Diversity and Representation in Media

RE: Zoe Saldana. Not sure. On one hand, nobody minded when Samuel L. Jackson wore darkening makeup and a wig for Django Unchained. And nobody minded when Saldana was cast to play Uhura, whose original concept was "representation of black people in the future". On the other hand, it appears that even Saldana had misgivings about her own casting.

Well, Cleopatra sucked, so there's that. :p

edited 4th Mar '16 3:33:58 PM by Tuckerscreator

Story's all over the place. Random google links [1] [2]

edited 4th Mar '16 3:35:02 PM by Eagal

The point about Saldana is kind of tying into the point that was raised earlier about beauty standards and skin tones. Light-skinned black women are seen as more desirable, so rather than actually casting someone who looked like Nina Simone, they cast a light-skinned looking woman and then slathered her in make-up.

Contextualize that statement, viz a viz: criticism of Saldana for not being black enough and telling her to go to hell.

That's why I asked if it was irony. Cause ya'll were talking about how the writers are more at fault than the actors, then someone showed me the Saldana story and I'm all "That's hilariously relevant to this discussion. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA." (paraphrased of course)

P.S. See there? I'm contributing to the conversation without just making sarcastic one-liners! I'm proud of myself.

edited 4th Mar '16 3:47:48 PM by Eagal

I do think it's wrong to make such personal attacks on Saldana in this case, because like I said, she needs to work, and even semi-prominent actors of color like her don't have nearly the same number of opportunities as white ones with equivalent levels of prestige do.

To clarify - I think it would be nice if actors would turn down problematic roles, but they don't always have the privilege of doing so. I admit I don't know much about Zoe Saldana, but I would have appreciated it if she had said, "no, I don't think I'm an appropriate choice for this role, plus I refuse to wear what essentially amounts to blackface."

That's not really much different from what we were discussing here with Kristen Kreuk or Ricardo Montalbon.

My problem isn't with Saldana, it's that she shouldn't have been cast in the first place. If Simone's family wants to blame her, that's entirely their prerogative of course, since ya know it's an actual member of their family.

edited 4th Mar '16 4:32:26 PM by comicwriter

Saldana is using blackface to resemble Nina Simone. Black actresses that better resemble Nina Simone without resorting to blackface exist, you know.

I never said anything to dispute that? I was saying that again, this was a problem of Hollywood avoiding casting someone who looks like the character so they could go with someone who is light skinned and more conventionally attractive.

If you notice, that's also why I said while I personally don't blame Saldana, I'm fine with Simone's family being pissed at her since obviously this is a much more personal issue for them.

edited 4th Mar '16 4:43:11 PM by comicwriter

And like I said before, makeup isn't free, and the kind of makeup needed to convincingly make Zoe Saldana look like Nina Simone in every single scene can't be cheap either. Which raises the ugly question of why they bothered to do that at all, when they could have just cast somebody who wouldn't require it in the first place.

Also, as I understand it, Nina Simone was known to talk about the kind of discrimination and colorism she faced because of her skin tone and facial features. Now they've cast someone who doesn't have those features, and tried to fix it by using makeup to darken her skin, thicken her lips, and widen her nose. That's...kind of gross.

@comicwriter: oh, I wasn't talking to you, man. I was just chiming in.

Yeah actors have to eat too, I'm sure there are plenty of roles out there a lot of actors wouldn't have taken up if they hadn't needed money. Sometimes this might mean a culturally insensitive role, which is why it's the execs' fault and not theirs.

Fair enough. My bad.

Exactly. Viola Davis wasn't even getting good roles until she played a damn maid.

edited 4th Mar '16 4:51:47 PM by comicwriter

On the flip side, though, you have cases like Johnny Depp wearing redface in The Lone Ranger. I have a hard time believing that Johnny Depp is hurting for work, so I feel pretty comfortable blaming him for that as well as the casting directors and executives.

Yeah if you get up to the point where you're a super prolific and bankable actor and can pick and choose roles at your discretion, you can have the liberty of choosing to turn down insensitive and horrible roles. Not everyone has that liberty unfortunately, even a seemingly popular actor can actually be in financial trouble (like nicolas cage years back).

