Agent complains: Minorities are 'putting talented white performers out of work ... and it stinks'- Page 3

[Dave28282]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 4:45am

qolbinau said: "The vision should always be unless a role specifically calls for a race, cast the best person for the role regardless of race. Same for the workplace.Maybe easier said than done though. It’s interesting because it felt like ‘affirmative action’ type ideas went out of fashion 10years ago but are now coming back full force. One of the unintended consequences is it does cause people to question whether you only got the job because of race or other factors such as gender. This wouldn’t be an issue if the factors weren’t part of the selection criteria - which is what the ideal vision for no discrimination looks like. Treat individuals as individuals not as group identities"

True, equality starts where selection criteria end. And that means the possibility of all situations in casting, also a production with an all white cast. As long as it is a 1 way street, equality will never exist. People who keep thinking in a 1 way street are the core of this problem without realizing it. This casting director deserves an award.

[antonijan]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 4:46am

Can a black Glinda happen in this lifetime?

[Soaring29]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 4:49am

I'm actually on Dave's side here- that agent comment may have been out of line, but casting people just for the sake of appearing diverse is a reality and needs to be addressed. In my personal experience, I don't think it's the norm, but it happens. I think that's what we can gleam out of it. Don't just blindly cast people for the sake of their race either way. The main intent of the agent's comment is not something I personally agree with, but I do agree with Dave's position that casting people just for  the sake of diversity in casting is not ideal. 

[AlfredDrakeII]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 7:05am

I'm a Black performer. The agent is correct. I disagree with Dave's assertion that quotas should be enforced by any means. But his broader point is one worth debating: how does one quantify "diversity", and what does it mean precisely, other than "fewer white people"? How do we know we've reached our "diversity" goals? IS there a chart or an equation??

At any rate I do have many hard-working and skilled white friends that are in some cases being supplanted by people I personally know to be of lower caliber, all for the sake of "diversity". Furthermore I find it insulting that Progressive Racists still believe I need a helping hand, as if I'm a child, despite my high-level training and years of experience.

I don't need any favors. Not all of us are victims, though it's funny to watch the Progressive Racists on this board act as though we are.
Updated On: 5/9/18 at 07:05 AM

[The Other One]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 7:16am

No one should lose a job opportunity because of race.  No one should gain a job opportunity because of race.  

[Dancingthrulife2]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 7:23am

antonijan said: "Can a black Glinda happen in this lifetime?"

The Japanese audience has no problem seeing an Asian Glinda. I wonder why some countries have problem imagining a nonwhite actress as a green character.  

Updated On: 5/9/18 at 07:23 AM

[uncageg]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 7:28am

seaweedjstubbs said: "RippedMan said: "I can kind of see Dave's point, but I also feel like that is a step that needs to happen to get out on the other side.

But as someone who is totally inclusive and open it does irk me to see shows like "Dear White People." I don't know, just rubs me the wrong way, but I guess, based on race, I'm just thrown in with the lot no matter how open minded."

Have you ever watched Dear White People or the movie it's based on? Or are you just judging it off of the title? It's probably not the show/movie you think it is."

 

Exactly. You definetly cannot judge this show by its title. So many layers and it will be interesting to see where season tbree takes us.

 

[devonian.t]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 8:09am

For Spotlight in the UK, casting directors have to confirm that any ethnic profile are specifically required by the production.

I think Hamilton's comment probably responds to the fact we frequently see "BAME actor required" but there would be many eyebrows raised if a role was advertized as "whites only".

Equality is vital but perhaps the "BAME actors only" advert is a blunt tool, not suited to its purpose on some occasions.

The deeper problem, from the perspective of someone who receives submissions, is that so few people of colour tend to be submitted for roles when ethnicity is not specified- I'm not blaming the agents as they are drawing from their own limited client pools.  What is indicated is that at the training level it seems there is still an imbalance in the backgrounds of people entering the profession in the first place.

I worry that good intentions which go beyond a representative proportion risk playing into the hands of those who want to claim that the whole system stinks and is biased against white performers.  Politically it seems there are people just waiting to seize on that opportunity.

