‘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.”
I'm guessing the racist jerks complaining about the casting would be really upset if they knew that Juliet was played by a dude named Robert Goffe in the very first performance of the play in 1597. source These bigots are so busy complaining about a replacement in race for the actor playing Juliet that they're not even consistent asking for Juliet to be played the original gender of the actor in the first performance. Where is your consistency, bigots?
Also observe how those "replacement in race" people are completely silent on the 3 body problem show that made pretty much all of the Chinese characters from the book into westerners
I haven't watched the Netflix show. Do they actually cast western actors in the roles during the Chinese Cultural Revolution (purge)?
Ye Wenjie is the only asian main characters that are completely true to the books and casted accordingly.
Jin Cheng and Da Shi (replaces Cheng Xin) are the other Asian casted main characters. The rest of the main. Cast ist European/American
Da Shi was not British in the book lmao wtf
Sorry - moved him to the "Asian cast but changed character" part of my comment.
Overlooked that part since his casting was literally perfect imho
Yes. That part is set in Nebraska now.
Their version has a communist driven purge mass murdering artists and academics in Nebraska ?!
No. That person is messing with you.
The China stuff in the past still happens in China.
The present day stuff is a bunch of diff races now, not just Chinese.
who said everybody is completely silent? nobody in the states aside from sci Fi nerds knew about 3 body until now. and for all the Chinese people I've asked, myself included, who read the book before the show came out are pissed they replaced the Chinese hero characters with not Chinese people and made all the Chinese people the bad guys. it's fucked and not a correct comparison here...
Thanks for the historical context - I knew most of it personally but not the name of the actor who played Juliet first.
It's nice to know that kind of information has survived so far. History is weird like that.
Hey! Robby was white! That’s the most important part. Whatever, the right is fucking stupid.
Well done with the historical reference.
I understand what you're going for, but it was likely played by a male because women weren't allowed to perform.
You're almost there. Keep going!
To quote another Shakespeare play (The Tempest): "What's past is prologue".
The reason the black actor for Juliet is receiving threats is because they don't want her to be allowed to perform. So those historically that were so intolerant of a woman performing on stage that we see as silly and backwards are equally silly and backwards as today's racists threatening this modern day actor for the part of Juliet.
to be honest, I think you're incorrect here and your comparison isn't accurate here. a true comparison to men playing an Italian Juliet would be the black actors in questions playing italian people that are specifically written in the source material... which is weird and color washing. no ambiguous "they're a fairy tale people" stuff. if they plan on keeping to the feel and historical context of the play (which I can't tell from their marketing materials), then it's honestly super weird for black actors to play white people. are they going to use Italian accents? are they all Moores now? or is canon thrown out the window? if so, why not just make a Lion King type production where it's based on the Shakespeare story instead of just play itself? why can't production companies create original, creative roles for bipoc actors that are memorable and put them in a spotlight in a positive way instead of doing this played out controversial marketing shit that companies KNOW will stir up trouble to generate interest on their productions.
You're welcome to your opinion of course. I think you're trying very hard to make the "Italian" part relevant, for Romeo and Juliet, but it feels like thats an argument grasping at straws. Yes, the story is about Italians, but the original actor in 1597, Robert Goffe, wasn't Italian either he was English source. No one, except you, has trying to make any actors playing this role across the last 450 years contingent on being Italian.
Oh? I think you should really employ some self reflection why you arrived at that statement. Why does that make you so uncomfortable? These are actors standing on a stage, wearing costumes, speaking monologues to an audience, and some characters pretending to fight and stab each other to death. The sets are made from cardboard, plywood, and the cheapest paint they can buy. Why is it you can suspend disbelief around all those other things that don't match reality, but when it comes to the skin color of an actor, its a bridge too far?
When the actor Leslie Lloyd Odom Jr, a black actor, played the role of the actual historical figure Aaron Burr in the original Broadway production of Hamilton, were you equally uncomfortable? Were you broken out of the story of Hamilton's life and unable immerse yourself in history because a black man was acting the part of a historically white charactor? If so, I would have figured it would have been the awesome hip-hop numbers that weren't quite period correct, not the color of skin of an actor.
That's is already happening.
I don't think they're only casting these actors to stir up controversy. Lloyd Odom Jr was amazing in Hamilton! Nothing about the color of his skin subtracted from my enjoyment of the play. He's a powerhouse of an actor that absolutely nailed that role.
Why do you feel we, as a society, should be gatekeeping the last 500+ years of western storytelling to only white actors? You would stand before a room of 100 actors, perhaps 40 of them non-white and proclaim proudly "these hundreds of years of script are off limits to you, because you're not white"?
