Diversity and Representation in Media

While Shakespeare had to pander to his patrons at times — see Macbeth — he had no problem with including a lot of racy and crude humor in his plays. It's lost on modern audiences of course.

Shakespeare was basically the Seth Mcfarlane of his day. Just think, maybe in a few generations high school students will be studying scripts of Family Guy episodes in literature class.

But yeah, he wasn't afraid to push boundaries when he could. Heck, the portrayal of Othello as a sympathetic Moor was groundbreaking for his time.

Edited by M84 on Apr 9th 2024 at 10:41:48 PM

Literally the title Much Ado About Nothing was a dirty joke, with Nothing being slang at the time for a vagina and the plot hinging on a woman's virginity.

Shylock, despite being an offensive caricature by modern standards, is still known as being shockingly sympathetic for a Jewish character of the time. There's a reason that he's so often reinterpreted through a modern lens compared to...more irredeemable portrayals of minorities such as Aaron the Moor, who even then has his one humanizing moment where he laments over how his baby will suffer for his race.

Edited by IniuriaTalis on Apr 9th 2024 at 7:46:22 AM

There are times though when colour blind casting doesn’t really work.

It can royally fuck up the themes in 12 Angry Men, but Othello is one where you can kinda play with it, but you’re limited in what you can do.

Like, there’s a version where Patrick Stewart plays Othello. The entire rest of the cast was black. The really unsettling bit is that reviewers were like “I never really got the point of the play before, but I totally get it now!” Like…not a good thing.

In this case, they "care" because Romeo is played by a famous film actor.

Yeah, color blind casting doesn't quite work when race is a major theme in the play itself.

Color blind casting works for color blind plays — ie, stories where race isn't part of the message.

Edited by M84 on Apr 10th 2024 at 9:33:13 PM

Yeah, this really shows how shallow this whole supposed controversy is.

IMO, going more diverse with the Lifetime remake of 12 Angry Men actually did hurt it. It's a lot worse than the Henry Fonda version in general, but the story works better when it really is 12 white guys, none of whom really connect with the defendant very well.

It'd be like if someone tried to make Crazy Rich Asians with a cast that wasn't, well, Asian.

I actually saw that movie in highschool back in the day, and the topic of the class differences, values dissonance, and court was something we all had to write about.

I personally thought how all the other jurors rejected 10's racist rant to be a very stand out moment considering the time it was set in.

That scene of the Jurors ignoring 10 for being racist was ahead of it's time, or so I heard.

Edited by LoneCourier0 on Apr 10th 2024 at 3:58:14 PM

Honestly, it's one of those movies where a remake is pointless.

Like, yes, keep putting on the play, absolutely. But the movie? It's very difficult to improve on it in any substantive way, which the Lifetime remake proved.

Bringing this back to R&J, one critical thing about it is that the houses are "alike in dignity" — neither is better or worse off than the other, the whole feud is pointless. That gets lost if the warring 'houses' are not on equal footing. If the Royal Shakespeare Company casts POC as R and/or J, they're not being played as "nobles who are also POC" Bridgerton-style, the play asks us to see them as interpreting Renaissance Italian characters. Two warring camps of garden gnomes, sure, that's fine. A Nazi/Jewish version? Completely misses the point.

West Side Story 2021 emphasizes the 'lower-class white ethnic' aspect of the Sharks a bit better than the original version in this regard, but the 'gangs' aren't quite on the same footing still as the cop character obviously favors them a little more.

(I did notice upon a recent rewatch that the 1998 Luhrmann version also casts the Capulets as Latin-ish, Claire Danes aside — but it's not so much an issue given the California beach setting.)

I disagree with the first quote mainly because of the second quote. I do think Holland's clout is what is driving the ignorant non-theater-fan movement. People being weird about female co-stars and potential girlfriends isn't exactly limited to white stars (e.g. Korean celebrity fandom), but there are plenty more youngish white A-listers for people to be weird about. Swap Holland for Chalamet and I can see this playing out similarly; swap him out for e.g. Jharrel Jerome and I think it would pass without getting dragged into the culture wars.

(Obligatory "Zendaya get behind me" comment)

Edited by Synchronicity on Apr 10th 2024 at 11:37:29 AM

Avantika Vandanapu, an Indian-American actress, is getting racist comments for being fancast as Rapunzel. Not officially cast, just fancast.

Edited by windleopard on Apr 10th 2024 at 6:07:16 PM

Racists gonna racist, unfortunately.

And honestly, she and Milo would make a good Rapunzel/Flynn pair.

Probably color blind casting is less controversial on stage plays because they’re meant to be unrealistic to begin with. I’m never going to believe that people jumping around in furry cat suits are real cats nor that the woman been move around by cables I can clearly see is Peter Pan, I won’t have a problem with having a Black actress playing an Italian aristocrat from the 1600s. When the problem comes obviously is in films (apart from campy/experimental/comedy films) that try to be realistic, as for example if I see Morgan Freeman playing Aristotles for much I love Morgan. Obviously this does not apply to fantasy settings (I personally have other issues with some of them but is more of the lack of cultural diversity but that's another matter).

