Passing On The Diversity Pass

Craig,

It comes as quite a shock to find myself agreeing with you. But you’re right on this. John Updike, no mean scribbler, makes the same point:

“… the function of fiction is not to render verdicts or effect social justice but to give evidence, and the truthful impressions of a male chauvinist better serve both noble ends than a squirmy political correctness.”

I’ll note in passing that squirmy political correctness can take many forms and the right is as guilty, if not guiltier, than the left in many ways.

Oh, and you’re copyright and separation of rights articles are extremely well done and useful.

Thanks, Mr. Insufferable

Possibly what Mr. Epstein meant is that unless it is critical to the story, characters should not have a specific ethnicity, meaning not that they are white but that they are open. If I don’t write a character Black, Indian, Polynesian or Jewish, it doesn’t mean I’m writing him white. I’m leaving it to the casting director, who can feel free to cast the person she feels best fits the role.

Hmmmm…

I’m not sure how to formulate this post. At first I was sort of agreeing with you but then…

…not so much.

Guess what? I’m black. A negro. Colored.

I’m a Screenwriter, a Director, and a Producer. And my being black has absolutely NOTHING to do with who I am.

Hmmm…

That’s a lie. But I wish it was the truth. Because when I walk into a room, I’m no longer a Screenwriter, a Director, or a Producer.

I’m a BLACK screenwriter.

I’m a BLACK director.

I’m a BLACK producer.

Because of my race I will always have a little qualifier before my job title. And I think it sucks. No, I know it sucks.

You know what I do when I get a script? I automatically think if I can make one of the main characters another race than white.

Does that make me a racist?

Absolutely not.

So why else would I do that? Why would anyone want to give a Diversity Pass?

Because there’s a ridiculous lack of ethnic characters in film and television. But it makes me think of what you said…“Every character must have a race and ethnicity, just as they must have a gender, height, weight, marital status, sexual orientation and state of physical attractiveness. Their race and ethnicity will inform them, to varying extents, just as their gender, height, weight, marital status, sexual orientation and state of physical attractiveness does.”

Why is that? I think there are a very few characters in film that would have suffered if their gender or race was switched. We did it with Monster’s Ball and you know what? The main character being switched from white to black made the film better.

Now I’m the most Politically Incorrect guy on the planet so when I see a movie and the scary street gangs all look like The Jets from West Side Story…yeah, that’s pretty fucking stupid. But you have to admit, there’s no reason for a film to have such an unnatural lack of ethnic characters. I’m not citing Woody Allen, mind you. Woody Allen writes about his personal life and in his personal life THERE ARE NO BLACK PEOPLE.

You can even switch it around. Take Enemy of the State with Will Smith. Are you telling me that his character being Black had anything to do with the story? Are you telling me that the film couldn’t have been recast with John Cusack? Of course it could. And you could recast Regina King with Amber Valleta. Or you could just keep Regina King. Wouldn’t have changed a thing.

So unless you’re telling a story that revolves around race, you can change a character’s race anytime you’d like. Wouldn’t change a thing.

Admit it, some of you guys in this blog thought I was white. But now you all know that I’m black. Did anything change? Did my posts change in tone or theme?

Nope.

I just happen to be Black.

Craig:

A great post. I agree entirely.

Kevin:

I already knew you were black; your picture on IMDb gave you away. ;)

With regard to your Diversity Pass, that doesn’t make you racist, but it does mean that you are using the film to achieve goals unrelated the telling the story.

I’m Australian, so if I looked for where I could cast an Aussie over an American, I’m making a change that might be for the better, but it isn’t motivated by making the story better.

I think Craig’s point was that changing something like a character’s race for a reason other than to improve the story isn’t a good idea, which I agree with entirely.

I completely agree with you Craig.

Interesting that those in favor of NOT doing a diversity pass are white guys.

I’m not in favor of turning your characters every color of the rainbow JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN. It’s ridiculous to consider plugging in a token character of any minority just because you think the casting director might not consider actors of all races. Nobody likes being the token anything.

I am however, in favor of “playing” with race and how that informs your character. For instance, a half Asian lesbian (which is what I am) is going to look at things differently than a white Valley Girl. So, my reaction to something is definitely going to be different than “hers”. There’s no saying that a character who’s black is going to make it a “better” story but then again, there’s no saying it won’t. I don’t see any harm in doing a diversity pass.

Kevin:

In part, you’re talking about casting. That’s different than writing. For instance, the writer of Monster’s Ball didn’t kneejerk his way into writing the female lead as black out of some deference to racial balance in writing.

Casting is a whole ‘nother ball of wax.

Since Monster’s Ball clearly dealt with the race of the characters head-on, that film would obviously fall under my “movies that are, in part, about race” theory.

Will Smith is an leading male actor who, like you, “happens to be black.” As such, he can play in movies that have race as a central issue (like, say, Ali) as well as movies that don’t (like, say, Hitch).

In fact, all black actors have this ability (although some are better than others).

So do all white actors.

I don’t practice affirmative action with characters, as you do, because from a writing point of view, all of my characters’ racial and ethnic profiles are intentional.

From a casting and producing point of view, you may see things differently. Frankly, it makes good sense to practice affirmative action as a producer, because black audiences (God spare me the hideous euphemism “urban”…is there a more loathsome term?) tend to gravitate towards films they might otherwise ignore if they feature black actors.

I’ll grant you that in Hollywood, you’re a black writer/producer/director. No way around that. The majority mind works by presuming norms and remarking upon statistical anomalies. On the other hand, for what it’s worth, everyone’s getting reduced, categorized and treated callously by the Machine that is a bottom-line oriented capitalistic industry.

Funny…I had this very same discussion with Charles Stone a year or so ago (with him taking your side). In the end, my argument is that the strongest position for a black director to take is that they make movies of the kind they love with the best available actors…and thus break the cycle of being identified with race.

Opting to push race only serves to reinforce the view of an individual as some kind of pseudopod growth emerging from a larger social entity.

Allow me to use John August as an example. John is gay, but he most typically writes movies that don’t include gay themes or gay actors.

Has he turned his back on gay America? Did he have a duty to them in the first place? All good questions, but I’d say that all John does is the hardest thing in the world…the best job he can, all extraneous concerns (like sexuality) aside.

Shonda Rhimes runs Grey’s Anatomy, which is (finally!) a show run by a black writer that isn’t a so-called “black show”. My friend and fellow Board member Larry Wilmore has often stated that the best measure of black writers’ success and failure in gaining ground in television is how many black writers are hired on non-black shows. Like he says, it’s great that The Steve Harvey Show hired a ton of black writers, but how many black writers get hired on Friends? Or Frasier?

In short, I believe in decoupling the race of the writer from the racial aspects of the material…unless that writer just feels like dedicating his energy to stories about race, the way that Spike Lee does.

Writergurl:

How do you know we’re all white guys?

We are, but whatever. :)

I’m entirely in favor of what you’re entirely in favor of! Playing with race intentionally in order to create an interesting character is called writing.

Writing a character and then changing her to a, say, half-Asian lesbian (lesbiasian?) after the fact because you want to appear sensitive and engaged and with it is, well, like you said…ridiculous.

It’s the “pass” part that makes me nuts. Making it post facto is an admission of cynical manipulation.

Hey Craig, interesting post. I do the internationl pass as I write - specifically when I’m in a scene, and I need a doctor for example who will have five lines - I try to drop my “first mind” thought (read: easy unconcious obvious choice) of a white guy (as that happens to be my knee-jerk pop up image in that profession) and blink it to something else I would expect less because it inevitably makes for more interesting chemistry/dynamic/dialoge. Ironically it probably helps break down racial prejudice as well if you expand your thinking out that far. I think that’s what Alex is doing. He finishes a story, and then goes back through it again to flag his “first mind” choices and improve them. Does he tweak the dialogue after making the choice? Probably. Is it still writing? Of course it is. You are revealing an interesting bias you have about process, and objecting to someone else’s process being different than your own. You are assuming the purity of his writing is being fouled by a mindful attack on what should be an inspired and deeply selfless art. But that is your gift to create that way. His is different. It doesn’t make his writing incorrect. His path is just different. Do you object to the way he lays out his idea as something others should do? Perhaps that’s it. We all get to ‘the end’ the best way we can, and if you have ten writers in a room, guaranteed it’s ten different ways. I think we serve each other better by sharing it all and letting inspiration fall where it may. Best, Phil.

CRAIG:

I guess I do see your point. It’s very hard for me to separate the writer from the producer. So yes, I guess my argument does kind of fall into casting.

It’s funny that you use Charles Stone in your post. I guess he may fall onto “my side” not only because he’s black but also because he gets offered every damn black project there is. (And Charles Randolph Wright, Malcolm Lee, and Rick Famuyiwa…)

Serial, the movie I directed has an incredibly ethnically diverse cast but I didn’t do that on purpose. And a comedy script I wrote called The Funny One centers around a mid 30’s Jewish gal living as a comedy writer in Detroit. If I made that character black just for the sake of making her black, it would ruin a lot of the “character stuff” that was put in there.

So I do see your point.

Pet Peeve alert:

I hate when race and sexual orientation are used as metaphors or analogies. It ain’t the same thing. Not by a long shot.

KONRAD:

That stupid picture of me on IMDB isn’t my fault! My publicist put that up there and I could kill her for doing that. But as long as it’s up there…do you like it?:)

Kevin:

Seems like we agree. And for my analogies, I apologize. They always suck. I’m famous for it.

