*- I really don't want to sound racist, but that's the only term I could think of. If anyone happens to know a PC term for it, I'll change it.
I ask because someone was complaining about my schools choice to do West Side Story even though we have very few people of Latin American heritage. Is it really THAT bad?
I don't think it's racist at all. Actual racism requires a negative intent. (If it makes any difference, I'm mixed and not offended. Blackface doesn't offend me either.)
In your situation, I wouldn't say so- unless the Sharks are wearing exaggerated makeup and doing awful accents. I would question why a school would do a show they don't have the correct casting pool for, but that's hardly a unique problem.
WSS has a large background of not using race correct casting (Natalie Wood?), though I suppose that in itself is not an excuse. But I think, unless it comes off as particularly offensive (which for various reasons, in the case of WSS it doesn't for me), schools in particular should be let off the hook in this case (where I think it's more about the learning experience than getting casting exactly right). But, as Kad said, if they did something like added "ethnic" makeup and bad accents, I would question that...
I think you run into troubles when you have white people portraying any race other than their own, although I think generally its considered most egregious when a white person portrays a black person. Are there white Hispanics? Yes. Are there white Hispanic Puerto Ricans? Probably? Would there be a whole gang of them? Probably not. I think Kad's probably hit the closest to the issue - it's not that it's a huge deal, but if you don't have the kind of actors required to do a show, perhaps you should be doing something else.
This very question caused quite a bit of controversy this summer when they announced the cast of The Nightingale at La Jolla. It's a story about feudal China, but very few of the actors were actually Asain. This blog post really sparked the controversy:
In the professional world, a Hispanic person might need to be cast in West Side Story because he couldn't be cast in Ragtime or something like that, for reasons that do make sense. There really isn't a lack of roles for white actors.
However, that changes completely in a high school production, when white people are cast in non-white roles only because there aren't enough non-whites.
But, like others have said, if you don't have a enough non-whites, should you be doing a show that hinges around the fact that some of the characters are not white?
But, Phyllis, you yourself already pointed out that Hispanics can be of any race. An all-Anglo WSS is not the same as an all-white SHOW BOAT or FLOWER DRUM SONG.
I fully appreciate and share the sensitivity in the U.S. toward the use of blackface. Frankly, it makes me cringe even in old movie musicals that were made in earlier, pre-PC times.
And I agree that Asian-Americans have a point that they are automatically excluded from so many "Caucasian" roles, that it's a shame not to use them for Asian roles.
But if we carry perfect physical and ethnic representation far enough, it will be impossible to do anything but one-actor biographical shows. And haven't we all seen enough of those?
Are you responding to me, Kad? Because it was not my argument that the issue of fair representation should be dropped or ignored. On the contrary, I very much think it's a director's obligation to consider it.
(I only said we won't achieve perfect actor/role correlation unless we do one-woman biographies. My point wasn't to ignore the issue altogether.)
I've already written why I think WSS is a different issue than SHOW BOAT. Latinos can, in fact, be all white. So saying white kids can't play Sharks is like saying American kids can't play Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins.
That's very different from having a kid put on blackface and go out to sing "Ol' Man River".
>>>"And just because the Met still uses blackface doesn't mean it's right to do so, even if Dollypop can't see why it should be an issue."<<<
When a black tenor with the vocal and dramatic chops to sing the role emerges, then we'll talk, Phyllis. There may be such a singer around but I'm not aware of him. No black organizations have concerned themselves with the matter.
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joined:7/8/11
Posted: 11/29/12 at 06:50pm