To your first point, English play, English actors. Europeans playing Europeans. not weird. very basic concept.
because if it were the other way around for any other race, it would make me uncomfortable also. I don't want Europeans to be casted as Asian characters in a classic Asian story. or Europeans playing Africans in a classic African play. this would largely be considered white washing and is largely frowned upon.
You largely ignored my crucial statement that if the medium wants to keep the FEEL and historical context, then casting consideration is appropriate. if you make a historical rap musical, then the rules are different. clearly LMM was not trying to capture the FEEL of that historical period.
Even if you don't think this is controversial marketing, it still is. it's causing a stir and we're talking about it. when it comes out, well both at least check it out probably in some form or another.
yes, if I'm a casting director trying to cast actors for authentic white characters.
Should have cast a male to play Juliet like the original. Wonder what the response would have been then?
Honestly watching Shakespeare in the cross dressing way really made me like it. They teach you Shakespeare in school by reading it, that's stupid. That's like studying the godfather and only reading the script and never watching the film. I hated it. Then one day I saw the actual play, done in drag and it really made the humor pop and made me finally understand what the fuck they were talking about in that script
Plenty of people have read The Godfather to study it.
You're never going to get the full authentic Shakespeare experience watching a play
a) inside
b) in the evening
c) while the audience is quiet
d) without people heckling
e) without bear baiting, gambling, and bawdy folk songs before and after
g) without people plying sex trade during the show
A woman's role in theatre played by an actual woman!? What a load of woke agenda BS!
/S
"Sounds gay. I'm in!"
Or a 13 year old girl to play Juliet and a grown ass man to play Romeo
You keep repeating the claim that Romeo was not of similar age as Juliet yet there is no evidence for it.
Evidence? No, but given the time period the play is set in. It is more than feasible given their supposed social class.
The lineup for tickets would be around the block.
So are they saying that Romeo and Juliet can’t be together? Ironic.
This is one case where I feel like choosing to make them an interracial couple actually adds to the tension and makes it relatable. The feudal politics of who marries whom? I couldn't be more disconnected. Petty folks getting upset about a white guy and a black lady getting hitched? Now I'm getting fired up.
Unless a characters race or gender or ethnicity or (dis)ability is a key component of either their arc or the story as whole (e.g. the plot depends on it), who the fuck cares who's playing who? I saw the same thing happen when the Dune movie had the Liet-Kynes character portrayed by a black woman. It makes absolutely zero difference to the story what gender or race Liet-Kynes was and she was really good anyway.
Even if race is an important component, we don't have to repeat everything exactly. Let an artist twist it and see what happens.
As long as it is white -> something else since we have way too many decades of minority characters being played by white people because of racism.
Edit: not really surprised by how many people are ignorant of racist casting in Hollywood.
It goes both ways, you can’t pretend to take the higher path by neglecting a group of people because people in that group have neglected others
But we have make up so the race of the actor doesn’t have to match the character they are portraying
Care to name any examples? Because redhead characters being played by black actors is so prevalent it has its own hashtag, so if there are really decades of it, I feel like I should know.
Also, because I feel it might be necessary, this is a reminder to anyone reading this that A) racism is not solved with more racism, and B) you can, in fact, be racist against white people. Patricia Bidol-Padva’s personal opinion does not control the English language, and discrimination does not become okay just because it’s against a group you personally don’t like.
Two I could think of off the top of my head were the racist Chinese character played by a white guy in Breakfast at Tiffany's and what's her name from Aliens 2 that was a Hispanic character played by a white lady. Here's a longer list that also includes more recent movies too: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/26-times-white-actors-played-people-of-color-and-no-one-really-gave-a-sht_n_56cf57e2e4b0bf0dab313ffc
Choosing redhead characters to be switched to another race is actually just switching a character that stands out as 'different' for a different race. Bit of a lazy choice to be honest.
One big thing to keep in mind is that because of racism most stories are already focused on white characters, so switching from the vast majority is a positive while switching from a minority of characters to the majority cast race is not. That is why switching from the overrepresented white characters is fine, but the reverse is not. One specific stereotype from movies is that cowboys are white because that was the characters written when cowboy books and movies were popular, despite a large portion of cowboys being black and/or Hispanic.
Okay, that Breakfast at Tiffany’s example is definitely in bad taste. Thankfully, as far as I’m aware, that sort of thing doesn’t happen in movies anymore.
That being said, to say it’s “a positive” to outright replace white people in movies is also in bad taste. More specifically, it runs counter to your message, as it not only implies the “great replacement” conspiracy theory to be true (thus causing racists to feel vindicated), it also reads as racist toward non-white people by implying that the best they can hope for is white actors’ sloppy seconds instead of their own stories. Media is not a zero-sum game. There don’t need to be fewer white cowboys for there to be more black ones.
