‘Romeo & Juliet’ Play Starring Tom Holland and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers Faces ‘Barrage of Racial Abuse,’ Producer Says ‘This Must Stop’
variety.com
The Jamie Lloyd Company has hit back after its production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” has been the subject of what they call a “barrage of deplorable racial abuse” aimed at an unnamed cast member.
The play, directed by Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Boulevard”), stars “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star Tom Holland as Romeo and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers (“Sex Education”) as Juliet.
On Friday, the Jamie Lloyd Company issued a statement, saying: “Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
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Romeo and Juliet is the stupidest target for this when all of Shakespeare has been interpreted in wildly diverging ways, skin color would be the smallest of which (and where was it stated that Juliet was white?)
The story says she's from a noble family in North Italy. Most likely she has olive skin tone.
i hope she's extra virgin tho
Not that the skin tone matters much but you’ve obviously never been to northern Italy.
Where they're white as fuck.
Well that explains why everyone was so up in arms like this over historical skin tone accuracy when Romeo and Juliet were played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. /s
Yeah, that movie was made before anyone knew what woke meant. In fact, most people still don't know what it means, but that hasn't stopped anybody using it.
Don't even funking try to tell me Mercutio wasn't woke in that version of R&J. He was glorious!
Italy is quite diverse like Spain in terms of skin tone. There are plenty of white skinned and olive skinned Mediterraneans.
How did you get down votes for that?
You can get down votes for anything. Because they're free.
Went for the dad joke.
Probably some Northern Italians taking offense at the incorrect generalism about their skin tone?
You know that she was portrayed by a non-Italian for the first few hundred years, right?
Of course. Italy didn't exist yet when the play was written.
The place has been called Italia since at least 49BC
Wait, do you think that there were no Italians before the state of Italy was established?
They were not "Italians" though, they were part of the Venetian republic, which now is part of Italy.
This is like saying Pocahontas was from the US just because she was born where is now the state of Virginia.
They were. The place was called Italia before Romans set foot on British soil.
More like saying Pocahontas was a Native American. Which in most settings would be an appropriate description.
Funfact: when Garibaldi's troops reached Sicily, chanting "Viva Garibaldi, viva l'Italia!", many locals assumed Garibaldi's wife is named Talia.
Wait, do you think that there were Italians before the state of Italy was established?
It's been a lot of years since high school English, but Juliet Capulet was of the Italian family Capulet in the 1590s.
There is some detail in the references of the Capulet family to real world factions of the time. But both those arguing for and against this casting don't care about any of that.
yeah... people actually don't care about the canon when they can use social issues and division as marketing