Kevin, the opposite is true for me. Because I have written stories where the central character(s) are black facing challenges relative to race, I am presumed by most readers and producers to be black. I often hear “well, if you aren’t black, what compelled you write this screenplay?”… as if you have to be a fish to write Finding Nemo.

Konrad, Aussie vs. American is nationality, not race.

Mr. Insufferable, sorry to disagree with you and Mr. Updike, but giving evidence, truth or fictional, can certainly affect and effect social justice and whether or not it is the purpose of the fiction depends on the motives of the author.

Kevin:

Keep it. Makes you look very cool. (Of course, you probably are cool, but how do I know?) ;)

Maryan:

Just an analogy, though, admittedly not a great one. But what is a good analogy for race? Anyway, my point was about making story changes (whether race or nationality) for social/political reasons rather than what is good for the story.

Konrad:

You just Kevin is probably cool because he’s black. Man, I hate that stereotype.

I’m black and I AM NOT COOL.

Konrad:

You just said Kevin is probably cool because he’s black. Man, I hate that stereotype.

I’m black and I AM NOT COOL.

Ya Boy,

I think you may have missed the nature of the exchange between Kevin and Konrad.

KEVIN I just happen to be black.

KONRAD I already knew you were black; your picture on IMDb gave you away. ;)

KEVIN That stupid picture of me on IMDB isn�t my fault! My publicist put that up there and I could kill her for doing that. But as long as it�s up there�do you like it?:)

KONRAD Keep it. Makes you look very cool. (Of course, you probably are cool, but how do I know?) ;)

Ya Boy:

Hey, the only blacks I see on a regular basis are on American TV and movies, and they are all cool. It is simply not possible that you are not. ;)

Kevin and Craig:

When you read a script wherein a character’s race is not mentioned, do you generally assume they are white?

And how do you pronounce your last names? MAY-zin and AR-boh-oo-et? Sorry Kevin, no idea. ;)

It’s MAY-zin. It’s probably supposed to be more like MY-ZIN, as it’s a Slavic name, but I go with may-zin.

A terrific post and an issue that needs to be addressed, but on a larger scale than who gets what role in a movie.

I’m against race. It’s an entirely artificial and man-made construct, it sucks and is stupid and the very concept itself IS racist. What does it exist for, except to label people en masse and sort them into categories rather than do the harder work of getting to know them and judge them on an individual basis?

I’m trying hard to not recognize “race” as a concept and state so on all forms where I’m asked to check race now and I’m kind of hoping that everyone else will start doing so — why should anyone know what race we are? For any reason? Yes, cling to your cultural heritage, but does it have to be anything more than YOUR cultural heritage to be meaningful to you?

Great PBS documentary on this wherein it was shown there is no overwhelming genetic similarity between people of the same “race” and in fact, people of different races turned out be much more genetically similar. So there’s no genetic basis for it — what is there? A visual and xenophobic basis, we just fear people who look different than we do. And we should get over it.

So, I’ve started to refuse to answer the question in the rare circumstance it comes up — Vin Diesel does the same, and this is one of the few things you can like about him — does it broaden his fan base, yes, and that’s probably why he does it, still, it seems to be a class move.

I may be a Pollyanna, but it seems like the goal at the end of this is to recognize only the one, human race and judge each individual on their own merits or lack thereof — so that there can BE a stupid character of ANY “race”, who doesn’t have to symbolize THE WHOLE “RACE” and say ALL MEMBERS OF RACE X ARE STUPID…or a brilliant character of any race — tho’ those NEVER seem to be representative for some reason. The goal’s a long way off, but it starts with small steps.

Why the obsession with labels? Writergurl, you’re half Asian and and half something else and all lesbian, but I bet you’re way more than that.

Unfortunately, in the society I live in, my actions will have little effect, since I present as a member socioeconomically and socially advantage ethnic group (boy, trying to write about “race” without saying “race” or using the name of one of the “races” is hard). And it conflicts with pro-affirmative action stance — but hey, ANYBODY who was EVER treated unfairly, regardless of “race”, ought to get a fair shake, just to balance things karmically — that’s why I support it…I look forward to a time when it will not be necessary, and no one cares about anyone’s ethnicity, but only their merits as an individual.

MLK — color of skin vs. content of their character, right?

cbs milliondollarscreenwriting.com

PS. And still, I enjoy a good ethnic joke, if it’s well told and in the proper spirit. A study in contradictions.

The feeling I get is that Alex may be getting a little bit of a bad rap based on semantics.

Using the term “diversity pass” seems to imply sort of a casual, arbitrary assignment of race. Like changing, “the cop” to “the Asian cop” and feeling like you’ve done Asians a great favor by creating a role for them.

But is that what Alex is really talking about? Or is he doing more of what Phillip Morton says, which is going back through the script after the fact and finding places where ethnicity can be included … and can enhance the quality of the scene/character?

It seems to me that a diversity pass is a good idea WHEN IT MAKES THE SCRIPT MORE INTERESTING.

Oftentimes we write scenes where the main character interacts with a secondary character (a cab driver, a doorman, whatever), and the scenes come out flat. Why?

Because there’s no conflict.

And why would there be? The main character doesn’t know this secondary character — why would they have any conflict?

But if you assign that secondary character a race (or nationality or sexual orientation), you’re creating a prism through which that character views the world.

Suddenly, you’ve got a source of conflict. It may be a direct conflict between the main and secondary ethnic character, or it may be an internal conflict within the secondary character that affects his attitude towards the main character. Either way, that little bit of friction may be all you need to make your scene more interesting.

To use a deliberately over-the-top example:

You’re writing a movie about a bunch of WASPy corporate types (like the oil moguls in SYRIANA). They’re in a meeting, and it’s time to order lunch. They call in the assistant and ask him to suggest a good place to order lunch. He suggests ordering from KFC, then exits.

Yawn. Boring.

Now, same scene, but the assistant is black, and the WASPy corporate types ask if he knows where they can get some good fried chicken. There’s an underlying racist condescension that can totally affect the dynamic of the scene. The assistant still suggests ordering from KFC, and he still exits. But the extra dimension of race can add a little electricity to the WAY he suggests KFC, and the way he exits.

(As I said, an over-the-top example, but I hope it illustrates my point)

Kevin,

You know, comparing gays to blacks doesn’t take anything away from black people. Besides, much as “your” community is loath to admit it, there are many gay people who just happen to be (gasp!) black. It’s funny, the black gay people that I know, and know of, don’t have a problem with the race/sexual orientation analogies. It’s just the straight, often homophobic, black people who suffer from the “Don’t lump THEM in with US” mindset.

Usually, those who use the gay/race anology are trying to find common ground in both groups being denied civil liberties simply because “we” are “different” than the white majority of this country and both groups have suffered from knee jerk discrimination.

Would you have gays compared with Jews? Oh, wait, that’s a race/sexual orientation thing too. Damn. I know, Japanese people! No. Damn. Race rears its ugly head there too… Oh, wait, perhaps you just don’t want “queers” compared to BLACKS! Too bad. Like it or not, blacks and gays ARE the closest in terms of being denied civil liberties, being discriminated against by our military and being hated (even killed) simply for being what we are. I fear the comparisons will continue.

But, I’m all for trying to find something else…

Hmm… let’s see, are there any analogies that DON’T use race/sexual orientation? Oh, I got it, you’d be happier if there was an analogy using gender/sexual orientation? Right. Except… well, then there’d have to be a wholesale consensus that women have been routinely discriminiated against for thousands of years, cause Lord knows, men haven’t. But, then you’d have men the world over swearing that women have been well treated. And if the men were a little over bearing, it’s not discrimination, no… it’s because we all know that women need to be “protected”. As the “weaker” sex, of course. Oh, puh-lease.

Geez, I’m stumped. Other than race/gender and sexual orientation there ARE no differences in humans. Unless you want to go the way of Nazi Germany and use things as trite as hair color and height…

I guess there is no analogy that we could use if we played but your prefences, huh?

Guess we poor gays will just have to solider on alone. No, don’t worry, really, we’ll be ok, even without your “support”. We’re tough. We’ve had to be. Much like any other group of people that have been made to suffer for one reason or another by those who are closed minded and bigoted.

I think the reason race and sexual orientation is not necessarily an accurate comparison is that some can hide being gay if they choose to. It’s not quite so easy to hide your race or ethnicity.

If a gay person chooses to be open and overt about their sexuality, then their experience with discrimination may be similar to what a person of color experiences.

I can’t speak for Kevin’s motivations, but that’s what I got from his comments.

Chris, I am many things…

Lesbian, Half Asian, a goof ball sometimes, a self starter, a business owner, a writer, a dog lover, a romantic at heart, incredibly stubborn, a loyal friend, someone’s daughter, the girl some guy lost his virginity too… all those things and more. BUT. It is a sad fact of life that we are all judged by our exteriors. I don’t look like a typical Asain woman. Nor do I look anything like the stereotypical “dyke”. One of the things that confounds people most about me is that I DO NOT look like these two “facts” about me say I should. You’ve meet me, I’d wager that had someone asked you, (without any prior knowledge of my ethnicity) you’d of said that I was Native American. (That’s what I get the most.) Or, possibly, Eskimo or Hawaiian. And, I’ll wager that you wouldn’t peg me as a lesbian either (based upon the number of guys who hit on me.) People change their behavior towards me when “the truth” about me is revealed to them. People’s perceptions and prejudices about those things play a great deal in how they react to those two facets of who I am. And, it also affects how they treat me when they know those things about me.