Here's the issue though, as I see it. If we assume that Hollywood was racist for many years in the past, then most actors would be white. So now if you say you can't change the characters race, you're perpetuating past racism by locking down characters as white in stories that don't require it.
I don't care if Annie or the Little Mermaid is black, make the story intriguing. Pull me into the plot with believable and relatable characters and I'll never question why they're the race/gender/sexual orientation they are.
That’s the right attitude to have about it. 👍 Audiences love closure and they love verisimilitude. If I’m watching a movie and I’m shown how (or can reasonably assume from context that) a character having certain traits makes sense, it doesn’t strain suspension of disbelief at all and can turn a great movie into an outstanding one. And I think that’s something that screenwriters need to pay heavy attention to, because there are no bad ideas, there’s only bad execution.
In fact, just for fun, let’s take the two movies you mentioned as examples. I haven’t watched either of them and know little about them. If you were to tell me “write scripts for adaptations of these two stories where the main characters are black”, it would be lazy, disrespectful to the viewer, and arguably even racist to just do that without giving it any forethought - they’d be as out of place as a white man in Wakanda. But if you put down, for example, “this adaptation of Annie takes place in the cultural melting pot of modern-day New York City” or “Ariel and her sisters are all different races because Triton has taken many wives from all over the world”, and then make that clear through context clues, now the idea of them being black no longer feels like an afterthought, it feels like it was a conscious decision and that time and attention was given to making them feel like they belong. And while it would frankly be better for studios to knock it off with the constant rehashing and write new stories (not everyone likes Jordan Peele’s stuff, but few would call it derivative), a remake done with care and respect is better than one done without them.
I don't know if it is intentional or not, I try not to assign a motive to opinions, but your viewpoint seems to require that black characters have a justification for being black in a way that you don't for white characters. I think there's a difference between mere change, such as Annie or Little Mermaid, and incongruous change, such as whitewashing Wakanda, since it is intended to be a cloistered black nation in sub-Saharan Africa.
I try not to assign a motive to opinions either, so I’ll try to explain further to ensure you can fully understand my viewpoint.
My requirement that a character’s qualities have sufficient justification applies to white characters as well, hence my Wakanda example. As you said, that would be incongruous change, and the thing that makes it incongruous is the fact that you’re dealing with an exception. It’s important to note that, in many works that take place in a version of the real world, especially modern America, white people are assumed, even by non-white viewers, to have an inbuilt justification for existing in a story by virtue of being considered the ethnic majority - not saying that’s a good thing, or a bad thing, just that that assumption exists. Since that is not the case in the context of a cloistered Sub-Saharan African nation, any white characters that appear therefore require more specific explanations for their presence. This is, needless to say, why every white character in Black Panther is a foreigner.
Thinking about it, though, I also realize now that Annie is perhaps a bad example, since the original story also takes place in the United States iirc, and any story set in an American city can automatically be reasonably assumed to have people from all walks of life living there, so no explanations are really needed. Even if you were to also make Daddy Warbucks black, and set it in a time period where a wealthy black man would be considered an unusual or exceptional thing, all you would have to do is have some visual indication of how he got his money (such as a framed business degree, for example), and suddenly his status not only makes sense, it also subtly establishes something about his character (“He defied the odds through hard work and intelligence!”) that can be built upon as the story progresses. In fact, ideally, you want that level of characterization for every character, regardless of whether they’re a minority.
Really, it’s in the more fantastical examples that things start to become muddled, since in-built justifications can’t exist in a world that is not like our own. But that also means that you can be looser with your explanations, since in fantasy settings, internal consistency is more important than realism. In my Little Mermaid example, you probably didn’t question the idea of mermaids looking like humans from the same part of the world, despite the fact that if merfolk were real, they would live underwater and thus have no need to evolve different skin pigmentations. Consistency is the reason for this. But in The Lord of the Rings, which is implied to be set in our own world’s mystical past, dark-skinned humans already exist, and since they come from a far-off continent, their complexion can be reasonably assumed to be way it is for the same reason as in real life: An adaptation to an equatorial climate. So when Rings of Power introduces black elves, and then does NOT have them also come from another part of the world, that consistency is broken unless an alternative explanation is given.
Hopefully I’ve expressed my perspective clearly and concisely. Any type of person can exist in any setting and any story, so long as any concerns about potential inconsistencies are acknowledged and addressed. At the other end of the scale, you can even dismiss those concerns entirely and deliberately tell a story with zero regard for historical accuracy. What matters is that it’s a conscious design decision and that the audience is aware of what to expect going in. Knowing those expectations is a big part of the balancing act of being a writer.
