Every Friday I talk to Richard Martineau about cinema.
I would be curious to know the following topic that one of my most avid readers brought to my attention.
Television and film productions and advertising have long been criticized for lacking diversity: too many white people, almost exclusively white people.
dilemma
Honestly, it was a valid criticism.
We have made progress. I wonder if there isn’t more diversity in our advertising than in society in general.
We will no longer see productions where we apply a bit of makeup to a face to make a white man pass as an Arab, like Alec Guinness in the role of Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
But my reader notices an interesting fact.
In a samurai film, he said, you expect the samurai to be Japanese or look Japanese.
We’re assuming Mulan is Chinese since it’s set in China.
But productions whose stories take place in Europe or North America are increasingly evading this imperative.
Diversity is introduced, even if it comes at the expense of truth.
But it’s fiction, you might say, so anything is possible. This is where things get complex.
Take the Bridgerton series. It takes place in 1813 Great Britain. The Bridgertons are a wealthy family from the London aristocracy.
It is therefore impossible that there are so many black people among her. They did not occupy these places in the social hierarchy.
But the Bridgertons didn’t exist.
Likewise, it wouldn’t bother me at all if Othello were played by an Asian or the next James Bond was black.
But what happens when a film features a character who actually existed? Should it be as plausible as possible?
Take the new series Queen Charlotte. It tells the life of Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a German who married George III. married and was Queen of the United Kingdom from 1761 to 1818.
Her role is played by actress India Amarteifio, who is of Ghanaian origin.
Although we preface the series with an announcement that we are taking liberties with reality, the fact remains that this queen really existed and that she did not have the pigmentation of the actress.
On the one hand we can say that we have all rights in creation, on the other hand we can argue that young people mistakenly believe that reality is like this.
The matter becomes even more complicated when we see this powerful movement demanding that the roles of transsexuals, disabled people, dwarfs, obese people, etc. be assigned to people who actually belong to these categories.
Result
My position? The director must be completely free to decide who he wants.
In practice, while we need to give more opportunities to categories that have long been underrepresented, ultimately choice, talent and art must be prioritized.
It’s the end result that counts.