That said (and despite not wanting to be associated with Cinema Sins I still going to steal one of their clichéd phrases); Obvious racist outrage is obvious. Racist people is reacting on the R&J production out of racism than anything else not for real interest in “accuracy” historical or otherwise nor Shakespeare. In fact I saw several memes that compare the couple with Clare Danes and Leo Di Caprio from the 90s movie, a movie that not only moved the events to modern age but also switch the race of several characters like Mercutio and the Prince. Hypocrisy much?

Edited by TVGuy on Apr 10th 2024 at 11:12:18 AM

The fun bit is that technically every adaptation of Shakespeare is inaccurate if you cast actual women in it.

But also, like, we have dozens of versions (including stage adaptations) of every single one of his major plays with all white casts, let people reinterpret and play with them.

Okay, except maybe Taming of the Shrew, that one aged really bad and we’ve got two versions of it that are about the best we can do. (10 Things I Hate About You and the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor version. The latter one just barely manages to get a pass because Elizabeth Taylor makes it genuinely unbelievable that her character actually buckled under and isn’t just being sarcastic as shit to win the bet)

But at this point, we have stuff like one of the best adaptations of Macbeth ever made is a Japanese samurai movie.

Edited by Zendervai on Apr 11th 2024 at 6:24:38 AM

Yeah, fidelity to the source material becomes less necessary the more suspension of disbelief the audience is expected to have. And theater inherently requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. No matter how authentic a stage play is or isn't, it's nowhere near reality and inherently relies on on imagination. No one's thinking that tree looks terribly realistic. No one bats an eye at diction being yelled out for an audience, people accept singing.

Similarly, people are more forgiving of a Setting Update where it's not expected to be as 1-1 with the source material. West Side Story is an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet but since several parts of it are changed, including the setting, characters, and some story beats, people don't get as in a tizzy about a Race Lift.

It's kind of an Uncanny Valley Effect. When everything is changed somewhat, when it's easier to recognize a work as its own thing, you're less put off by other changes. And then if a work is incredibly faithful to a T, you tend to notice more minor changes and ask "well, if they kept so much, why did they change that?"

I wanted to follow-up on Synchronicity's post.

So, while I realize that the Romeo and Juliet thing here is almost certainly just bigots being bigots and unaware of (or just opposed to) Color Blind Casting, I think there are potentially issues with having the Capulets be from an "oppressed minority group".

Besides/despite the the feuding houses as "alike in dignity", the play frames the non-Juliet Capulets as much less sympathetic than the Montagues. And in a way that evokes tropes of minority groups as insular and abusive towards their women.

Juliet's cousin Tybalt is a violent bully and her father is an old guy with a trophy wife who doesn't seem to like him much, and he's all in on continuing the feud. And is basically in the more "privileged" position since he has the ear of the Prince. And most egregiously, he has this scene of absolutely horrible behavior where he throws Juliet out and tells her (paraphrased) that he wouldn't care if she dies on the street as the lowliest of prostitutes.

So you can see why this creates problems if you try to do a production that (for example) has the Montagues as Nazis and the Capulets as Jews.

Notably, West Side Story addresses this issue by having the Hispanic Capulet equivalents being more sympathetic than the White Montague equivalents.

Also, honestly Gnomeo and Juliet does a good job too, in that they make the Benvolio equivalent less sympathetic, so the two families are more balanced in good/bad qualities.

Edited by Hodor2 on Apr 11th 2024 at 1:20:05 AM

A direct Nazi/Jew Romeo and Juliet couldn't work, but one using the broad framework of that story could. For example, Titanic is (and was described as) a broad adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, but the difference is that it is class and not a feud that separates the lovers, meaning there is a power imbalance (not in the relationship itself but in the conflict itself, the houses aren't 'alike in dignity'). This works because it is only a loose framework. A Nazi/Jew one, using the broad story beats to create something new, would work.

Well, no it wouldn't. I'm not saying you absolutely couldn't make a Nazi/Jew love story work, but you'd have to be the best writer on the damn planet to make it work, acknowledge all the issues, and avoid trivialising the Holocaust. But the broad Romeo and Juliet issue could be sidestepped.

As for, say, a production with white Montagues and black Capulets, while subtext might certainly be created, the audience will know that it is a production that just happened to choose black actors and therefore any power imbalances will be side-stepped by the simple fact that it won't factor into the story. In Bridgerton, for example, the white protagonist and the black love interest are of similar social standing (in fact, if I remember correctly from the little I watched, the black love interest is actually higher in social class) and yet there never seems to be the power imbalance that a majority getting with a minority could imply (though there are other power imbalances separate to that). I think most audience members, especially since they are told it in the intro, will accept that the two houses, despite race differences, are of the same social standing. As for the possible negative connotations that black Capulets could create, I think the fact that there is one sympathetic Capulet (Juliet, and arguably Rosaline as well but she doesn't really factor in) and the Montagues, if marginally better, are still portrayed as equally wrong in regards to continuing the feud, should mean that problems aren't created in that regard. And besides, I very much doubt that the Capulets were cast as black for racist reasons, and most audience members should understand that, obviously, the Capulets weren't created to be racist (by Shakespeare), so it would just be a case of black people playing bad characters instead of the implication that black people are bad characters.