When remaking a popular movie that originally had an all white cast it is. Why should minorities be excluded from remakes of all of the older movies that had all white casts because of racism?
On that point we are in perfect agreement. If it makes sense for the story and the actors are being picked based on merit, diversity will only serve to improve the end product. I personally would prefer more original films and fewer remakes, but I doubt I’m alone in that statement. 🤷♂️
I hate to break it to you but Spaniards are European.
Why do you think her character was a Spaniard and not Hispanic?
Even if you meant Latino and not Hispanic there's still plenty of European-looking people there. Making this an issue in the first place is terminally American. She got the role among other reasons because she speaks Spanish, which she picked up hanging out with Latinos in her gym rat days, which frankly speaking is miles above Hollywood standards when it comes to casting e.g. roles supposed to be German ("Jaja Weißkrautbrötchen!"): It's much more important to get someone who can portray a culture well, than to get someone with the right surname or blood quantum or similar BS.
Also since when is Vasquez not from Spain. You could argue by linguistic analysis, she uses "pandejo" which is chiefly used in Latin American Spanish, OTOH as an immigrant to the US from Spain you'd pick it up quickly.
I only dislike it when historical shows or movies race swap, cause it kinda ignores the racism of that community at that point in time. Like a black woman playing queen Elizabeth wouldn't make sense. Or Cleopatra for that matter
I’ve been watching white guys play samurai and pharaohs and Jesus my whole life. It’s not that hard to get used to someone with historically inaccurate pigment playing a role. But for some strange reason, it’s only a political choice when the actor with the “wrong” skin color is dark.
No it's always been weird with white guys too. John Wayne playing Asian us fucked up, so is all the blackface throughout Hollywood's history. I don't expect them to go find an Aramaic Jewish actor from the middle east for a Jesus movie, but don't make him Korean and act like it's accurate or something
I guess what I’m getting at is that, when you watch John Wayne playing an Asian guy, do you spend the whole movie wondering why the other characters aren’t constantly asking about his skin color and facial features? Probably not, since we can easily accept that while the actor is white, the character is still Asian.
But when a black actor plays a white character in a historical piece, you want to know why everyone isn’t constantly asking about their skin color and facial features. The answer is exactly the same: the character hasn’t changed. The other characters in the film don’t see the actor, they see the character.
Ok but by that logic why can't we get Cyllian Murphy to play Martin Luther King? Or hell, forget gender too, maybe we can get Allison Brie to play Pancho Villa, and it won't be distracting cause all the other character in the movie are gonna act like it's normal
Well, why not indeed? Both of those could be interesting films, depending on who was involved in making them, and what they were trying to say.
wait a minute. are you saying everyone accepts white washing? just because you do doesn't mean we should all just get used to it. people are tired of their classic ethnic stories being played by a bunch of white dudes or changed to a full white cast for the sake of palpability for the west. nobody aside from white people want that shit...
I find it a little interesting the effect of casting women and people of color as Imperials in the Star Wars universe. The Empire is explicitly supposed to be a fascist racist organization. The casting of all lily-white poncy British-accented dudes in the original trilogy is supposed to read to the audience as "These are the bad guys; see how colonialist they look?", while it's the rebels and outsiders who are ethnically and gender diverse. The existence of Thrawn and Isard in the expanded universe was supposed to highlight just how brutal and talented they were, that they were able to succeed in such a racist and sexist Empire, even given their backgrounds.
I understand the idea of wanting more diverse casting in modern Star Wars, but making the Empire diverse seems to confuse the visual metaphor just a tad. I suppose that they're keeping the "Empire is racist but only in the sense of it's human-supremacist," but it still seems a little odd.
Yeah I agree with that too, as a kid, racism was an obvious trait of the empire, even how they refer to aliens like chewy "where are you taking this... Thing?"
Suddenly the Empire is racially diverse and even has aliens and people of color in command.
The Empire is speciesist, not racist. It's similar in the Witcher universe: There's plenty of elves and monsters around for humans to hate so why hate on other humans.
a lot of people don't understand that racism was different back then too. For example people in the Roman empire may not have understood the differences in skin color being that important, but would over index on tribe, religion or birth right
You would hate "The Great". It's semi historical but humorous and they cast all sorts to play what would be 99% just Russians and it is fantastic.
If it's historical fiction it doesn't bother me really
I'm actually like 1% miffed about how the Dune films dealt with race, there's three skin colours mentioned in the book: Olive, light olive, and dark olive. Paul happens to be dark olive.