Which is all fodder for writing an interesting character. I don’t care if you do it as you are writing the first draft or the fifth, is all I’m saying. (And, I think the crux of what Alex was trying to say.) Make your character come alive somehow, don’t let them be the sterotype that leaps into people’s head. Whether that requires a “pass” or lots of thinking prior to placing fingertips to keyboard is moot.

Warren, as a CLASS, blacks and gays have many smiliarities in being discriminated against. Besides, there have always been some people who are “technically” black, those who are capable of “passing” for white… who have “hid” their blackness (just as some gay people hide their gayness). All this hiding is based upon not wanting to be discrimintaed against.. for any reaason.

ps… “open” and “overt”… two totally different kettle of fish.

Frankly, I’m interested in the virginity story the most, but I’ll put that aside for the moment.

Some gay folks can pass as straight. Some pass as a matter of effort. Others pass because they just naturally don’t show any evident gay mannerisms.

But some gay folks are evidently gay, and there’s nothing they can do to hide it. Happily, most gay folks I know don’t feel the need to (and can be rather critical of other homosexuals who do try and pass).

I guess I’m with writergurl on this one. I’m not sure where the sensitivity about race vs. sexual orientation comes from. All I know is that my pet peeve is “oppression battles”. I still remember a black student and a Jewish student debating which was worse…slavery or the Holocaust.

Which was worse? That’s irrelevant…and insane.

Anyway, while I disagree with writergurl on the whole diversity pass thing, I’m going to stand with her on the gay/race relevance thing.

“You cannot not be an essentialist to some degree. The critique of essentialism is predicated upon essentialism” - Landy and Maclean quoted at Essentialism

I tend to agree with Craig that a ‘diversity pass’ smacks of superficial moral superiority - but thats perhaps because for me race isn’t always an interchangeable thing. While it may be a human-made construct, it certainly can affect the way the world perceives individuals and thus the way said individual perceives the world. This mightn’t always be the case, but that will change from person to person (and from character to character).

“Well, then there’d have to be a wholesale consensus that women have been routinely discriminiated against for thousands of years, cause Lord knows, men haven’t. “

Yup, because the men that were conscripted into Vietnam weren’t being discriminated against… nor were the men sold into slavery… nor were the men that were press-ganged into the British Navy… nor were all the land-less men that were also denied sufferage… nor are all the men who die from testicular cancer each year (more men die of testicular cancer than women die of breast cancer… yet the latter is funded tenfold)… nor were the gay men who were convincted of sodomy?

I’m not trying to say that Women haven’t been oppressed, they have been; but so have some categories of men. Is it less oppressive when its lower class and/or undereducated men?*

Men (especially Black Men) are far far more likely to receive the death penalty as Women… for the same crime. Is this because Women are unfairly perceived as being the ‘weaker sex’ or because Men are unfairly perceived as being the ‘stronger sex’?

Am I just trying to be a victim?

For me, the problem isn’t gender or sexuality or race - the problem is the structures which allow oppression to occur, regardless of those who are being oppressed. Unfortunately, I have little faith that said structures can be destroyed as they ultimately have a symbiotic relationship with power… and Life Is The Will To Power.

… and yes, even if I don’t write ‘Message’ films said thinking permeates every page that I write. Why? Because its a key part of how I perceive and understand the world around me.

Dam the link didn’t come out:

http://www.english.emory.edu/Bahri/Essentialism.html

Stuart:

I’ve been having some issues with links in comments. Not your fault.

Does the diversity pass make sense as a method of correcting for known faults of other movie makers?

For example, suppose you are writing on assignment, and you know the casting director (or agency) who has been chosen for the project simply doesn’t (for whatever reason) give non-white actors a fair go for any role that isn’t racially specified. Is there anyway to address that sort of problem through the writing?

CW:

No. Generally, your job is on its way to completion by the time the casting director is hired. The characters are set.

Secondly, casting directors cast as they’re told. If they’re told black, they cast black. They don’t discriminate. They don’t care. They just want to make the director and producer happy.

I’m gonna have to go with Writergurl on this one. I think what this country needs is more shows about half asian lesbians. Whether their having a pillow fight or playing strip twister half asian lesbians have a lot to teach this hateful, racist, mysoginistic, non-spellchecking country.

DANIEL L:

About my post way up there, referring to Konrad’s post: I was kidding.

I AM VERY COOL.

But Konrad knew that already.

Ah, Konrad, clearly, you’ve been paying attention to my blog. I do love analogies, don’t I? While all analogies break down at some point, I can’t think of one for race that doesn’t break down at the very surface.

I like to think that there is a reason for every characters race. As I wrote in on of my posts (in my blog), it is all about balance the characters.

If a character is white or black doesn’t matter always of course. For example, as Kevin said, if the character was white in Enemy of the State, it would be the same story and all. BUT if the story NEEDS some special characteristics often there is a special ethnicity for it as well.

PS. See “Crash” by Paul Haggis.

Chris Soth: No intent to attack you or anything, but I think “being against race” is quite nonsensical. When asked to describe someone you always refer to the exterior specifics. “She’s got long brown hair in a pony tail and she wears the blue sweater.” Adding the race to that description is exactly that: descriptive, it makes it possible to distinguish people. There’s nothing wrong with that. Something does go wrong however when this description expresses a judgement or if it’s used in a condescending manner. Races exist and there’s nothing wrong with that. Racism however is a very bad thing, but by denying the “concept” of races it’s not going to go away. It’s quite the opposite, people should have to come out and say: “Yeah, races do exist, so f’ing what?”

This reminds me of discussions I’ve had with (some) radical feminists. They got all worked up whenever i suggested there ARE differences between men and women. As if that by admitting there are differences between both genders it would imply that one of the two genders is somehow less.

(Not-directed-to-anybody-rant) I think it very funny that many times people who correct me or even get mad at me whenever I’m referring to someone’s skin color to be descriptive, don’t see the irony when two minutes later I ask them: “You see that guy?” And they answer: “Yeah, the fat one?”

It could be argued that if a character could switch races and work on film, that the character was not written well, so the Enemy of the State argument doesn’t only holds about half the water with me.

I think part of being a writer is bearing your soul to the world. And since race is such a touchy subject, many writers hide their true selves because they don’t want to be seen as racist. It’s OK to have a black mugger if the statistics of the area where the mugging takes place indicate that most muggers are black. It is NOT OK to have a black mugger in the same area and situation, if you are doing it because you think all blacks are muggers.

If I’m writing a story about a professional football player who is a halfback, he’s probably going to be black, because there really are no white halfbacks (Mike Alstott is a full back as far as I know). So if I want a white halfback, that is a big deal, and my script will change if I chose to go in that direction.

And because I’m white I feel that I have to qualify the following remarks with “I’m not a racist, but…” I don’t agree that race is a human construct. Race is. People are different and that’s OK. To suggest that people are different seems to be taboo, but in the same breath we have to be diverse, and it seems wacky to this white writer. People classify things because that is what people do. I think it is one of our defining traits. The problem is when people take observations and use them as a definitive an anwavering description of everything of that type.

As far as I can tell, people of different races look different. Why do we assume that the differences are only skin deep? Because the people in power have used perceived differences to indicate dominance. I believe men and women have different abilities. I think whites, blacks, asians, and all others have some genetic predisposition to certain traits. And that’s OK. One’s not better than the other. Just different.

I obviously fall on the nature side of the nature/nurture debate, but that is another story.

Why can’t we just all get along?

Konrad:

It’s AR-BOO-WAY.

Nearly all George Romero movies were written without ethnicity because Romero prefers to decide that during casting and doesn’t want to exclude a great actor who fits the role, but who is of the wrong ethnicity.

This concept led to a black leading man in the NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, a choice that amplified the screenplay in numerous ways that were probably unintended when it was written and that made the ending a statement long remembered. Leaving his options opened turned a mediocre movie into a statement on race.

Ethnicity is not always a key component of a character and sometimes its a good idea to keep your options open.

WRITERGURL:

“It’s just the straight, often homophobic, black people who suffer from the “Don’t lump THEM in with US” mindset.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa!

Where in heck did your comment come from? Why did you assume that I was a Black Homophobe?! You took quite the leap there…

“Would you have gays compared with Jews? Oh, wait, that’s a race/sexual orientation thing too”

Huh? Actually you could easily compare Blacks with Jews.

But when I said that I hate when Race and Sexual Orientation are compared it’s simply because…it is not the same thing. One is RACE. The other is SEXUAL ORIENTATION. They are totally and completely separate. My being a Heterosexual and my being Black are not the same. And this is not a “Who’s oppressed more” battle. I just don’t know why in the world you would assume that I was homophobic. I hate to tell you this but my old boss Lee Daniels is Black and Gay. And he hates when Race and Sexual Orientation are compared. It’s simply not the same thing. That’s all I was saying.

Now getting back to the original topic…

Simply put, it would be nice if there were more diverse people up there on screen. Originally I thought my argument slide into the side of casting but you know what? Casting Directors will always assume “White” unless otherwise specified. Especially in television.

