had me read for Cecily, Gwendolyn and Lady Bracknell while a group of women sat in the waiting room. I went home wondering if any of the women got to read for Jack, Algernon or Chasuble after they'd finished auditioning for the female roles.

 

[mike carey]

I know that Geoffrey Rush played Lady Bracknell to considerable acclaim in Melbourne a couple of years ago, and I don't object to the idea. But then I am not an actor with a view of how gender bending in casting can affect my, and others' ability go get a gig. To me, Lady Bracknell is an over-the-top caricature of a character and having a man cross-dresser to play her adds to the caricature.

[+ bigjoey]

Ok, so let's go along with the train of thought that Opera has become color blind. What theory do you all have as to why that is not the case in other forms of entertainment

 

A few years ago, I saw a production of "110 In The Shade" with Audra McDonald playing the sister in a family where the other characters were white.

 

 

Then there was the glorious novelty casting of the all black "Hello Dolly" with the amazing Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway (much better than the original Carol Channing version).

 

[+ bigjoey]

While there Re many contenders for the worst case of racial miscasting, my nomination goes to "Breakfast at Tiffany's" casting of Mickey Rooney as the Japanese neighbor, Mr Yunioshi:

 

https://goo.gl/images/ppwnUS

[+ Truereview]

A few years ago, I saw a production of "110 In The Shade" with Audra McDonald playing the sister in a family where the other characters were white.

 

Then there was the glorious novelty casting of the all black "Hello Dolly" with the amazing Pearl Bailey and Cab Calloway (much better than the original Carol Channing version).

Sorry BigJ, I'm not following what your theory is. Was your point that theatre/Broadway is as color blind as Opera? Just trying to understand. Maybe you were pointing instances where the twist worked?