Current Events > How is ethnicity-specific casting realistically supposed to work?

(+) Yeah! (+)

That kinda puts Dwayne Johnson out of business for playing any character other than original characters (all of whom are 50% Samoan, 25% Black, 25% White). Now that he's older, I'd like to see him star in a remake of the John Wayne movie Hondo. In that film, Wayne played a character who was part Native American. The Rock would totally pass for someone with a Native American mother and a Black father. But not anymore.

On the subject of wrestlers as actors, I always look to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as an example of a time when I feel like casting a White guy as a Person of Color was justified. "Bomber" Pat Roach played the Temple Guard (of Indian descent) who had a lengthy fight with Indiana Jones. The film crew had worked with him in the previous film and knew he could do the kind of fight choreography they needed. Would it have been better to have cast a 6'6" Indian actor even if it potentially meant a lesser fight scene?

Also, what about animation? Do we really have enough Japanese / Japanese American voice actors to cover all of the characters in English dubs of anime? InuYasha is half-demon. His father was a talking dog in human form who impregnated a human woman. (Don't think too hard about it.) Would it be okay to have him voiced by a Black or White actor on grounds that dog demons have no ethnicity? What about the Nameks from Dragon Ball Z? If you look at the slavery-discrimination factor, the argument could be made that they're Black people from space. Should they be voiced by Black actors? Do I even want to ask what ethnicity Mr. Popo is?

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i literally cannot comprehend putting time and energy into thinking about this

... are you serious?

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Herodopus posted...

i literally cannot comprehend putting time and energy into thinking about this

I write and would like to do so professionally.

Right now, I'm working on a story which has an ethnically diverse main cast and a predominantly Asian setting. If this story were to come to fruition, the most likely outlet for it would be animation. That got me thinking on how feasible it would actually be to try and keep every character/actor ethnicity-specific.

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This isn't the place to ask, people here are just going to rant about PC culture or simply lack knowledge on the subject. I'm sure there's books, podcast, articles etc on the subject, you're not the first to wonder about it. That would definitely be more productive.

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In practice it works like this: minorities can play anyone, and white people can play white people.

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FortuneCookie posted...

Right now, I'm working on a story which has an ethnically diverse main cast and a predominantly Asian setting. If this story were to come to fruition, the most likely outlet for it would be animation. That got me thinking on how feasible it would actually be to try and keep every character/actor ethnicity-specific.

You say "predominantly". Is this an actual Asian location on Earth or a fantasy location that has elements to it that you've drawn from real-life Asian settings? If the former, you are kind of pigeonholing yourself. If the latter, then you've got more freedom to adjust.

Furthermore, is the character's ethnicity and experience important to their role in the story and or their characterization?

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In voice acting, it's impossible, the talent is way too small for such to be implemented without a loss in quality, the US is not Japan where voice acting schools are a thing and even some big names such as Kadokawa have their own schools.
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s0nicfan posted...

In practice it works like this: minorities can play anyone, and white people can play white people.

this is partially because white is considered the "default" in the US, and minority characters usually have this as part of their identity/reason for existing.

In many movies, the person being black is part of the character, and so you'd want someone black to portay it (because a white actor wouldn't make sense). this is why you'd want a minority to play that character. Same thing with trans characters. You usually don't have them without that being part of why they are in the film, so it makes to have someone trans play the role, because they uniquely fit the character (and understand the character) in a way that someone else may not.

Often when a character is white, there is no significance to that. The race of the person playing that character usually doesn't matter because their identity is rarely important to the story / the other characters.

Hop103 posted...

In voice acting, it's impossible, the talent is way too small for such to be implemented without a loss in quality, the US is not Japan where voice acting schools are a thing and even some big names such as Kadokawa have their own schools.

then there's a demand for these schools and a job market for people who attend? sounds like a win-win to me.

Fam_Fam posted...

then there's a demand for these schools and a job market for people who attend? sounds like a win-win to me.

Voice acting is respected in Japan and competitive. The schools also function as a way to bypass the idol requirements that are slowly creeping in to get roles, because being an idol today is toxic and not just a small fraction of rabid fans but their fellow idols as well are becoming toxic in some groups.
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CyricZ posted...

You say "predominantly". Is this an actual Asian location on Earth or a fantasy location that has elements to it that you've drawn from real-life Asian settings? If the former, you are kind of pigeonholing yourself. If the latter, then you've got more freedom to adjust.

Furthermore, is the character's ethnicity and experience important to their role in the story and or their characterization?

It's a fictional setting.

I would say that the lead character's ethnicity is important in the sense that she is modeled after a real person and that person's nationality factors into the story. It wouldn't be as simple as "make your ocean-side fantasy setting Norwegian and make your lead character White."

That would be kind of like Quentin Tarantino using Uma Thurman to represent Bruce Lee.

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