I think Philip Morton and Warren Benedetto have a very good point. Just try to make your script interesting. You have to admit, watching “Friends” was hilarious. New York City doesn’t have any Black people? Or Latinos? Or Asians? A “Diversity Pass” could have helped. If you look at Seinfeld, there was people of all races on the show all the time.

But again, I understand what Craig’s saying. Why would you do that? It is kind of Politically Correct and I HATE Politically Correct. But you know what? It all starts with writers. That’s how we progress as a society. Through our artists.

Craig, you your self have said…

“…it occurred to me that the very purpose of Our Thing is to affect an audience. We want them to cry, to laugh, to question their values and their lives. We want them to taste a small bit of death, or to reexperience the feeling they had when they first fell in love. This is powerful stuff. If it weren’t, no one would be shelling out dough for it. Hell, Capra made films to help indoctrinate our troops heading off to World War II.”

And…

“Do we not owe some consideration for our audience, or is this another one of those slippery slopes to disaster? What role does responsibility play for those of us who manufacture culture not just for the United States, but the entire world?”

If you truly believe your own statements, maybe a Diversity Pass ain’t such a bad idea after all…

I’m really enjoying this discussion.

One of the neat things about Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys is that, although (because?) the book’s filled with nonwhite characters, white folks are the only ones whose race is mentioned when they first show up.

My stuff tends to be pretty multiethnic, and I guess it’s manipulative. But writing’s manipulation anyway. One of the differences between good writers and bad writers is the degree to which they can make the reader forget they’re being manipulated. Black female judges are maybe too much of a bull’s-eye, but maybe not.

I dunno Craig. I don’t see the same diversity in film that I see in my own neighborhood.

And that’s particularly true when it comes to LEADS.

I can’t think of too many films where the leading guy is Asian, unless of course there’s a “reason” he has to be Asian, as in it’s a Foo-flick.

What do you honestly suppose the chances are right now of selling a script where the lead is an Arab guy? Unless of course there’s a “reason” for him to be Arab, or Native American, or whatever the hell, as in “we’re addressing the ‘issues’ that apply to some kind of stereotype in order to teach everybody a ‘lesson’ about how ‘we’re all the same just under the skin”.

But we’re not, are we? At least not when it comes to casting leads we’re not.

And this goes waaaaaaaaaaaaay beyond “race” or ethnicity imo.

SMART = NERD is another stereotype that exists, and from what I can see at least, it exists pretty much exclusively in film. Over the years I’ve wound up sitting across from a lot more than one “rocket scientist”, and I can tell you from extensive personal first hand experience, that there is just no way in HELL anybody would be able to tell which person is “the player”, which one was the “redneck truck driver”, the “Formula One race car driver”, the “college linebacker”, still very hot former “cheerleader”, “stripper”, “cowpoke”, or “Mob wise guy”, from the “theoretical particle physicist”, in a line up. At least not in the real world.

And yet… in Hollywood, and no place BUT Hollywood, in order to play “the scientific genius”, you’ve got to don the goofy, totally out of touch with the slightest sense of fashion or style specs, and have “issues” with women (if you’re a guy, or be hopeless attracting men if you’re a woman).

GAY = “SWISHY”. Honest to God, at least 3/4’s of the people I’ve met that are gay DON’T SWISH. They’re not into “show tunes”, “track lighting”, nor do they have a “thing” for Barbara Streisand. They drink as much beer as anyone else, and yell “BLAAAAAGH!” at the TV screen in a sports bar with every bit as much gusto as the straight guys, and do it for exactly the same reasons anybody else does in the bar, ‘cause it’s fun, and they’re enjoying themselves.

And yet… in film,…

Honest to God Craig, you’re going to think I’m making this up to counter your point, but I swear on my mother’s eyes THAT IT’S TRUE - the ONLY time I was ever mugged, was by a pair of fellow Caucasians. The little scrawny guy had blonde hair, and his gorilla side kick had light brown hair. It wasn’t “in New York”, but it was at a bus stop in Union City N.J. on the way to New York, right across the Hudson from Manhattan, in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood.

My auto mechanic’s name is Tarik, his daughters wear head scarves. What do you think the chances would be of him being cast as a Marine drill sergeant if he could act? Care to guess what he did for a living before opening his garage?

My next door neighbor is a big burly design development engineer that specializes in “vision systems” (eyes for industrial robots). The hours he spends in the gym every week show, he’s more Italian than most of the cannoli makers are these days in New York, and he really does say things like “Aaaaay, howyadoin’?” and “Fugeddabowdit. He tinks who he is. Fukum.” But can you really picture a guy like that being cast to play exactly what he does in real life? I can’t. Not unless he puts on enough weight to pass for nerdy, and loses the tough guy image he exudes.

My cousin, who’d have to have green blood to be any more Irish than he is, was a Dim Sum chef in China Town until the owner retired and “Ritchie me bi-yo” started working for Sprint.

Atool, my neighbor on the opposite side of my house from “Yo-sep” the engineer, is originally from India. Atool came here when he was around ten years old, and believe it or not, does NOT work at our local 7-Eleven, he works on the floor of the NYSE as a trader.

As for the person that is behind the counter of the local 7-Eleven, that’d be Ellen, fiftyish, and of French extraction. She came over some time during or just after WWII with her mother who was a “war bride”. I don’t know what parts she’d get with her still discernable accent if she was an actress, but I doubt that “the woman behind the counter” of a scene taking place in a 7-Eleven would be one she’d play all that often.

If I write characters like this into my stories, am I guilty of putting some kind of “utopian vision of what the world ought to be like” before my story? Or just reflecting what I see around me?

Mike:

Here, here!

And probably the most interesting concept in your post is this:

Why does there have to be a REASON someone appears in a screenplay that isn’t white? Why can’t they just be non-white? Or gay?

Why does race and sexual orientation have to be plot points?

How ‘bout this? The main character is from Indonesia. Just because.

Just because…

Craig, I think we are only in disagreement about one thing… the timing of when you tweak your characters. You’re a fan of the “think it all out before you type” school and I just don’t give a damn when you give your character a tweak, as long as they are interesting.

Kevin… I’m sorry you thought I was calling YOU a homophobe. If you read my sentence again, you will note that I did say “often homophobic”. If you’re so against the race/sexual orientation analogy, sugggest another. Go ahead. I’ll wait.

Stuart… again, as a CLASS of people, women have been far far more oppressed then men, and they continue to be oppressed… Iraq, Iran, Arabia, etc., remember those contries? How about Slavic women being kidnapped and sold into the sex slave trade? Please we could go on comparing the mistreatement but I bet you that I’d “win”, given that your examples, except for the cancer thing are all from the past. Meanwhile, right this second, some woman is being forced to be a prositute in a Slavic country, and another is being made to behave as the men of her Islamic country have decreed she must.

Your comparisions of cancer funding baffle me. If testicular cancer is killing that many men, why haven’t the men organized themselves like the women did 20 some years ago and begin working towards getting the funding needed? The breast cancer funding has NOT been a “Oh, let’s drop all this money on the girls” thing you imply it has. It has been a hard won and long fought struggle. Don’t get me wrong, I think cancer, of any kind, needs to be fought, agggresively, but if we start comparing lack of funding in diseases research and the search for a cure, then I gotta tell you we’re right back on the door step of the gays and blacks. AIDS? Remember it? Killed hundreds of thousands of people… still killing people today. It was completely underfunded in the first ten years or so that it became prevalent. I don’t wish to get into a discussion about disease when we are trying to talk about race and how it informs your characters, so I’ll refer you to the book “And the Band Played On.” by Randy Shilts. I don’t know if you’ll be able to find it, it’s out of print. Perhaps you could watch the movie by the same name although I feel it has less impact.

ps. Kevin, I wasn’t comparing Jews to Blacks, I was asking if you’d rather gays were compared to Jews, rather than to Blacks… you misread me.

Writergurl:

I know you weren’t comparing Jews to Blacks. I was just saying that you could. But no, you can’t compare Jews to Gays. It’s not the same.

Man…we are waaaaaaay off topic.

You can compare Homosexuality and Religion. I know, I know—you’re looking at the word “Jew” and saying, “Hey, that is a religion!”

It is.

But it isn’t.

Jewish people have the unfair disadvantage of being Jew by birth. David Cross, a hilarious comedian talks about being an Atheist but still considered a Jew no matter what.

Heh heh heh, I can already see into your mind with,”Gay people are born gay too!” I happen to agree but Jews win in the oppression department (Oh my God, did I just say that?)

Other than Jewish, Homosexuality and Religion are comparable analogies.

And women are way more discriminated against than men; from the dawn of time until well…now. No contest.

So let’s see…what’s the score?

THE OPPRESSION METER (1 TO 10)

• Blacks:
  10 points. You have the whole slavery thing. Then there’s still the discriminated against thing. Oh, and let’s not forget the Tuskegee Airmen… AND we get “ashy” when our skin is dry (If any non-whites know what “ashy” is, you get a point).

• Jews:
  10 points. Did you see The Ten Commandments? Did you see Schindler’s List? ‘nuff said!

• Gays:
  8 points. They get beaten up for being who they are. They get disowned for being who they are. Can’t even join the military if they know you are. But you lose 2 points because being gay is absolutely FABULOUS!