Dune is set 20000 years in the future, humanity had plenty of time to mix it's all shades of olive.
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!
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?
Italy is quite diverse like Spain in terms of skin tone. There are plenty of white skinned and olive skinned Mediterraneans.
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
Honestly, we do see a lot of this casting in the 21st century. A familiar character becomes black, whether it's Annie or The Little Mermaid, and it leaves me ambivalent. However, in the case of Romeo and Juliet, it actually makes sense to have a racial component injected into the story. They are from warring families, correct? Race could be another point of conflict for them.
(Besides, Shakespeare has been famously open to interpretation. Is Shylock a villain, comic relief, or a tragic victim of prejudice in his own time? That's up to the director of the play, or the film.)
You are thinking way too hard about this. The character isn't becoming black. The characters the same, she's just played by a black actress. That doesn't change the character. That's why we call it acting. She's just playing a role. Tom Holland isn't Italian, but I noticed you didn't bring up him changing the character.
Honestly, I think the play would gain if they added racism as additional reason for the enmity between the 2 families. I’d be astonished if this hasn’t happened before.
That's just West Side Story.
I’d be even more astonished if that was the only piece inspired by Romeo & Juliet.
Also I would be totally floored if the story of Romeo & Juliet was inspired by an older predecessor or predecessors going back at least to Ancient Greece.
Do you feel equally uneasy when you watch old movies in which white actors portray non-white characters?
Or what about fiction, like "The Hunger Games," in which Katniss is described as "olive-skninned" in the book, but was played by Jennifer Lawrence?
Have you ever expressed your discomfort at the portrayals of Jesus as a white dude with blue eyes all over the place?
I'm not addressing you personally. But those who are vocal about stuff like this are sheer hypocrites.
Personally,
Holy shit, yes. I don't always notice it, but when I do, it absolutely makes me uncomfortable.
I've always understood "olive-skinned" to refer to people from the European Mediterranean area, which, from an American perspective, are often considered white. As such, it doesn't really bother me that much. However, if the author meant for her to be middle-eastern or northern African, then yeah, that does kinda make me a bit uncomfortable.
I grew up with blue-eyed Jesus so it doesn't bother me because I'm used to it. If I was used to seeing black or middle-eastern Jesus, then yeah, I'd be uncomfortable with it. As it is, I'm more amused by the fact that Christians can't get it right than I am uncomfortable with it.
Tbh when it comes to this specific example, I don't really care. I generally think it's better to cast characters as they were originally intended (black characters should be black people, queer characters should be queer people, etc), though I also understand that sometimes exceptions have to be made. I'm mainly replying because I wanted to chime in and say, "hey, not everyone who thinks characters should be cast in accordance with their original race, sex, gender, etc, is a bigot."
Or at least I don't think of myself as one. Maybe I still have things to work on though.
Edit: tbh I think a lot of these kinds of casting choices are rage-bait. They're not doing it because they want to give minorities more opportunities to perform, they're doing it because it generates free advertising. Because of that, I honestly wonder if it's doing more harm than good.
The little mermaid wasn't written as a particular race from what I know.
She's HALF FISH. The human part could be whatever colour you want.
Yeah, but in MY HEAD she's WHITE and my FRAGILE EGO can't handle it otherwise.
No! Only white and Danish!
Mm, white danish. That's the one with the white cheesecake goo on the top, right?
I mean, I would suggest she'd be like green or blue or something, like regular fish. You know, camouflage for being underwater. Something down there in the briny deep has got to have a taste for mermaids.
(For top accuracy, all Little Mermaids from this point forward must have a strong resemblance to a manatee. Is Kathy Bates from Misery available?)
You're alright. We're not all-evil or all-saints. I'm not perfect either.
One thing about "casting as rage-bait," hmmm, I think it's a bit more positive than that. It's probably a "what-if" scenario, rather than "let's generate some rage!"
Like that time they did Ghostbusters with an all-female cast, or when they kill Hitler in movies.
Intentionally doing it because of race is far more likely to be a positive thing than fishing for rage bait, even if the positive thing is getting more money because people like the increased diversity. Fishing for rage bait is way too risky for Hollywood.
People like increased diversity when it’s tasteful and meaningful and adds value to the finished product. Unfortunately, I keep seeing examples of people associated with movies continually adding distasteful and meaningless pandering instead, continually dangling rage bait by insulting men (especially white men) on camera, then continually acting surprised when their movies continually make no money because people won’t watch a movie if you continually tell them it’s “not for them”. So no, I would argue that it’s not “too risky”, because if it wasn’t, they wouldn’t keep doing it.
Yep, it’s sad to see how people fall for it. At least don’t go see any play or movie if it’s bad, regardless of controversy.