[darquegk]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 8:45am

I don't think you'll ever see a black Glinda, because in Wicked that character typifies white, straight, commercial mediocrity. This contrasts her with Elphaba, whose birth defect of green skin, combined with her revolutionary politics, makes her a stand-in for racial, gender and sexual minorities at large.

[stlrod]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 8:54am

GeorgeandDot said: "stlrod said: "geoffreyC said: "White people are currently doing horrific things nationwide in the US. Perhaps we need a complete moratorium of their privileged presence in the arts until we find out what's going on."

That’s as racist as the original comment. "

This joke went MILES over your head.

It sure did.  Sorry about that.  Shouldn't post from the air.

 

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 9:27am

I usually have an issue discussing race issues on this board mainly because of like two-to-three people. However, in this case, I do have an issue with BAME casting because that just seems so superficial. What do black, Asian, Middle-Eastern, and or just generically "ethnic" have in common and what does it mean exactly? I think there is a true POC representation problem that needs to be addressed. I also think it's great that POC have more opportunities to play roles that are such a big part of theater canon that after studying those roles since literature class in junior high to drama school (long time), that now these roles are not out of their reach. 

But there is a problem if people just think a simple solution is to ensure there's a POC in a cast of an ensemble just there to avoid criticism of having an all-white cast. I mean having a show with an all-white cast is sort of needless these days because "the best person for the role" could mean all kinds of things and let's not pretend there's some absolute, single standard to measure that because audiences are diverse in their opinions. Doing it the way where you're asking for BAME seems a very blatant tokenization where you're only casting based on the color of the skin for a role that doesn't call for that, and I do think that's wrong. I think being more mindful in your casting and trying to help underrepresented POCs who tend to be looked over for roles historically due to no fault of their own due to their skin color or ethnicity gain equal opportunity is wonderful. However, having a casting notice call for BAME just seems wrong to me. However, I do prefer an over correction over just doing what we have always done and thus the problem of under representation just continues to exist.

Now with all that said, I have a few bones to pick.

First off, I wish a certain poster would stop using Asians to rail against black people. As an Asian-American myself working in public interest law and have had many conversations regarding the model minority myth and how Asians have been used historically to downgrade other POCs while still denying Asian-Americans equal opportunity in management and in gaining higher status, I beg you to please just stop. You're just using a tool used to put blacks down.

Secondly, I wish we could have a real discussion of what people mean by "equal" and how skin color should not matter. Historically, that is how it's been and we see the cycle as explained earlier in this thread...which is probably why some have adopted wrong-headed measures because they have to over correct. Usually when people say "let the best person get the job" they don't understand that that has been used as a code to keep certain people out and keep certain people in power or to keep giving them opportunities. This "color-blindness" usually results in actual unequal treatment and people don't notice it because they just automatically assume that white people are usually the best and they are the default. However, when a minority actor gets cast, whether or not there is an affirmative action or not, their qualifications and whatnot are always questioned, even if they perform well. That is why Sonia Sotomayor, unlike Clarence Thomas, welcomed and embraced her Affirmative Action status because she knew she'd be questioned no matter what (and she has) and she understood that she gained an opportunity she would not have received otherwise despite her already impressive qualifications to enter Yale Law School and it lead her to the career she had. Thomas became bitter about the experience but Sotomayor seems more mindful that there were just so many obstacles that she had to face compared to her peers at Yale that Yale offered to give her a little assistance to help her be put on equal footing because she already had the qualifications (Princeton grad, etc.).

Third, I'm sort of happy the agent said what she said because all the push back is clearly all about maintaining power and seeing equality as a threat to maintaining that power and privilege. That is what she was pretty much expressing even if I ended up agreeing with her conclusion that BAME casting seems off. However, her rationale and mine seem absolutely different and that is what matters.

Updated On: 5/9/18 at 09:27 AM

[Tom5]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 9:31am

Going back to the OP I immediately identified him as a provocateur and nothing more. But he should be happy now.

[theatregoer3]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 10:31am

The issue I have with Dave's position on this this is that he's coming at this from the standpoint of numerical ethics. I don't think it's possible to box this diversity in art issue into numbers nor is that really the point. This isn't necessarily a numbers game.

