Why Can’t We Cast Actors That Play Their Own Nationality, Race or Sexual Orientation More Often?
The Oscars are tomorrow, so this seems like as good a time as any to talk about this. Why is it that in the year 2014, we can’t more often cast actors that represent some kind of minority (or just something other than white, American English speaking straight people) more accurately? There are three obvious benefits of doing so:
1. We get rid of tone deaf portrayals of different accents, genders and sexual orientations. American actors perfecting horrible Russian accents can become a thing of the past! Hello actual Russian actors.
2. We can open ourselves up to more authentic portrayals of people who do not fall into the norm.
3. We can give minority actors who may have a hard time getting parts a chance to play parts written about them, rather than say giving them to people like Jared Leto.
People are generally furious at Jared Leto’s portrayal of a transgender woman in Dallas Buyer’s Club, yet it’s predicted that he’ll win best supporting actor for the role. Why is he likely to win? Well, it is thought that mastering the inflections and mannerisms of someone very different from yourself is what makes someone a great actor.
And yeah maybe it does. (Whether or not you truly believe Leto actually mastered the role.) But maybe people don’t care about that anymore. Maybe people now want authenticity over “great acting” as defined by a generation that grew up when blackface was still ok.
Generally, we’re starting to beg the question – why laud actors for mastering accents and impressions when we could just hire more types of actors? Isn’t a role played by a French person always going to be better than a role played by an American actress who we thiiiink maaay have a good French accent? Isn’t it awkward that Cuban character Linda Vasquez on House of Cards is played by Indian American actress Sakina Jaffrey? Can’t shows challenge us to expect a bit more authenticity in characters?
In a time when shows are still primarily written and directed by white people, minority actors can actually bring real authenticity to their lines, their roles and the way they are portrayed. We need that.