Are we supposed to pretend? - Francesca Amewudah-Rivers Discussion

[–] Kowalski (75520) 7 months ago

IT'S A PART...SHE IS AN ACTOR...IT'S ALL PRETEND,BRAH.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

It’s straight up racist and backwards. Had they cast a white person to play a black character, people would be up in arms.

This hypocrisy is getting out of hand.

reply

[–] Kowalski (75520) 7 months ago

I DISAGREE....ACROSS THE BOARD.

reply

[–] runemesa (190) 7 months ago

So Jessie Eisenberg won't be playing Black Panther in the next sequel after all? Aw Shucks!

reply

[–] StinkyPoopyPants (3113) 7 months ago

I would not say it is racist but I do agree with this "Had they cast a white person to play a black character, people would be up in arms."

I don't have any issues with skin color when people take on roles. I am sick and tired of so many reboots, remakes and that crap.

reply

[–] Bloodworth79 (5687) 7 months ago

Yes but there is this werid push by the left to put the most unqualified and ridiculous looking people in these positions.

College presidents, actors, defense secretaries, white house press secretaries, mayors, police chiefs.
And the results are nothing but failure

reply

[–] Kowalski (75520) 7 months ago

😂

reply

[–] sslssg (34211) 7 months ago

First of all it's for the stage. So unless you are going to buy tickets for it, it shouldn't make a difference to you.

Were you up in arms when Norm Lewis played Javert?

What about Eartha Kitt playing Cat woman? Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury??

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

Racism is racism…..just because it’s for the stage doesn’t mean that it’s okay to culturally appropriate a well known White character.

Also Juliet is supposed to be an attractive woman, not some ugly fugly looking tranny with a moustache.

reply

[–] Skavau (15993) 7 months ago

She's not trans.

Are you even English? Why do you care what a UK stage production does?

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

She might not be trans, but she sure looks it. I find it very hard to believe that a casting director saw this person and thought to themselves “Gee, Tom Holland would have great love chemistry with it”.

reply

[–] Skavau (15993) 7 months ago

It doesn't matter how she looks. She's not trans.

This is a play. In a country you do not live in.

Why the fuck do you care?

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

Why do you care that I have an opinion on this particular casting choice?

Either you agree with me or you don’t. But expecting me to not have an opinion is just plain stupid lol.

reply

[–] Skavau (15993) 7 months ago

You can have an opinion, but I don't know why you care about what British theatres do. This type of casting is not unusual.

reply

[–] capuchin (3182) 7 months ago

Yes. Worth pointing out again that she also happens to be a classically trained, up-and-coming actor -- who got very good notices for Antigone at the Mercury and has been in Othello and Macbeth for the National Youth Theatre. So, yes, not unusual casting at all.

I've never seen her in anything myself, so I don't really have an opinion on whether she's any good or not. I assume she is. But the idea these folk have that she's ill-suited to the role cannot be based on anything other than her looks -- which rather indicates to me that they don't go to the theatre anyway. Let alone this theatre for this play.

I wonder who has got them riled up about this actor they don't know. Was there a Daily Mail hit piece or something? They're very easy to manipulate. Not a single thought of their own.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

All I had to do was use my eyes and determine that she does indeed look like a man.

Not saying you have to look super attractive to play a part, but she’s just too ugly for me to keep my mouth shut.

reply

[–] capuchin (3182) 7 months ago

Also Juliet is supposed to be an attractive woman

Actually, she's supposed to be a child of around 12 or 13 years.

She was exclusively played by fully-grown adult men for the first sixty years or so of the play's existence, because women were not permitted on the stage in England until after the Civil War (or more accurately, until the Restoration).

Since the late seventeenth century, Juliet has been played by countless actors -- most of whom will have been fully-grown women who could read the lines properly in the correct rhythm. Whether you personally find those women to be attractive or not probably didn't factor into the casting choices for those other iterations of the play any more than they did -- or should -- for this one.

reply

[–] FilmBuff (7234) 7 months ago

There is no racism here. There is a long-- and I mean centuries long-- tradition of works being adapted from one culture to another. That's how art works. In fact, Romeo and Juliet itself is based on much older Roman works, which themselves almost certainly pulled from even older works. Besides that, the characters' races are of no consequence to the story. While you may prefer seeing a white person in a given role, unless race is pivotal to that character or the story, it's fair game for change. After all, this is at the heart of what acting is: pretending to be someone else.

Some final food for thought: when Shakespeare's plays were originally performed it was common, almost the norm, for men to portray women, so a truly authentic Juliet would be played be a man. Would you be happier about that?

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

Right, because a hunky white dude is ever gonna fall in love with a tranny black dude.

Also if we’re gonna go back hundreds of years to try and defend this woke nonsense, maybe not cast someone who would be shackled in chains…..hmmm there’s a thought.

reply

[–] Wuchak (8731) 7 months ago

Winston Churchill and Enoch Powell were black.

reply

[–] liscarkat (18367) 7 months ago

Juliet is an upper-class Italian woman during the Renaissance. Since the chances of such a person being black are less than the chances of winning the lottery ten times in a row, her Caucasian race is consequent.

As for men portraying female characters when the play was originally performed, that was law at the time, in spite of the fact that it was most certainly not realistic. It was not a choice made for the sake of aesthetics or authenticity, and it has no relevance to the present argument.

reply

[–] FilmBuff (7234) 7 months ago

The aspects of the story you are focusing on are immaterial. The story is about star-crossed lovers, kept apart, trying to be together, and meeting an unfortunate end. Their race is irrelevant. If you want to stage a historically accurate version of the tale set in Renaissance Italy, go for it. Cast all Italian actors. Maybe even translate it into Italian. Shakespeare most certainly presented it with all English actors, despite the likelihood of two prominent families in Renaissance Verona being all Englishmen was less than the chances of winning the lottery ten times in a row.