• Brown People: 7 points. No one can tell the difference between the Indians, Pakistani, Arab, or whatever else flavor you guys come in. EVERYONE thinks you’re a terrorist. EVERYONE thinks you at least know a terrorist. But you lose 3 points because your publicity sucks.

Oh boy…

I think there is one sobering thing that many forget about. And its a fact that you can’t escape.

Movies and TV shows are made to garner the largest audience possible. People like people who look like them. It doesn’t make them racist. It makes them comfortable. And because the country is still white by a large majority, the lead characters in movies and TV will default to white until the population shifts enough to warrant otherwise. Since white people are procreating a much slower rate than Blacks and Hispanics, that gap is narrowing sooner rather than later.

Also, writers write what they know. And if writers are predominantly white, the “default” characters in their scripts will be white. It is how your brain works, and how your society is.

It’s a cold hard fact that many people want to ignore because we are supposed to be above that.

And I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying that its that way, and you can’t change it. You really can’t. Try getting a studio to make a 150 million adventure movie with a black lead. The numbers will tell them that they’d be better off with a white person because they would get a broader audience.

All it takes is one maverick studio and a cooperating public to prove them wrong. Will it happen? In small increments.

I thought Denzel Washington could be the man to cross the threshhold. I like him alot. He’s charismatic. He has a good look. He’s a great actor. No dice so far.

Instead, it looks like we will have to endure “tweener” actors like The Rock or Vin Diesel.

Everyone wants to be the victim, but it is we who decide what is on the screen in the end. The gears may turn slow, but they do turn. Audiences will lose interest in the standard fare, and one day a studio will go out on a short limb and make a movie with an ethnic actor and the B.O. will be huge, and all of a sudden, everyone is looking to make the same thing.

It’s just a matter of time.

In a weird way, Craig is guilty of the exact thing he’s railing against. Here’s what I mean - making a character a specific race or nationality for no good reason is as pointless as specifying what color shirt they’re wearing, or specifiying their eye color. If, however, it’s a factor in the story - no matter how small - it is, of course, a fine thing to do. The REAL point of Craig’s essay is that every word matters, and if it doesn’t, it doesn’t belong in the script. But instead of saying that, he’s arbitrarily chosen to make it about race, which is…. well, arbitrary, and gets in the way of the larger point.

And, for the record, Night of the Living Dead is by no means a mediocre movie.

Thomas:

Two words. WILL SMITH.

But…you’re right. That’s only one. He’s the only black bankable star.

You’re right in a lot of ways. As a producer I am always thinking about ethnicity in film. We all do. To say that we don’t is a lie.

Sad…

I thought about Will Smith after I posted.

He’s bankable and he’s funny. I really liked him in Hitch. And he is spectacular in MIB, which I think just might be the funnest movie ever made. Is funnest a word? I don’t know, but it’s the only way to describe the funnatude of that movie.

Too bad MIB2 was a turd. Will Smith is a funny man with an honest look about him. I guess I was thinking of more of a serious and strong Harrison Ford type. I guess that is why MIB really works. Smith has the likability and star power and Jones has that rough, strong presence.

Mike Tully, great post, great points.

Made me think of a joke an Asian comedian I know used to make: “I tried to get a job at as a cook at a Chinese restaurant, but they told me I wasn’t Mexican enough.”

(If you don’t live in L.A., this probably makes no sense.)

My wife has a friend who fits every stereotype of the dumb blonde. Imagine my surprise when I found out that she is, quite literally, a ROCKET SCIENTIST. She builds missile systems for Raytheon.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

Working backwards…

Will Smith, Denzel Washington and Jamie Foxx are all bankable enough to lead huge movies, and they do.

Jabez:

I picked race because I was replying to another blogger’s specific discussion about race. I didn’t just wake up and think, “I want to talk about race today.” I agree…that would have been very weird.

Kevin:

Every aspect of a character should be purposeful.

I know what “ashy” is. What’s my prize? :)

Writergurl:

The reason men don’t band together and march to raise money to fight testicular cancer is because we are pathetic. I’m serious. We’re so squeamish about our own balls (and more to the point, other men’s balls), that the idea of marching for ball health makes us either squirm…or laugh. Frankly, men would rather just die quietly than dedicate our lives to testicle health, or rectal health, or prostate health…because we’re idiots. I mean it. My dad almost died from colorectal cancer, and he and I STILL laugh when we say “colorectal”. Boys will be boys…

Mike:

If you’re writing a story about your neighborhood, you would be crazy not to write exactly who you see around you! That’s my point, frankly. If you feel obligated to be truthful to what you see around you, than so should we all.

And sorry about those white muggers. New Jersey, huh? Well, I knew as soon as I posted that, someone would come up with a white mugger story. :)

As you know, though, white people prefer to either rob billions of dollars through securities fraud…or kill people by the dozens and hide them under their houses.

The reason you see so few Asian leads is this: Hollywood doesn’t believe they can make as much money from Asian leads. That doesn’t mean they’re right, but they’re not necessarily wrong either. Audience tastes change over time, but one thing’s for sure: you can’t legislate it. Either they want something, or they don’t.

Craig,

“I picked race because I was replying to another blogger’s specific discussion about race. I didn’t just wake up and think, “I want to talk about race today.” I agree…that would have been very weird.”

Yes, I understand that. But the point remains that you kept the subject confined to race. I see this in a lot of bad screenwriting books - they read bad scripts, then focus on the specific issue, rather than the larger one. The issue isn’t what he’s saying about race, it’s what he’s saying about writing in general. By staying in the arena of race, you have bought into the very thing you’re complaining about, in an interesting sort of way.

As for the issue of muggers, there are plenty of American cities that have negligible Black populations and yet, somehow, still have street crime.

CRAIG:

You say that every aspect of a character should be purposeful. But are you honestly, honestly telling me that a main characters “whiteness” is purposeful?

24 is the best show on television.

Are you saying that Tony Alameda is Latino for a reason? In the 4 years it’s been coming on, it’s never been addressed. At all. Not even a word of Spanish. And his wife is Half Japanese. Never addressed it. It’s not an issue.

I guess what I’m saying is, race can be relevant to a character. It can also be irrelevant.

24 is the best show on television?

One of the better shows - I dunno about BEST -

Kevin:

I can’t speak for the writers of 24.

I do make characters white purposefully. And like I said, I never just think of them as white. White people are diverse too, ya know.

Some characters’ race is so irrelevant to whom they are, that they can be cast any which way, and I cede to the casting people and the director and producer.

But I always know.

Jabez:

I don’t understand your point. I’m not writing a screenplay or a book about screenwriting. I’m writing essays about topics. Specificity is a virtue.

I agree that there are plenty of white muggers in meth country. There’s just not that many in Gotham.

This discussion pops up every so often over on Wordplay. And when it does, I usually have a word or two to add. (Well, I usally have a word or two to add in the discussion anyway - Hi, Ted :-) - but especially when the discussion is dealin w/ race).

More about me. I was born and raised in the Chocolate City (Washington, DC). Went through the inner city public school sytem, and graduated from the predominantly Black Howard University. Been livin out in Long Beach, CA for just under six years now. And I wanna say that from my chocolate perspective, when I write stories, the characters are not White by default. They’re Black.

For instance, If I said to my nephew, look at that crazy man! He’d know that the man was Black cuz I didn’t qualify it w/ any other racial or ethnic descriptions. Black is our natural default. If I meant anything other than Black, I woulda said: Look at that White guy, Asian guy, etc. But because I didn’t, he knows the man is Black. Cuz havin been raised in predominantly chocolate DC, Black is our natural default.

And when I was studyin scriptwritin at Howard, I was amazed to learn that in HollyWood, unless otherwise specified, the characters are usually assumed to be White. They are usually White by default. That blew my mind. Although it makes sense that those who come from predominantly White areas might have their characters White by default. Not cuz of any malicious intent, but simply cuz that’s what they’re used to.

But it would be nice for folks to realize that not all us do this (that is, not all of us make our characters White by default). Those of us who come from more … colored areas may have default characters who’re other than White. And as such, I don’t think I need a reason for my characters not to be White. To me, the question is why aren’t they Black? Not, why aren’t they White.

Granted, bein an aspirin screenwriter, attemptin to write blockbuster films, I’m well aware of the White as default thingee. So I can adjust my writin accoringly. But still. My default is naturally Black.

Also wanna add that I saw that PBS special that someone else mentioned re: race. There is more genetic variation in the fruit fly than there is in humans. This thing we call race is nothin but a reaction to the climactic conditions in which our ancestors were raised, particularly once they emigrated from Mother Africa.

One more thing. Regardin Craig’s bit about muggers. I found the crime stats from 2003 on the Department of Justice Website. As usual, Blacks are primarily committin violent crimes against other Blacks, and Whites against other Whites.

For multiple offender victimizations, 67% of the time Blacks are committin violent crimes against other Blacks, and only 17% of the time against Whites. For Whites, 39% of their crimes are against other Whites, and 7% of the time they’re against Blacks. There’s also a slot for mixed race offendors, which shows there’s some harmony at least :-)

Ahem.

For single offender victimizations, Whites commit 63% of the violent crimes, Blacks 21%.

Here’s a link to the site. (hope it works):

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cvus/race.htm

“Some characters’ race is so irrelevant to whom they are, that they can be cast any which way, and I cede to the casting people and the director and producer.”

So then…we kind of agree?

