Casting & Race Part 2: Defacing Color

Still, it remains a logical wonder that white actors almost exclusively got cast as characters of color, if the part was of any considerable relevance. That is, if you consider logically casting without factoring the immense racism present in society. Just as this racism prevalent throughout society prevented people of color from owning land, getting work, marrying who they wanted, or… you know… living at all, it prevented actors of color from working in film. After all, making film costs a lot of money and most people of color didn’t have the means to make them. As (wealthy) white people controlled filmmaking, because they controlled capital, their racism, or at the very least, the overarching racism that they were beholden to, denied actors of color work in film.

But then who would play all those villainous colored people? Need I answer the question?

As white actors took up the work of portraying characters of color, many of them if not most of them probably had little actual meaningful interaction with people of color. Combine that with the prevailing notion that races were actually fundamentally different, these white actors would have to turn to safe places from which to draw their characters, Stanislavsky be damned. And that source would be, of course, minstrel shows and vaudeville, which had a history of portraying black characters, even if it was terribly racist–after all, the racism of yesteryear was actually the common sense of those that perpetuated it. (Although more than a thing or two could be said today about how a slightly more subtle racism still masquerades as common sense today.)

One of the significant problems of colorface at the time, beyond just keeping actors of color out of work, and being a tool of widespread proliferation of racism, was that, because of racism, it also impeded the actor’s craft. Due to the segregated society and the limited meaningful interaction of people between races, people of color were likely mysterious to the white actors, and believing what racism would be telling these actors, they consequently restrained themselves from actually performing anything more than a series of stereotypes. In that sense, people of color watching these films would immediately be able to point out that, “that black person is nothing like an actual black person!” (using the vernacular of the time, of course). Unfortunately, also because of this racism, I’m pretty certain that the vast majority of the audience (likely white), also would not be fazed by these ridiculous portrayals of people of color.

(As an aside, small pockets of cinematic resistance did exist in the US, as the Harlem Renaissance, as well as some resourceful black people, did end up providing a space for a few black films to be made. Also, in other countries, filmmaking did take root and there still are many surviving films featuring non-white people in all sorts of roles.)

The Undying Tradition

Although blackface suffered a tremendous loss in the social upheavals in the mid-1900′s and was significantly reduced, other forms of colorface continued, in addition to blackface to a lesser extent. And we have to look no further than the “Hey Hey It’s Saturday” debacle of just five minutes ago to see that colorface, even if naive, is still alive and well today.

But more obvious cases of colorface are still largely present, even if face paint isn’t a part of the picture. Take, for example, the casting of Angelina Jolie as Mariane Pearl, a French journalist who clearly has some African lineage (amongst other genes), in the adaptation of her memoir, A Mighty Heart or the well mentioned The Last Airbender casting.

I think there are several factors feeding the continued acceptance of colorface. First, I think the audience’s ignorance is playing a big factor here. In some cases, the audience just doesn’t know that the characters are supposed to be characters of color, so when they see a white actor playing a character of color, they just assume that they character is white too. Second, producers often will choose bigger name actors to headline their film because it creates a greater chance at profits and well, there aren’t many A-list actors of color to choose from (which itself proves that societal racism is still very active today)–this also helps ease investors into joining a film. Third, I think that the notion of colorblind casting, from theater, has made its way into film, but in a rather selective form which disregards the abstraction of the theater and often, but not always, to the favor of white actors.

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