You are fixated on race, but the story is not about race. It can be told in any setting, featuring people of any skin color.

reply

[–] capuchin (3182) 7 months ago

the story is not about race. It can be told in any setting, featuring people of any skin color.

Indeed. Can be. And has been. Many, many times. As have most other Shakespeare plays. Shakespeare in modern settings. Shakespeare updated to World War II. Shakespeare reimagined in feudal Japan. Maxine Peake playing Hamlet. Denzel Washington playing MacBeth (without even affecting a Scottish accent. The swine!). Helen Mirren as Prospero, (renamed as Prospera). Just to pick a few off the top of my head -- from plays that have been staged hundreds or even thousands of times over many centuries for many different audiences. There's an enormous amount of flexibility in the staging of Shakespeare -- because the strength lies in the text, in the poetry, in the universal truths and insights into the human condition that they contain.

Most modern Shakespeare productions will find theatre directors attempting to find new ways into the text for material that is very familiar to audiences -- to bring it alive in new ways.

You'd have to know practically nothing about Shakespeare adaptations (in film or live theatre) to think there was anything novel about Juliet being played by someone who isn't a thirteen year old Italian girl.

reply

[–] FilmBuff (7234) 7 months ago

Kurosawa's Throne of Blood is one of my favorite adaptations of Shakespeare. I don't care that the actors are Japanese and not Scottish anymore than I care if they adapt Romeo and Juliet to an interracial couple.

reply

[–] capuchin (3182) 7 months ago

Yup. Throne of Blood is probably the best Macbeth adaptation on film. And Ran is probably the best Lear.

These plays speak across cultures and across centuries of time and they can be adapted in all manner of different ways to find new insights or speak to new audiences -- with roles played by all sorts of different people. That's what's good about them. That's why they've endured. That's why he was a genius.

reply

[–] sslssg (34211) 7 months ago

Is there anything about the character of Juliet where race is imperative? It's a story about a young couple who's families are feuding. It really isn't important to the story.

Now if it were an actual person, or if the character's race was a plot point, skin colour may matter, but in this case, it doesn't mean a thing.

reply

[–] liscarkat (18367) 7 months ago

Juliet is an upper-class Italian woman of the Renaissance. The chances of her being of sub-Saharan African ancestry are vanishingly low. So yes, her whiteness is imperative.

reply

[–] sslssg (34211) 7 months ago

Well, if you look at the cast, we can probably guess that this version is a little different. Especially considering that there are two characters listed as "camera operator", I'm not quite sure that this is set during Shakespeare's time, nor setting.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

[deleted]

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

[deleted]

[–] WandererFromYs (2308) 7 months ago

Black Nick Fury is a different character. He is the son of the original Nick Fury, and his design in the comics was based on Samuel L Jackson. So getting Samuel L Jackson to play him in the movies is perfect casting, not a race swap.

If none of that backstory existed, and they just hired Samuel L Jackson to play a white character, than yes a lot more people would’ve complained.

reply

[–] liscarkat (18367) 7 months ago

Catwoman was not established over centuries of literature as a white character, like Juliet. Catwoman was not established over centuries of literature as an Italian woman. Eartha Kitt was half Caucasian and one-quarter American Indian. She was light-skinned, fine-featured, and not distinctly black-looking, especially in Catwoman makeup and costume.

If a remake of "Shaft" was made and a white actor was cast in the main role, a massive shitstorm would hit the fan, and you know it. That's hypocrisy.

reply

[–] Skavau (15993) 7 months ago

This is a theatre production where this type of stuff has always happened.

reply

[–] sslssg (34211) 7 months ago

Francesca has already played Lady MacDuff in Macbeth, and because the media didn't run with it I don't see people up in arms about that.

Eartha Kitt was half Caucasian and one-quarter American Indian. She was light-skinned, fine-featured, and not distinctly black-looking, especially in Catwoman makeup and costume.

Still, she's not "white" playing a character that was originally written as a white character.

When it comes to characters, if the colour of the skin does not play into the plot, I don't care who plays that character. If the colour does affect the plot, I see a difference. So if Othello was played by Chinese person, I'd probably protest that. If Romeo was, I wouldn't.

reply

[–] Martoto (5024) 7 months ago

For decades, Juliet was originally played by adult men, instead of 14 year old Veronese girls.

If propriety within the context of the play's creation and realisation is what's important, then Juliet should be played by someone like Michael Cera. Ncuti Gatwa had more chance of playing Juliet than, say, Chloe Grace Moretz in 1600s.

Until the late 1800s and beyond, Italians were considered just as foreign as anyone else in the world by the English. You're dreaming if you think the author and its intended audience was keen on the authentic portrayal of the characters in that play's assumed whiteness.

reply

[–] BrandNewPoster (10996) 7 months ago

Yes, it is called acting. She is one of many actors who have played the role and there will be others.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

So basically what you’re saying is….”please don’t criticize this particular casting choice”?

Nah, I have a right to criticize this dumb casting decision.

reply

[–] BrandNewPoster (10996) 7 months ago

You can criticize any acting choice you want. There have been lots of actors who have played the role, so it doesn't make a difference. Unless you were planning on seeing this play, it doesn't even affect you.

reply

[–] [deleted] 7 months ago

Did any of the other actresses who played Juliet look like a tranny black dude? If yes, can I please have their name so I can Google them. Thanks

reply

[–] BrandNewPoster (10996) 7 months ago

I don't know. I don't keep track of everyone who ever played Juliet, as it does not affect my life. She is playing the role in a play, not a film, and I don't usually go see plays.

reply