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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33222 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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I don't think her race was ever an important part of the character. Adaptions aren't always, indeed very rarely are, intended to be 1:1 directly translating every that was described in the source material onto the screen. They aren't real characters; they don't have any 'actual' race.

Indeed, in the excellent TV adaption of Jeeves and Wooster with Fry and Laurie, actors of some characters change between seasons, and obviously look different, but it hardly matters. The Roderick Glossop we encounter initially looks completely different to the one in series 3 and 4, and neither of them are necessarily that close to the description given by P.G. Wodehouse, but I somehow doubt anyone would feel it reasonable to shout Roderick Glossop is bald at their TV screen.

I don't think her race was ever an important part of the character.

It wasn't, until it suddenly was.

As ever, the stock response to "if race doesn't matter, why not make the character black?" is "if race doesn't matter, why make the character black?"

I don't think there's evidence that there was a decision that 'we must have a black Ariel', it's merely that the role was casted without reference to race and the best actor happened to be black.

I don't think we have any evidence for that. The best actor would be one that looks like the character, by definition.

The best actor would be one that looks like the character, by definition.

Not 'by definition' at all. As I said in the original comment, that would only be the case if you intended your film to be that way. Which would be fine, but there's nothing wrong with saying 'the race of Ariel is wholly irrelevant to the story, and therefore I will cast without reference to it'.

Look at it this way; to take one random example, they almost certainly could have found an actor to play Noodles in Once Upon a Time in America who looked more like Harry Grey than Robert De Niro. Does that mean De Niro was in some way the 'wrong' choice? Of course not, that would be a ridiculous thing to say, and it's ridiculous in this case as well. Insert other examples.

If you are intending to portray character X from book Y, the best actor is the one who most closely matches the physical traits of character X as described in book Y. Otherwise, you are not casting for character X, you are casting for an entirely different character that you've basically made up on the spot.

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