Art can only thrive and expand when it's fed with new ideas, new viewpoints, new voices - a diversity of ideas. I - and most others, I believe - will now find it odd to see only caucasian artists involved in any piece of art unless it is a distinct decision. That's because we've moved past the whitewashed (not meant critically) theater we've been experiencing for decades and we are craving new ideas. Those new ideas are coming from diversity. Diversity of experience, opinion, etc. 

For example, we've seen a successful new take on classical American plays form European/Scandinavian artists thanks to Ivo Van Hove and the Toneelgroep. While white, those artists are offering a new take on the classics thanks to opinions and ideas that most American artists would not have discovered. The same can be said by having black actors take on the roles of white founding fathers, etc. We can also see that the old tropes of race - like Vietnamese seen through the eyes of white Europeans/Brits - are no longer successful as proven by the relative financial and artistic failure of the Miss Saigon revival. Whereas we all assumed that revival would potentially have a new take on the story, by not bringing in new voices and ideas, the show came across as yellow-faced buffoonery. 

This agent is looking at art through an economic lens. Perhaps this agent has a primarily white rooster of clients and is finding work harder to come by because the medium is expanding into new territories that this agent does not represent. As said by another artist, this does not mean that non-white actors are taking jobs from white actors. This means the medium is evolving into something else as it always has and as any art form will in order to keeping moving.

I also find it odd that the agent is not voicing concern about celebrity/Hollywood names taking nearly every role on stage these days. That - in my mind - would be a greater concern for any theatrical agent. But perhaps that's just a completely different subject that shouldn't be raised on this thread.

Dave does raise a valid point in the lack of Asian representation on stage. I'm not just referring to China, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, but also the Middle East as a whole! Asia is sorely underrepresented. As is South America. 

In the end, I believe that trying to make this a numbers game will never help argue against the topic of diverse representation on stage. Art is so much more than that.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 10:52am

Well said, theatregoer3.

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 11:04am

The agent and those who support her point of view are essentially arguing that the default casting for all roles is a white actor, and that only white actors are cast based on merit. In this formulation, any time a nonwhite actor is cast in a part, they're taking a role away from a more deserving white actor. That, of course, is BS. There's also the suggestion that only white actors are cast based on merit, and that whenever a nonwhite actor gets a part, it's due to tokenism/affirmative action. Also BS.

[Sondheimite]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 11:04am

Can we mass exodus from this site?  I'm so sick of racist diatribes being left up for everyone to see while BroadwayWorld is deleting responses to it.

Disgusting.

Can we make a new message board?  There are multiple sites to host message boards on.  This site's moderators have long taken the bite out of this board.

[BWWMatt]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 11:14am

Just to be clear, the only posts that have been deleted from this thread are ones that were personally attacking other people or using profanity, as those things are violations of our rules. All other posts discussing the topic of the thread have remained. In fact, in an effort to maintain the discourse in as productive of a manner as possible, whenever feasible, we have removed personal attacks/profanity from posts, but left the rest of the message up (the edit is noted in the post) in an effort to keep passionate responses in the discussion.

As much as we might personally disagree with certain posts and points of view in this thread, as long as the discussion stays out of profanity and personal attacks, it will remain up and open for now. If there are things in the thread that you think violate the board's rules, please let us know either by private message, or by using the options at the bottom of specific posts. 

[astromiami]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 11:57am

I do not get Dave's problem. By his own admission, all the casting policies in place have brought us close to parity (even if POCs are underrepresented in leads). 10% populatin and 12% casting, So these policies are leading to greater fairness.

Why would he argue against that? Without such policies wouldn't whites be tremendously over represented? Would a man so concerned about equity in casting demographics not give an attaboy to the fair representation that has been achieved?

I do think though that if you took out chorus roles--or musicalls altogether, the picture is a bit different--so I disagree with Dave. But under his own term, things are working out fairly, yet he still finds reason to complain.

Updated On: 5/9/18 at 11:57 AM

[Kad]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 11:59am

You are assuming he is arguing in good faith, which he is not.