-> Women terribly oppressed in the Middle East:

I personally wouldn’t say so. They probably are, but we’ve yet to see suicide en masse of all those opressed, depressed females over there.

What we civilized Western types often forget is that people all over the world live in what we might perceive as shitholes, and moreover, love these shitholes because it’s home. We can’t all be Americans.

And those of us who are well-to-do (as in not hungry) are just two meals and a powercut away from being barbarians.

It’d be nice if everyone everywhere got to choose how and where to lead their lives, but as this is not going to happen any time soon, it’s best just to hope everyone’ll manage, somehow. And that it’s probably for the best if people’d just mind their own business.

Kev:

Yeah, I think we’ve been agreeing for a while.

Karppi:

Moral equivalence aside, women in Islamic nations tend more often than not to be unable to vote, forced to wear certain clothing, unable to attain driver’s licenses, and generally treated unequally under the law. That is an unacceptable situation for any liberal-minded human to contemplate, regardless of our own tenuous grasp on liberty.

Mariama:

Those statistics reflect the very real fact of white criminality.

However, if you could find statistics for street robbery in NYC, I think you’d find that the large majority of perpetrators would be people of color, just as you’d find that the statistics for street robbery in Salt Lake City would overwhelmingly be Caucasians.

Ergo, the oddness of the “white mugger” in a Batman movie.

I love the phrase “Chocolate City”, by the way, but only beccause it sort of reminds me of actual chocolate. :)

I find it odd that you’ve always automatically assigned race to your characters, but were “amazed” to learn that Hollywood does the same. Why? If it’s natural to you, why is it so amazing that it’s natural to everyone else?

Personally, I think it’s natural in the sense that it’s easy. Lazy, even. We all do it to some extent. I have to force myself to figure out if my characters are overweight, for instance. I always imagine them as “actor-sized,” forgetting that actors really do come in different sizes.

What I don’t do is go back through a script and fatten them up. :)

“I agree that there are plenty of white muggers in meth country. There�s just not that many in Gotham.”

Craig, have you got any stats on this? I am mostly onboard with your post, but a couple of comments — like the one denying the existence of white NYC muggers — makes me a little sqeamish about admitting it.

Are “actor-sized” people what the public really want to see, or do they really want fat people? As in, insert the fat guy for Brad Pitt in his next flick. Power to the fat people!

The audience makes the decision to watch “actor-sized” people, not us. Same goes for race/sex/religious matters. And it’s up to them, not us, to diversify the big screen. This is more of a societal issue than one of writing.

I blogged my disagreement with Craig’s thesis today. Craig already posted in response to the response, which means it’s now a blog tangle. So my apologies. But I didn’t want to hijack his thread with a massive post.

My basic argument is that assigning ethnicity (or more specifically, surnames that suggest ethnicity) is a useful way of helping the reader keep track of who’s who. I say, go ahead and make the police detective Korean, because when you meet him again 20 pages later, you’re more likely to remember who the hell he is. Is it “necessary” that he be Korean? No. It’s completely arbitrary. But as a screenwriter, you make a thousand completely arbitrary decisions with every script. Done smartly, it’s a decision that makes your script more readable.

That it has some sociological implication isn’t really the point.

I don’t purposefully write toward a race. I don’t do the visual descriptions, I tend toward the personality descriptions (which I know is a big no-no, being it’s the stuff you can’t film). I figure the personality description informs a lot better than the visual. We know from the get-go what kind of people we’re dealing with.

The only time I dealt with writing toward race, consciously, was writing a Without A Trace spec that takes place in a prison. I figured they’d interview all kinds of people, and that race (since the team was looking for a missing skinhead) was an important part of the script. I did a stereotype pass. Not to ensure that I was being PC, because frankly, I don’t give a shit about being PC.

I did it because I didn’t want my writing to be stale. I didn’t want the stereotypical black prisoner. Or the stereotypical asian prisoner. Or stereotypica hispanicI didn’t want to do all that gang shit. I didn’t even want stereotypical aryans (if there is such a thing). I wanted my characters to be different than anything out there.

It wasn’t a diversity pass as you’ve illustrated in your post about AE’s post. It was about creating interesting characters in an interesting arena.

I recently wrote a pilot about a husband and wife. I specifically don’t mention race, because the wife could be played by Gabrielle Union, and just as easily be played by Morena Baccarin.

I’m about to write a script that will deal heavily with race and racism, I plan to tackle it in the same way that I tackled the WaT spec. I’ll write it, and I’ll play with the stereotypes. Not because I’m afraid of offending anyone, but because I think all characters, no matter what color, should be interesting, and not what they appear.

And one last thought, it was hysterical to read you have to qualify what kind of Indian that character was “(of India).” So many people worry about offending Native Americans, who I believe now prefer to be called Indian again (so hard to keep up), that no one thinks about it being kind of weird to Indians for Native Americans (which I believe is the best term) to also be called indian.

I mainly say this because I’ve spent a lifetime explaining that my mother’s Indian — from India. Usually in response to people asking what tribe she’s from.

I’ll sign off using my old elementary school nickname,

Kemosabe

More often than not, you say? Pardon me if I don’t take your word for it.

Islamic countries with universal suffrage: Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Gabon, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Indonesia, Iran, (Iraq used to be, but they could only vote for Saddam), Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Oman (though nothing much to vote for there), Pakistan, Qatar, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey Uganda, Yemen

None for females: Kuwait (and very restricted for males as well), Saudi Arabia

No suffrage: Brunei, United Arab Emirates

And Lebanon lets some women vote (over 21 with elementary education), while it’s compulsory for men.

List of Islamic countries found with Google, suffrage checked from the CIA world factbook.

A whole different can of worms is whether the voters get to vote on anything that’s going to make a difference, but that problem seems to appear hand in hand with elections, whether the country in question is Islamic or not.

Craig,

“I don’t understand your point. I’m not writing a screenplay or a book about screenwriting. I’m writing essays about topics. Specificity is a virtue.”

It can be. In this case, it’s a curse, because it’s now become a discussion of race, when the real issue is screenwriting. If your response had been about the wrongheadedness of specifying ANY character trait or detail that doesn’t matter, it would be more to the real point. But buy picking up on race, you’ve made this a discussion of race.

The bottom line is that if a detail matters to the story, it should be in the story, and if it doesn’t, it shouldn’t. That’s a very simple rule, and one you can apply to a million different factors. By making the discussion specifically about one, you give undue weight to that one factor.

Imagine the blog entry that bothered you was in defense of assigning specific clothes to each character. It’s the exact same violation of Screenwriting 101 as assigning specific race or nationality when it’s not relevant. We could just as easily be having this back and forth about Izod shirts vs. Polo shirts, and it would be just as relevant to the real issue as race is. By focussing on race, instead of specificity, you have pointed the spotlight away from the real issue. That’s all I’m saying. Anyone reading all these posts looking for insight into screenwriting is going to be rightfully confused. Rather than getting that details are important only when they’re relevant, they’re now going to start worrying about the racial makeup of their characters… or not. It’s all kind of a mess, and the only thing that matters is when to specify details and when not to. Whether or not there are Black muggers in Salt Lake City doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the issue….

CRAIG:

Well…we don’t entirely agree but close enough. But when I read John August’s post I thought, “Oh, that’s who I agree with!”:)

It is about being specific. But race really is arbitrary unless it advances the story or the character. Because in reality I really don’t think people walk around thinking, “I’m black, I’m black, I’m white, I’m white…I’m GAY!!!!”

Personally, if I watch a movie and a characters race comes into play in every scene and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the story or even advance it…I’m bored. No, not bored. Annoyed. Because that’s not reality.

And if the Casting Director can randomly switch around races then the character’s race truly was arbitrary.

If it’s all Interchangeable then it truly doesn’t matter. The point is to be interesting.

Kevin, religion? Really? That’s the best you can do? The mind boggles.

When I was asking about Jews, it was in the context of race. NOT religious persecution. Which we don’t have much of these days, btw. AThe context of my bringing up Jews was as in, so you don’t want to compare gays with blacks, which other race would you rather we use? Jews? Japanese? What? (But, I suspect you knew that, my writing is not that murky.)

So, religion is what you would compare it too? Well, you MIGHT be closer if being gay were a choice. Which, as a woman who was engaged before figuring out she was lesbian, I can tell you from personal experience…. it ain’t. See, it’s like this… my fiancee? I loved him, and thought (still think) he was a great guy. When he walked into a room, I was happy to see him. But. It was nothing like what I felt when my best friend (a woman) walked into the same room. When she walked in, my world lit up. SHE, not he, became the center of my world. I loved him but I was madly in love with her. Did I sit down one day and decide to be gay? No. But, my feelings for her were undeniable and real. So, I sat down, searched my soul and discovered that I was not willing to sublimate my true self in order to conform to societal expectations. THAT is the ONLY CHOICE I made. I didn’t ask for those feelings for her, I didn’t seek out being gay, but neither did I seek to deny my feelings. You didn’t seek to be black but you don’t try to make yourself “white” do you? I know you’re not willing to believe it but trust me… it’s the same thing. It is what it is.

As for the people walking around thinking they are whatever… I don’t think its a concious thought process, but I do believe that being white, black, Indian, gay, straight, whatev… is integral to your perceptions of the world and is a filter through which you view the world, and as a writer a filter through which you write your version of the world. Your reality is not mine but that doesn’t make either of them less valid.