Oscar Isaac was talking about diversity in film (since he's Latino) during the TFA press tour and he said that he really hated his character's role in Drive at first, but he got a chance to make some changes in the script when he talked to the director.

It's often inspiring when an actor of color is able to spin a stereotypical role into something more unique. I recall reading how Faran Tahir, who played the terrorist boss in Iron Man, negotiated his character from being a religious extremist to someone who idolizes Genghis Khan and is in for the conquest.

edited 4th Mar '16 5:41:12 PM by Tuckerscreator

It's not just about appearance. A little thing called acting ability matters too. That's why I'll never give Ben Kingsley shit for playing Ghandi. If you can bring the character to life better than anyone else, your skin color shouldn't matter. The makeup crew will take care of that anyways. And yes, I believe it should be a two-way street (hypothetical example: Don Cheadle as Lemmy Kilmister, assuming he blew everyone else away in the auditions).

Ben Kingsley is actually Indian British though.

If Zaldana does a good job of acting the part, I won't care. If she doesn't, I will question why they went through the problem with putting a lot of makeup on her if she wasn't good for the part.

Though Zoe Saldana is, in fact, an African-American woman in the same manner Nina Simone was.

Oh. Fuck. I thought he was just British but with an especially tanned complexion.

edited 4th Mar '16 7:03:12 PM by nervmeister

He seemed to have some kind of makeup on in Gandhi, though. His skin wasn't that dark outside of it.

Kingsley is an example of Plays Great Ethnics. His mixed race heritage allows minimal make-up to "pass" as many other types of races, and is such an amazing actor it's easy to overlook an ethnic technicality. Jason Scott Lee is Hawaiian and Chinese, and has played both, Asian Indian and American Indian convincingly. Dwayne Johnson is half black, half Samoan, and many of his roles hint that his character is mixed race in some form.

I would say that Saldana's situation is something where the production wanted her for name recognition, which is perfectly fine, as that means more people are likely to actually SEE the movie and know the story than if they went with a lesser known actress, but better physical match for the real person. This is taking actual acting ability out of the question, assuming Saldana can perform the role as good as any other actress. Extensive make-up just become a better physical match really shouldn't be an issue, as bio-pics for white people do the exact same thing.

And that's the big problem I have with tropes like But Not Too Black or But Not Too Foreign, as they kind of assume that this is a specialized problem that only non-whites have to deal with. Reading those tropes you end up with just a lot of complaining about a project not casting "the right person" just because the person cast was a light-skinned black or mixed race in any form. In addition Photoshop is prevalent on ALL magazine covers, the celebrity or model is altered to appear a certain way and that includes pale actors looking darker.

edited 4th Mar '16 9:56:57 PM by KJMackley

I am sure that there are actresses who look more like Margaret Thatcher than Meryl Streep. I am sure that there are actors who look more like Walt Disney than Tom Hanks. I am sure that there are actors who look more like Ghandi than Ben Kingsley (who, btw, is half-indian at best, considering that he is actually a British actor with a British mother and a father of Indian decent who was born in Kenya!!!), not to mention that I can point on the top of my mind towards a number of black actors who look more like Bennet Omalu than Will Smith does.

I would simply be happy to see Zoe Saldana (who is one of my favourite actresses currently working) in a role in which she doesn't have to go blue or green for a change. Otherwise her acting will have to show if she was right for the role or not. But I don't think that she can afford to pass over a chance like this. Leading roles for black actresses are nearly non-existent, because they can be considered double minorities.

edited 4th Mar '16 11:46:13 PM by Swanpride

I don't think it's exclusively a problem non-white actors deal with, but the fact that black actresses or models with lighter skin or more anglo features tend to have better opportunities available to them has been discussed in the black community since forever.

There was even some bullshit where people were mad about Lupita Nyong'o getting named People's Most Beautiful a while back because there are some people who flat out can't grasp the concept of dark skinned women being attractive.

edited 5th Mar '16 7:04:54 AM by comicwriter