I see your point, but it is also a little weird when a previously established black character is made white, or at least less black, in the casting. Apparently during TMNT's grimdark period, before the cartoon, their April O'Neil was bi-racial. Baxter Stockman was black, but when the TMNT cartoon came out in 1987, both were white.
I wasn't familiar with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles until the very kid-friendly cartoon, so it didn't bother me. I mean, this was my first introduction to these characters, right? I had no idea. But fast forward to now, when it's very strongly canon that Baxter Stockman is black, and the 1987 Baxter Stockman, who's a hybrid of Dr. Brown from Back to the Future and Jeff Goldblum's bug in The Fly, does seem a little... off.
I hear you, man. In the end, works of fiction are just that. Something somebody came up with. Imagine a five year old telling you a story, something completely made up. Would you pay too much attention to that? What's the difference between a kid and an adult coming up with something they pulled out of their imagination?
Not too different, really. And yes, I know the adult has studied and have way more experience. But ultimately, he or she wrote down something they made up.
So what does it matter if a character is black, red or white?
In the Earthsea miniseries almost every character is played by a white actor while all but one in the book are black.
The one white character, Tenar, is played by a half-chinese actress.
I am not aware of anyone close to my age bracket that watches old movies like that, and I am not young. I would imagine a good chunk of us would avoid them all together, considering that we know that the movies were racist. I know I do, at least.
Like, I don't care if anyone says Othello is worth watching, I would simply refuse to give it a chance.
They should at least have used a pretty person though, that would make it more realistic.
The little mermaid one didn't make sense to me, they're under water probably 95% of their lives getting no sun. They all were definitely pale.
The "underwater therefore white" doesn't hold much water, in my opinion.
What about all those dark-colored creatures? Tuna, whales, squids?
Fish colors have nothing to do with melanin which determines human skin tone.
Why do mermaids have to follow human skin tone rules instead of other aquatic mammals? Even if they're humans who evolved a fish tail, they've been underwater long enough for melanin to not be the deciding color.....
So what?
Bro, we're talking about a fictional creature.
Plus "fish color" is just one attribute. I also mentioned whales and squids.
And we don't even know how humans would evolve to live underwater.
They weren't "definitely" anything. They're fictional creatures.
You're applying scientific principles to human skin and UV exposure response with regards to evolution and calling into question the scientific accuracy of the portrayal in the mermaid, and that leads you to disagreeing with the skin color of the actor.
With your scientific explanation you missed a couple key points if your goal is accuracy to the biological world:
You didn't call either of these out as scientifically inaccurate.
Can I ask why your scientific explanation of the mermaid was only skin color?
Do black people lose their pigmentation completely if they stay indoors?
I mean given enough time and generations, yes.
Nice job Vanity Fair. There are some racists who are whining about interracial Romeo and Juliet. Fuck them for sure. But not only is this rag trying to turn it into a scandal that it's not, they can't even get Francesca's acting credit right. Sex Education and Bad Education are incredibly different shows. There are black female actors in Sex Education but Vanity Fair sure can't tell the difference between them and her.
Article written by AI and not edited? Thats my bingo guess
Not really a big deal but it's funny that this variety article and all the other people reporting on this are using the same line of Francesca being from sex education when she's not lol. She's from bad education. It seems like so many websites are just copying from the same source and so they all have the same mistake
Romeo+Juliet is the perfect story for a mixed-race couple, given that the story is about the original is about how their relationship isn't accepted by their families. Also for any other kind of relationship dipshit assclowns hate.
"Unnamed cast member"? Is it that they think we're really stupid, or that it's actually not people complaining about the black Juliet, and they want to make it look like it is?
How bizarre...
Spoiler alert, Tom Holland is actually playing Juliet.
tbf he's pretty cute
"towards a member of our company"
This is the actual quote, not from Variety.
I know, the "they" in my comment is the Jamie Lloyd Company. Super weird to be willing to say the nature/motivation of the abuse is racism, but then be unwilling to name which cast member it is, if it is in fact Amewaduh-Rivers.
Something is not adding up.
No, this is how you properly show solidarity.
An attack against a single cast member is an attack against the entire company.
They are saying "it doesn't matter who they attacked. Racism against our cast member is racism against us all because we are a family that stands with a single purpose, speaks with a single voice."
And if it only redirects 1% of the aggression away from the intended target and towards the white cast members instead, then it is worth it.
That's how you be a good ally
This would hold water if they didn't go out of their way to say it was race-motivated abuse.
They did, so it doesn't.
lmao, this sentiment is the exact opposite of solidarity, and invokes the fundamentally-racist 'white savior' trope, to boot.