The point is not only to be interesting, but to be true to your character’s perception of the world…. via whatever filters they have in place.

Craig, my problem w/ this has to do w/ what I think you’re sayin. Please note: I’m not sure if this is what you’re actually sayin. Just that this is how I perceive it.

Seems like you’re sayin that characters should be White, unless there’s a specific story-related reason for them to be otherwise. Or rather, you shouldn’t mention the race of your characters, unless the race is an integral part of the story. Is that what you’re advocatin? If so then I disagree.

Not mentionin the race - and not usin any other ways to show that the characters are not White - will sorta ensure that the reader thinks the characters are White. Since White will most likely be their default choice anyway. I don’t agree w/ that stance.

I’m more inclined to follow John August’s example, but not for the reason he gives, though his reason is great. My reason is cuz I’d like to shake up the mindsets.

I mentioned earlier that I grew up in DC. Well, throughout my public school education, all of my schoolmates have been Black (save maybe 5 Latinos and two Asians). Oh and we had one White school mate. One. And that was when I was in high school, and we all thought that kid (or the White boy, as he was called) was a nark (he only lasted a coupla months there).

There’s a type of myopia that develops in that kinda sheltered environment, and growin up in that environment I fell victim to it as well. I never gave it a second thought that if/when I said man, boy, girl, woman, etc, and didn’t preface it w/ a racial descriptor, that the race was assumed (by me and by all my Black family & friends) to be Black. It was an unconsious decision. Until my professor mentioned what Hollywood does this, only when it did it it was the reverse. White was the default.

Huh?

That blew my mind cuz I’d never really thought about it before. And it meant that I’d now have to qualify my Black characters by specifyin their races. But also cuz it revealed how hung up we (myself included) are on this thing we call race. A man isn’t just a man. He’s Black, White, Asian, Latin, Arab, etc. That botheres me, but I’m not sure why exactly. I mean, if I were to visit Russia or Japan, I’d most likely be referred to as the Black woman. Or the American Black woman. So what’s the big deal? I’d like for there to be a time when race didn’t matter at all. I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony….

I’m well aware that many of the powers that be in Hollywood most likely come from environments that’re predominantly White, and so their defaults will be White. So in order to shake them out of that and help broaden their horizons, I’d be more apt to use name clues (Jamal, Shaquawn, Mr. Chau, etc) to show the race of the characters — if/when race wasn’t necessary for the story. Or rather, I’d use names to show that the characters are not all White.

And I’ve just had a lightbulb moment. Writin this has helped me pinpoint the reason why the not mentionin the race - or not leavin any clues that the characters are non-White stance bothers me so much. It’s cuz it seems by doin that … it’s like sayin that I’m invisible. I don’t count. I don’t matter, unless it’s an integral part of the story. That White folks count regardless. White matters regardless of whether it’s story specific or not. White matters, everyone else doesn’t.

And to me … well, I am an integral part of the story, too. We all are. Latins, Asians, we all make up the fabric of America. Not just Whites. (or Blacks, for that matter). I know that’s not what you’re sayin, I know that’s not what you mean, but that’s what I hear. That’s the implication, to me.

As for Gotham city, I’m sorry but I’m not a comic book geek. Was Gotham supposed to be a city similar to (or synonimous w/) New York City? I always thought of it as a generic major urban area. But then I’ve only seen the films —never read the comics.

Mariama

Mariama:

Hmm. Not sure how you got that.

“Seems like you’re sayin that characters should be White, unless there’s a specific story-related reason for them to be otherwise. Or rather, you shouldn’t mention the race of your characters, unless the race is an integral part of the story. Is that what you’re advocatin? If so then I disagree.”

No, I’m saying that characters should have a race. That’s all. There is no default. They must be black, white, Asian, or something. We have to pick one. I always leave clues as to all of my characters’ race…so I think we agree, right?

You then make a remark that you say I’m not saying, but that you’re hearing from me anyway. :) Not sure how to deal with that one! I don’t think any one race controls the alleged fabric of America.

Gotham was always meant to be New York. Variety still calls New York Gotham in its stories. :)

Writergurl doth quoth:

Meanwhile, right this second, some woman is being forced to be a prositute in a Slavic country, and another is being made to behave as the men of her Islamic country have decreed she must.

Meanwhile boys across the world are also being forced into sexual servitude, Islamic Men are also being ‘made to behave’ as other men of their Islamic countries have also decreed.

So, has singling out Islam made you bigotted?

Stuart… again, as a CLASS of people, women have been far far more oppressed then men

I’ve never said otherwise.

Your comparisions of cancer funding baffle me. If testicular cancer is killing that many men, why haven’t the men organized themselves like the women did 20 some years ago and begin working towards getting the funding needed?

Because of a culture which sees any such displays as ‘weakness’.

Its not good, its not healthy, and yes it is largely perpetrated by man… but that doesn’t make it any less a form of oppression.

The only way I can relate this to writing is by saying that people are in a complex web of power relations which are often complicated by factors such as race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and… most importantly… culture.

KEVIN doth quoth:

THE OPPRESSION METER (1 TO 10)

You forgot Aboriginals but that’s ok, because everyone does.

To Camille (WAY above)…I don’t feel attacked. Mainly, I’m being a Pollyanna and hoping for some ideal, “way things could/should be” sort of world.

Yes, you get down to exterior specifics, but of course race is a human construct, just as the concept of an electron or what we all agree is the color “red”. Yes race IS, but only because WE, humans, put it there, and chose to classify people of various appearances and from certain geographic locations in that manner, thus separating them and opening the door to discrimination — unless discrimination PRECEDED that, which it well may have — I think the origins of classifying different humans into “races” were xenophobic — genes and cells don’t know they’re of a certain race, they merely trigger a certain amount of melanin in the skin, a certain shape of eye, a certain kind of hair, etc.

People are different, but why do I have to say “they’re black” — why can’t I say “they have dark brown skin”? What if they have dark skin, as dark or darker than most African Americans but aren’t “black”?

Cultural differences? Yes, sure. Why can’t they be “my dark-skinned friend who likes…” Ok, that almost became a horrible ethnic joke.

And I’m not really talking about just trying to point out someone at the mall. Go nuts with that. But when you’re being asked to check it on a form…someone, somewhere is using it to discriminate and doesn’t need that information. Or MIGHT be, or COULD, and why take the chance? You and me talking in a mall is one thing, institutionalized racism practiced by our own government and industry is quite another.

By “nonsensical”, I think you mean “non-practical” and, yes, in the present society, I agree. But if you look at the origins of this stuff, it all seems to have grown out of hatred, fear and xenophobia — if all racial distinctions had come out of a mere desire to more accurately give a shorthand to describe people, it would be fine. But I don’t think they did, and now they all have unfortunate associations. I’d like to see them abolished. Not practical, but the ideal rarely is. So, I agree with you, races, ok, if they can be used in a benign manner, problem is, they rarely are. Not what they were designed to do. We made them. We can unmake them and remake something more equitable.

Chris The Fat One.

CHRIS SOTH:

But when you’re being asked to check it on a form…someone, somewhere is using it to discriminate and doesn’t need that information.

Couldn’t agree more.

People are different, but why do I have to say “they’re black” — why can’t I say “they have dark brown skin”? What if they have dark skin, as dark or darker than most African Americans but aren’t “black”?

Well first of all of course you can say that. But people tend to speak in categories. Just as “blond” is a category. We both know that there are a LOT of different hues of blond, but still we both refer to all of those hues with one word. And sometimes we’ll disagree because you’ll think someone’s hair is blond and I’ll think it’s rather brown.

And we didn’t make races. Neither did we make blond hair. What some people did (and unfortunately still do) is assign a “quality” or value to those races. But just because some people did so, doesn’t mean we have to pretend those distinctions do not exist, because in admitting those distinctions is nothing racist or xenophobic.

Yes race IS, but only because WE, humans, put it there, and chose to classify people of various appearances and from certain geographic locations in that manner, thus separating them and opening the door to discrimination But that would mean you can’t use any descriptive words because of their potential for being used in a discriminating manner. If you really want to follow that principle you can’t even speak about men or women anymore. Gender too is a classification we chose to distinct two kinds of people, yet both kinds are made out of the same molecules.

“Racist” is just such an ugly word. Epstein isn’t high on my list, but why can’t we just say that his efforts to help minorities are ham-handed? He’s not a Grand Kleegle for goodness sake.

Thanks for clarifyin, Craig :-) As I mentioned earlier, this has popped up over on Wordplay several times. Your post sorta reminded me of those discussions, where folks (some folks anyway) were sayin that White should be the default. That’s always bothered be, but I’m not sure that I’ve been able to articulate why until last night. As I was respondin the reason crystallized.

So even though you didn’t explicitly say that, I wanted to be sure it wasn’t what you were implyin. Cuz that’s what I thought I heard … God, a real Dr. Phil moment. LOL! (Dr. Phil, he said this dress makes me look fat. No, I didn’t. I said I prefer the color of the other one).

Mariama

Dennis M:

Fair enough. :) Alex clearly isn’t a racist. Sometimes I’m too provocative for my own good.

You had me at Kleegle.

WRITERGURL:

“The context of my bringing up Jews was as in, so you don’t want to compare gays with blacks, which other race would you rather we use? Jews? Japanese? What?”

