Casting without Considering Appearance — Page 8

That's true about the blond wig on Garland, but actually in the book Dorothy's hair color is never mentioned. And the original W. W. Denslow illustrations show her with sort of auburn hair.

But the illustrator who did the rest of the series (and wrote two of his own) always depicted her as blond.

Either way, there's no reason her hair can't be any color at all.

Perhaps Phyllis you didnt read the title of this thread. its "Casting without Considering Appearance" note, its not about just race. so that includes gay, straight, skinny, fat, young, old, short, tall, blonde, brunette as well as race. not everyone is obsessed about race

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If you share it with me, 'cause I'm only observing from here on out.

I'll share with you newintown.

Phyllis, sorry that came out toney... you have a point about gay/straight, but earlier in the thread the gay/straight thing was mentioned which is why i included it

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Updated On: 1/17/13 at 11:10 AM

The parents may have just been upset their child was not Dorothy, and used the hair as a point of contention or scapegoat instead of just plain jealousy.

I can share this story (with absolutely no opinion connected): when Christine Andreas, a brunette, played Laurey in the 1979 revival of Oklahoma!, they changed Jud's lyric in "Lonely Room" from "her long, yeller hair" to "her long, raven hair."

I think some blonde actresses did picket the Palace briefly, but back then, no one took much notice of such things.

^^^^Why are we picking on Sue? Her point was just that some people take their preconceptions about a character's appearance VERY seriously. Wasn't it only a decade ago that some theater in New Jersey got death threats because they cast an African-American as Jesus. (I guess black Judases are okay.)

I'll even admit that *I* was surprised by the blonde Belle on the current TV show, ONCE. I just didn't send ABC a death threat over it. I thought, "Oh, well. Different version, different interpretation." But I'm terribly sophisticated that way.

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Thank you for the correction, Regi. I must have gotten the blonde Dorothy from the illustrations in the later books, because I remember being surprised as a kid, well before I ever heard about the Garland wig. (I assume the latter was more an attempt to make her look like Shirley Temple than an effort to be true to the books).

Updated On: 1/17/13 at 11:26 AM

I think the blonde wig for Garland was initially chosen because blonde was in at the time. I don't think it was necessarily an attempt to subconsciously make people think of Shirley Temple, especially as the styling of the wig was nowhere near the look of Temple's trademark curls.

And, going off topic because I love talking Oz, even the Baum books are riddled with inconsistencies. For instance, Ozma is blonde at the end of The Marvelous Land of Oz when she is first transformed back into Ozma (and not just in the illustration, Baum describes her as fair haired). Then she must start visiting the royal beauty parlor because she is illustrated as dark haired (I don't remember if Baum describes her as such or just ignores it) in the rest of the books once Dorothy is brought back into the series.

People also lost their sh*t about Rue, a character who was clearly written to be dark-skinned in the book, being playing by an African-American actress.

People also went crazy about Willow Smith, who played Prim, because the headshot available at the time showed her with a unibrow.

Gav, in her short tenure here Sue has offered some odd and uninformed opinions on a variety of threads. And I don't think you're quarreling, but I still maintain that there's no bullying happening.

The only casting complaint I have on OUAT is the differences in accents, like how Aurora has a standard USA accent, while Philip keeps the actor's British accent.