I and other white allies literally stood in front of police with crowd control weapons when my black friends yelled 'white shield' during the BLM protests in Seattle but tell me more 🤣 I'm nobody's savior but I do know how to use my privilege for the benefit of others
So the options are "don't reference the racism at all" or "name the victim"? Fuck outta here with that shit.
Apparently, I do need to tell you more, since you clearly don't understand that the fact that your black friends were literally verbally encouraging you, makes the above the literal opposite of "white savior".
No, the point is that those are effectively identical (since she is the only known black cast member), so why would you do one and not the other? Either do both, or neither. They also went out of their way to say there was exactly one victim. Why? Why do that, if their goal is not to clearly identify the one and only person who fits all of the criteria they put out?
That's weird, bottom line. If you asked me what 2 + 2 is and I was willing to tell you it was "the number that's half of 8", but I refused to say "4", wouldn't you think that was weird of me?
Your mental gymnastics are astounding. Done with you. Waste of my time 👋
lol, I was perfectly clear, even gave you a simple analogy, but I guess that was just beyond you.
Transparent move to preserve your ego by convincing yourself of my "mental gymnastics", giving yourself an excuse for why you had no response.
Why would they ignore what it is? I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
It adds up to me. It doesn't matter which cast member it is; it's deplorable regardless.
It also doesn't matter what kind of abuse it is, all abuse is deplorable regardless.
But they made a point of saying it was racial abuse. And they also made a point of not naming the one being abused, which is basically unheard of in an article like this.
Come on. It's weird.
Naming abuse victims enables further abuse.
Not naming them was the correct thing to do, unless it is your goal to get them abused even more.
I'm not talking about whether you should or shouldn't, just noticing that every single other time there's a situation like this, the victim IS named. This is definitely a pretty unique circumstance.
But the point stands--if indeed their aim was to keep attention off the abused, why even put out a public statement about it at all, given the fact that this cast has a headlining member that is very conspicuously of a different race than what the average schmoe would expect? Isn't that antithetical to that goal, then?
'We don't want to bring any negative attention to this victim of racial abuse by naming them--this victim of racial abuse in this run of Romeo & Juliet where Juliet is played by a black woman.'
I mean, come on, lol.
So I get what you're saying. It seems obvious who is receiving the abuse so why not just say it?
But it's not about keeping a secret (IMO). It's about not putting all of the attention on the one person over and over again by stating the victims name over and over again and singling them out. (If it was me, I would hate it and feel much more alone)
Instead here it's a group being mentioned which should hopefully spread the hate out. Maybe it won't work but nothing else really has either when this happens. And at least maybe the person will feel supported.
I'm not sure why you feel they shouldn't have said anything though? The racism is very public so not saying something publicly would be wierd right?
Also I feel like people are forgetting that maybe the victim okayed all this and wants it to go this way?
Maybe not but I feel like you can find the reasoning behind these decisions if you try to see it from other angles.
Usage of language is important. As has been mentioned, it doesn't repeatedly mention her name as it isn't necessary.
So....like....you think racists are reading this article chomping at the bit to find out who is black so they can attack them but since there is no name that has kept them safe? The people who WOULD have attacked based on this article don't bother to just google the cast?
It's to point the attention at the abuse rather than the abused. Much like in cases which go to court, victims aren't often explicitly named to protect them unless they volunteer to make themselves public so that others will come forward.
Why bother? Every single article I've seen after some quick googling, 4 out of 4, has a huge pic of Holland and Amewaduh-Rivers front and center on the page.
Even the densest racist can glean the information, it's being handed to them, lol.
Which is why this is so confusing. Imagine one random article during all the black Ariel drama saying 'there have been racial comments but for safety reasons we will not say against who'
Brah we know.
It didn't say that.
Maybe someone is Scottish, and Scottish people are made at him for beign Scottish.
"You Scots sure are a contentious people."
YOU JUST MADE AN ENEMY FOR LIFE!
Why does she have to be highlighted when you already know who it is?
They already DID highlight her! That's my point--they put a massive spotlight on her, by both going out of their way to specify the particular type of abuse, and also going out of their way to say that one and only one cast member was receiving the abuse. They've directly contradicted their own ridiculous pretense of 'not naming names' by doing literally everything they can to clearly identify her as the victim, and then bizarrely refusing to plainly say she's the victim.
All of the people in this chain saying "why does she have to be named": why aren't any of you asking "why does the fact that it's exactly one victim need to be specified" or "why does the fact that the online abuse was racially motivated"? None of these three DON'T act to identify the victim. You clearly don't mind if the victim is identified since you don't have a problem with those other two. So why are people biting my head off simply for pointing out it's weird that they did the latter two and not the former?
