Homogenous Casting in Hollywood
There have been a ton of books and articles about racism in Hollywood, and this piece is not trying ti dispute anything, but toss a different texture into the conversation.
Because some movies can be so amazing and wildly imaginative, it can be hard to remember that a lot of the people who make those movies can be remarkably UNimaginative. Just look at all the sequels, remakes, remakes of the remakes to give you some idea.
And when you look at the casting, some of the great winners of the unimagination awards reside there! The classic story is when the great Louis Gossett Jr. had his agent ask about playing the role of the tough DI in Officer and a Gentleman and the immediate reaction was a stunned, well, it doesn't say the DI is black. Duh!!! Thank god that knee jerk reaction was tossed aside so a great actor could chew up a great role and win an Oscar doing it! That was not so much conscious racism and just unimagination.
I sometime suggest to new script writers to put in a race with the description of the character because that will help the casting directors and directors say, oh! we need a [insert race here] for this role even though race has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
The biggest culprit, though, is homogenation - another word I made up to share with unimagination. How many times have you seen movies and tv shows with all white casts, all black casts, etc? Lots.
Both the original Star Trek (wwaayy back in 1966) and the Matrix showed that a cast with bunch of different looking people working together as a team to beat the bad guy can make tons of money. Hollywood did not learn from either of those two, it did not remember to unhomogenize!!!
I LOVE Mr. Spielberg (one of our greatest directors methinks) and he has made some incredible movies that focus on black history. But when he makes his regular fiction stuff, everybody looks about the same! Not on purpose, just not thinking unhomogenistically!
We have this incredibly diverse country and thousands of actors with all sorts of ethnicities, physical looks, handicaps, backgrounds, but casting directors/directors/ producers default to making everybody in the cast look alike! Why? Well, unimagination and homogenation!
Active racism does exist and needs to be challenged and hopefully stopped or slowed down at least. But if the "good" people of Hollywood either do nothing or continue to perpetuate these casting decisions out of laziness, unimagination or possibly subconscious racism, then the active racism can grow ever stronger.
NOTE: yes, this plague also impacts sexism - the reaction to Ghostbusters is a great example of how far we have yet to go. Let us embrace our diversity, we are the only country on the planet that can show its incredible vastness and possibilities. Come on, Hollywood - unhomogenize!!!!
Because some movies can be so amazing and wildly imaginative, it can be hard to remember that a lot of the people who make those movies can be remarkably UNimaginative. Just look at all the sequels, remakes, remakes of the remakes to give you some idea.
And when you look at the casting, some of the great winners of the unimagination awards reside there! The classic story is when the great Louis Gossett Jr. had his agent ask about playing the role of the tough DI in Officer and a Gentleman and the immediate reaction was a stunned, well, it doesn't say the DI is black. Duh!!! Thank god that knee jerk reaction was tossed aside so a great actor could chew up a great role and win an Oscar doing it! That was not so much conscious racism and just unimagination.
I sometime suggest to new script writers to put in a race with the description of the character because that will help the casting directors and directors say, oh! we need a [insert race here] for this role even though race has absolutely nothing to do with the story.
The biggest culprit, though, is homogenation - another word I made up to share with unimagination. How many times have you seen movies and tv shows with all white casts, all black casts, etc? Lots.
Both the original Star Trek (wwaayy back in 1966) and the Matrix showed that a cast with bunch of different looking people working together as a team to beat the bad guy can make tons of money. Hollywood did not learn from either of those two, it did not remember to unhomogenize!!!
I LOVE Mr. Spielberg (one of our greatest directors methinks) and he has made some incredible movies that focus on black history. But when he makes his regular fiction stuff, everybody looks about the same! Not on purpose, just not thinking unhomogenistically!
We have this incredibly diverse country and thousands of actors with all sorts of ethnicities, physical looks, handicaps, backgrounds, but casting directors/directors/ producers default to making everybody in the cast look alike! Why? Well, unimagination and homogenation!
Active racism does exist and needs to be challenged and hopefully stopped or slowed down at least. But if the "good" people of Hollywood either do nothing or continue to perpetuate these casting decisions out of laziness, unimagination or possibly subconscious racism, then the active racism can grow ever stronger.
NOTE: yes, this plague also impacts sexism - the reaction to Ghostbusters is a great example of how far we have yet to go. Let us embrace our diversity, we are the only country on the planet that can show its incredible vastness and possibilities. Come on, Hollywood - unhomogenize!!!!
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