[Elegance101]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 12:28pm

Don't try to get logical about his arguments. You'll go crazy if you try to make sense of what he says and make sense of why he thinks his thoughts make him more tolerant than us.

Every time I read a Dave post, I'm scratching my head and audibly saying "what the..."

[kdogg36]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 12:30pm

Dave28282 said: "If 10 actors audition for a role, of which one black actor, there is a 90% chance the black actor does not get the role, based purely on equal statistics. Which would mean that there is a 90% chance that anyshow does not have a black actor, if based purely on talent."

Others are doing a fine job of critiquing the substance of your nonsense, but I need to inject some math here. Let's say a show has ten roles, that 10% of the actors auditioning for each role are African American, the rest are white, and the race of each actor cast in a role is a matter of chance. In this case, there would be a 10% chance (0.1 probability) for an African American actor to be cast, and a 90% (0.9 probability) chance that a white actor would be cast, in each role. This means that the chance of white actors being cast in every role is 0.9^10, or about 0.35 (35%). There's a 65% chance that at least one of the African American actors would be cast, purely by chance.

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 1:33pm

BWWMatt said: "Just to be clear, the only posts that have been deleted from this thread are ones that were personally attacking other people or using profanity, as those things areviolations of our rules. All other posts discussing the topic of the thread have remained. In fact, in an effort to maintain the discourse in as productive of a manner as possible, whenever feasible, we have removed personal attacks/profanity from posts, butleft the rest of the message up (the edit is noted in the post) in an effort to keep passionate responses in the discussion.

As much as we might personally disagree with certain posts and points of view in this thread, as long as the discussion stays out of profanity and personal attacks, it will remain up and open for now. If there are things in the thread that you think violate the board's rules, please let us know either by private message, or by using the options at the bottom of specific posts."

What about posts that really are blatant attacks on POC and targeting black people specifically? Those posts have been left up in numerous threads.

[BWWMatt]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 1:53pm

ScottyDoesn'tKnow2 said: "What about posts that really are blatant attacks on POC and targeting black people specifically? Those posts have been left up in numerous threads."

Scotty, going back through this thread, while I personally might disagree with any number of the posts (and even find some offensive), nothing in this thread seems to rise to the level of an attack. One of the reasons that message boards exist is for people to discuss and debate things with people whom they do not see eye-to-eye on. Unfortunately, so much of the internet has become an echo-chamber for what one already believes. 

So, it is no surprise that when issues as personally held as racial representation are brought up in a public forum, that people will disagree, and very likely will end up being offended; and yes-- as people on both sides of this discussion have stated-- you might find the other side to be racist. 

Therefore, our options are to completely shut down any discussion of these types of hot-button issues all together, delete any posts that we disagree with, or to monitor and remove the posts that violate our rules, and allow posters to have a debate that-- while it might not change anyone's mind-- will at least give everyone the opportunity to voice their opinion in a constructive manner. 

If it seems like the conversation has run its course, and the dialogue has devolved into something less than constructive, that is when we will consider locking the thread. We realize that this might not be the way that everyone would like things to be handled, but we feel that this is the most open, transparent way to attempt to handle things moving forward. 

I would also recommend that if people know that posts of a specific user are often offensive to them, that they use the block function, or to avoid threads that touch on the issues that they might find problematic. And, as always, if anyone believes that a specific post violates our rules, please use the options at the bottom of the post to bring it to our attention right away. 

We truly appreciate everyone's feedback as we try and improve how these things are addressed. 

[ScottyDoesn'tKnow2]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 2:05pm

That's quite an interesting response, especially your use of the term "echo chamber". I think what is considered a personal attack and what is not needs to be defined more because the way it's being enforced seems selective and/or arbitrary and the term itself is vague since there are so many posts that are up that can be construed as a "personal attack".

Updated On: 5/9/18 at 02:05 PM

[Kad]

Posted: 5/9/18 at 2:09pm

I think this highlights a blindspot in the application of the rules: trolls that are inflammatory without otherwise breaking the rules (ie attacking people, etc) slide under the radar.