There is a general distinction between a direct adaptation and inspired by a work. Shakespeare works have long had a Setting Update to whatever the modern day was or some vaguely similar situation, using the exact same lines no matter how archaic it is. But some works are so iconic they have defined a genre, the non-direct adaptation of Romeo and Juliet is Starcrossed Lovers, of which 90 percent don't go down the path of either dying in the end. By that concept, you can argue Jo Jo Rabbit has some Romeo and Juliet aspects with a Nazi/Jew analog. Many view the "warring houses" aspect as simply one Overprotective Dad. And even works like 10 Things I Hate About You have only the barest similarity to The Taming of the Shrew, in that Defrosting Ice Queen is its' own sub-genre that if the movie didn't take specific steps to make the connection obvious (a couple character names and a Shakespeare class as a subplot) you could easily miss it.

There is still some flexibility in a direct Shakespeare adaptation, as the racial subtext in Othello is suggested but not omnipresent (on paper Iago's actions appear more It Amused Me in deceiving his social and military superior). Class conflict and social taboos are at the heart of most of Shakespeares works and that's what made them linger as long as they have. But how well it's received will generally depend on how well it understood and represents the original themes of the story, and it might have done better as a looser translation.

Edited by EmeraldSource on Apr 11th 2024 at 8:00:05 AM

I think a Nazi/Jew romance is too extreme of an example. It could be just an ethnic German/Jew romance in pre-war Germany as it would have been taboo at the time (in part due to ingrained anti-semitism among mainstream Germans) but a nazi is kind of extreme.

Is not like making a Catholic/Protestant version in Northern Ireland, Hindu/Muslim in Partition India, Palestinian/Jew in modern Israel (in fact I think there are already movies like that). Yes there are power imbalances but not that extreme.

Would be like the difference on a Black/White romance in 1950s US but instead of a regular white guy making him a Ku Klux Klan member. Jeez.

[That last one almost sounded like a SNL sketch].

PD: That apart I do get the point on the problem of making the Capulets members of one particular minority tho. Interesting point. Is the stage set in modern London, Verona or other place?

Edited by TVGuy on Apr 11th 2024 at 8:58:39 AM

Yeah, if you were very careful, a German in Nazi Germany/Jew romance could work, but a Nazi/Jew one couldn't really.

Yeah, in theory (emphasis on theory) a, fictional, Nazi-Jew romance could, maybe, work. I'm wary of making blanket statements like 'this could never work' because with good enough writing and under specific contexts most things can, it's just this would be incredibly, incredibly hard to do well.

Maybe something with subtext would have a better chance, a member of an oppressive group falls for a person of one of the groups they oppress (sort of like The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, obviously it's zigzagged in that story and certainly not reflective of a Nazi/Jew relationship, but it's an example of how something similar could be done).

Edited by king15 on Apr 13th 2024 at 2:44:25 PM

I mean, it kinda happen

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/02/14/lilly-wust-felice-schragenheim-love/

a lesbian love story not less.

So I will said that a story like that could be written utt is mostly a cost-reward, a sort of "Could I writte a belivable story about it?" and be honest, 9 time out of ten the answer is "no".

(Also, there are ways and ways, if you decide to let said write a story a jewish person trying to hide and finding in love with a regular german person who is a nazi and having him renounce it? I think that MAYBE could work...now if you want to have a story of a jewish prisioner in a camp falling in love with a SS who is first name basis with Adolt and gang...that is a very, very, VERY diferent beast, one I dont sugest try to tame really).

And about the whole romeo and Juliet is clearly barking to the wrong tree here: most of this culture polemitc can be sum down to "hollywood want to change X thing of X IP people have vague nostalgic feeling so they complain about the change with various degree of racism".

But theater dosent rarely play by this rules, it have long story of casting whatever it need to the role and since is less realistic it can be very experimental when it want too, specially since unlike Movies theater can play the same thing over and over and over so nobody complain when they changes stuff. There is not need to be rigid with canon because fans like THAT way and demand it be otherwise they get upset.

Like one tweeter coment pretty much nail it: the only reason people care is because tom holland is in it.

Similarly, Disney Plus hosted a K-drama inspired by Romeo and Juliet where one daughter of a South Korean secret police officer during the military dictatorships falls in love with a North Korean spy pretending to be a democracy activist. It was extremely controversial for making what was our equivalent of the Stasi look good, and also the insinuating that democracy activists are North Korean operatives.

fixed

Edited by minseok42 on Apr 13th 2024 at 10:07:16 AM

I don't think Disney makes k-drama? Don't they just host them?