It's like if someone asked how many of something you have, and your answer is "the amount is an odd integer between 4 and 6" instead of "5". It'd be perfectly reasonable to ask in response "why the hell didn't you just say 5?"
lol
You are focused on entirely the wrong point. Why are you attempting to distract from the issue?
If you read an article about a guy who murdered his wife that had a timeline, and it read 'he woke up, took a shower, ate 23 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then he shot his wife'--would it be "distracting from the issue" to comment about the obvious bizarre element there? To comment on that is not equivalent to trivializing the murder. Weird thing sticks out, someone who noticed points it out. That's all, it ain't that deep.
I'm not trying to distract from anything, holy shit. All I did was point out a strange element I identified in the article. The top level comment in this chain is mine, so you can't even accuse me of derailing someone else's, lol. If you don't want to talk about this particular bit, post your own top-level comment and move on. Don't whine at me here about it.
I'm the one whining after you wrote yet more paragraphs about everything but the issue? I said distracting, not derailing.
They're trying to minimise the additional abuse she will get because of this story.
Ok sure. But is it a lot of people, or is it some randoms on Twitter? And they use it as publicity.
Honestly. Who gives a fuck about a new Romeo and Juliet play anyways?
My bet is this is a publicity campaign to boost the interest for the film.
Boost interest for what film?
Ok w/e. Didn't know if it was a film of the play or only a play. Doesn't matter really.
I highly doubt many people have strong feelings about it. Maybe a couple of ass hats.
what is it their first day on the internet? Did their grandma write this article? Yeah no shit it must stop. So should the death threats for just existing as a woman and LBGTQ2+. have they tried reporting it to the mods? That’s essentially what the only recourse that has been suggested the past two decades for the rest of us.
A story about a grown man loving a little girl? That's fine. Make one of them have a different skin color than me and hoo boy do we have a problem (/s)
I thought Romeo was a teenager too? I mean, the difference in age should be around 3 years they are supposed to be 13 and 16, although the age of Romeo is really never specified, I wouldn't say it's that problematic.
I find Anakin and Padme, or Bella and Edward more problematic, and there's not much outrage for those.
I took the time to google the claim and it’s bullshit.
One of the source materials of Shakespeare mentions his soft skin and lack of facial hair which would mean he’s younger than 15.
I would stick with the original play: Shakespeare died not mention his age but he is acting less mature than Juliet.
They're both young. Aa for his acting, it is the one of a lovesick person, it doesn't mean lack of maturity.
This thread is about the literary Romeo, not a specific actor.
By the way, I have seen this eternal love story portrayed ny gnomes (Gnomeo and Juliet or something like this - good movie BTW) so as far as the roles are respected, we could have this portrayed by ants.
Padme is 6 years older than Anakin, and only just. I suppose the image of Episode I stuck in people's mind, but they only started dating when Anakin was in his late teens.
Sounds about right for conservatives.
Do you have any source whatsoever backing your claim Shakespeares Romeo was not of similar age as Juliet?
I dont have a problem with this. Its a play. Its up to thw director and the actors to interpret the script in their owns ways. I do have a problem with the disney mermaid thing but only because those are movies. Movies are a one off thing. Stop remaking the same movies with race swapped characters and instead make new movies that are inclusive.
It was a book, interpreted by Disney. There's no reason the characters had to be one race.
Well yes but at the same time the original little mermaid is Danish and from like the 15th century or something.
Ugh right?! Nothing at all like this Shakespeare guy from 16th century England!
So all the characters, including the fictional creatures, should be Danish? And speak Danish. And... Well, you get the idea.
Never said that. It jus tmakes no sense to call the new movie a remake if you change stuff around
Change what around? It was originally a book.
The new remake of their cartoon The Little Mermaid. I know it was originaly a book and the mermaid dies at the end.
If it was remade, it would have been a cartoon.
I hate to break it to you but mermaids aren't actually humans and their Vitamin D biology is probably completely different.
The actual crimes committed in the live-action remake is the atrocious colour grading and the script.
And the cgi animals and the fact that the king probably sleeps around as each of his daughters is so different from the others.
Maybe it would help a little to stop fucking remaking shit so much.
It's hundreds of years old. We haven't had a big "remake" (it's an adaptation, since it was a play originally) since the Leo version decades ago.
Gnomeo and Juliet changed a name and they weren't even human!
Disgusting. Giving roles to other species is taking work away from homo sapiens.
Warm Bodies did it and Romeo was dead the entire time!
It was reverse because he came back from the dead!
And mercutio was the best part of that.