I wouldn’t compare Gay to any other race. That’s my point. I don’t know why you think it’s just about Black. I never said that, I never implied that, and I’ve been very clear. You’re making this a Black/Gay thing and it’s never been.

You’re definitely very passionate about homosexuality and I told you that I agree that homosexuality is not a choice. But here’s the thing…

Race and Homosexuality are not the same thing.

I don’t know how else to say it. And I’m sorry I’m making your mind boggle. I’ve never done that to someone. Sounds kind of cool.

STUART:

Aborigines! Damn, I can’t believe I forgot about them! Um…let’s just give them a 4. Only because I’ve never actually met one.

Stuart & Kevin,

You both seem to have the idea that I’m on some “more oppressed than thou” kick. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, there are boys who are mistreated… yes, there is a history of blacks being mistreated,but you know there’s history of EVERYONE being mistreated at one point or another. This whole thing got started because Kevin stated that he’s got a problem with the issues of discrimination that gay people face being compared to the issues of discrimination that Blacks face. (Although he used the pc “race”. Let’s face it, we all know that gays are not compared to Hispanics, Japanese, Chinese or Latins, they are compared to Blacks.) As I said before, discrimination against gays IS anologous to discrmination against Blacks (or other races in a less severe manner here in the US) because WE ARE BOTH DISCRIMINATED AGAINST SIMPLY FOR BEING WHAT WE ARE.

Period.

I’m not into the “who’s more opressed” sweepstakes. Y’all have fun with that, but count me out.

I’m not “passionate” about homosexuality. I AM one of those queers. If I’m passionate about anything, it’s discussing view points and presenting ones that people have not previously heard/considered simply because they either don’t have or refuse to talk to someone who’s gay about these issues. I’m giving you information from my persective as a lesbian living in the early 21st Century.

Do with it what you will.

Excuse me for posting off the topic of the oppressometer and talking about writing, but…

Seems to me that most people tend to write what they know. So if you’re a writer who’s drafts are consistently turning out too Whitey McWhite, perhaps you should diversify your peer group, or get involved in non-white culture, instead of trying to paper over this flaw with a “diversity pass”.

Craig,

I’ve rarely come across a blog post that’s made me more enraged than your latest one. I’m not so angry that you disagree with the idea that a writer should at least TRY to diversify their characters. Hey, I can’t tell you what to write and I could really care less about what you want to write. If someone wants to buy your script with your stereotypical characters, fine.

But what offends me is the mistaken idea that because a character is African American, Latino, Asian, or a woman, that it is some sort of “writers welfare”, sort of throwing a bone to those carping minorities who “demand” to be seen on the screen. What arrogance!

But that’s not all. You also seem to think that if an African American, Latino, or Asian, is written as a character that doesn’t match your stereotype of who and what they can possibly be (even if it happens in film after film, as though there’s a limit to how many times a person can see a black judge without throwing up), then it is unrealistic and “racist” (probably the best misuse of the word in months). Your views are symptomatic of what is wrong with Hollywood.

African American writers, or any other writer for that matter, don’t come from the moon. We write characters of every stripe, with every flaw, whether or not they are black, white, or any other color or ethnicity. However Craig, since writers write about what they know, you’ll probably see more African American characters in our scripts. But I know that it will come as a shock to you, but my African American family is teeming with lawyers, doctors, and other educated professionals. It’s not up to them to prove to you that they exist in numbers you didn’t know, but a writer should know that if they chose to make their judge an African American, that it is based in reality.

What is scary about your notion about basing characters in reality is that it really shows how important it is to diversify the types of scripts purchased, and that means the types of writers writing them. I know no black doormen. I don’t have any black doormen in my family. I know that my best friend lives in a Park Ave. apt with a white doormen. Should I think that all doormen are white? No, of course not. But when thousands of writers like yourself, with limited, almost crippled views of people unlike themselves, are writing scripts that portray characters of all types of people, then you’ve got to be frightened for black, Latino, and minority actors. I think I’ll keep your post, so when I get tired of writing scripts at the UCLA film school, I’ll know what type of attitude I’m up against.

This is getting wilder and wilder all the time.

I think that everyone is right. Really. Craig, Alex, John and everyone that had something to say in this matter, are saying the same thing only in an other way. I mean sure it’s good to go through a diversity pass; everyone can do it sometimes on some characters.

But you can’t always make a diversity pass, especially on the more important characters for instance. There has to be a reason. And in most cases, you can’t have all black or white either.

It’s from what angle you understand this question.

Lawrence:

In a way, you’ve kind of made me happy, because I was expecting a comment like yours, and couldn’t believe it never came!

So here it is.

“I’m not so angry that you disagree with the idea that a writer should at least TRY to diversify their characters.”

I do not disagree with that idea, actually.

“But what offends me is the mistaken idea that because a character is African American, Latino, Asian, or a woman, that it is some sort of “writers welfare”, sort of throwing a bone to those carping minorities who “demand” to be seen on the screen. What arrogance!”

I also find that idea offensive and arrogant. Happily, I do not share it.

“However Craig, since writers write about what they know, you’ll probably see more African American characters in our scripts.”

That makes sense. Now, Alex Epstein happens to be a white Jewish guy like me (I assume from his name), but I suspect that, like me, he tends to not write about white Jewish guys. Actually, African-American characters are more prominent in my scripts than in, say, the population of the U.S.

On the other hand, if they weren’t, that would be fine too.

“But I know that it will come as a shock to you, but my African American family is teeming with lawyers, doctors, and other educated professionals.”

Not shocking in any way.

“It’s not up to them to prove to you that they exist in numbers you didn’t know, but a writer should know that if they chose to make their judge an African American, that it is based in reality.”

I’ve never argued that black judges are like unicorns. I’ve only argued that write judges as black just because you want “points” for being diverse is bad writing. Write your black judge because you want your character to be black…not your writing.

“What is scary about your notion about basing characters in reality…”

Uhhhh….

“I know no black doormen. I don’t have any black doormen in my family. I know that my best friend lives in a Park Ave. apt with a white doormen.”

Me neither. I know mostly white and Latino doormen. I probably wouldn’t ever write a black doorman, because, like you, I don’t know any. It seems uncommon.

“But when thousands of writers like yourself, with limited, almost crippled views of people unlike themselves, are writing scripts that portray characters of all types of people, then you’ve got to be frightened for black, Latino, and minority actors.”

I think you simply don’t understand what I’m saying, because your representation of my points is highly inaccurate.

“I think I’ll keep your post, so when I get tired of writing scripts at the UCLA film school, I’ll know what type of attitude I’m up against.”

The attitude you think I have is not the attitude I have, but I’m sad to say that it is the attitude you’ll be up against. It’s good to prepare yourself for harsh realities and unfairness. I do however, deny that I am exemplary of it. It’s regrettable that you see things differently.

Wow.

I think it’s amazing how easy it is to have a complete and absolute misunderstanding on this blog.

I’m pretty sure Lawrence completely misunderstood Craig and I’m definitely sure that Writergurl completely misunderstood me. In fact, after the 2nd post, I don’t think we were even having the same conversation.

I’m sure Craig was expecting this. In the United States it is still impossible to have a conversation about race without it degrading into racism, prejudice, and oppression. I tried to be “ironical” by posting an OPPRESSION METER but that kind of flew over people’s heads.

Generally speaking, I disagree with Craig’s reasonings on this issue but he is certainly not a racist nor is he scared of minorities. Go watch Scary Movie 3. Trust me, he ain’t afraid of minorities…

Writergurl, I will try one more time to make myself clear because we are on two different pages. When Craig was talking about John August being gay and not writing gay characters, I responded that you I hated the comparison because I was talking about characters within the CONTEXT OF FILM. Meaning, Eric McCormack can play gay. He ain’t gay. But Eric McCormack can’t play black. And it don’t matter how ashy he gets (Oh and Craig, your prize for knowing this is coming to you in the mail).

That’s what I meant by, you can’t compare it. That’s why Craig responded that I was talking more about casting and less about screenwriting. Within the context of a film, an actor can “play” gay. But an actor can’t “play” black. Unless of course, that’s the premise of the film. If you read my posts, I never talk about oppression or discrimination because it has nothing to do with my views on ethnic characters in a screenplay. The only time I bring up discrimination was my OPPRESSION METER thing. I wrote that because we were getting way off topic.

That being said, there’s always room for more ethnic characters in film and television and I applaud the artists that advocate this notion.

Doesn’t Vin Diesel “play” black? ;)

He’s just to coy to say if he’s just playin’ or not.

David Carradine played Asian back in the day, as we all know. Not sayin’ it’s right … just pointing out that race has been played by a non-race (shoot, did that make sense?) or a race other than the one he / she was supposed to be … shoot. I lost myself.

I get the opposite, ‘cause of the tone of some of my work, so that when I go to a meeting I oftentimes I may hear “I didn’t think you were white!” from that person.

I felt all alone until I met Craig Brewer after a director’s screening of Hustle & Flow and he said he gets the same thing.

But what about the fat people?

There are exceptions to every rule.

And I thought Vin Diesel “plays” overrated…:)

I woulda swore Craig Brewer was black until I saw his picture. Didn’t help when the deal for Hustle & Flow was made it was all about John Singleton and the press pretty much kicked Craig to the curb.

Eddie:

Fat people ARE a race.

I just don’t see what the big deal is.

Signed,

The producers of Soul Man

“Pet Peeve alert:

I hate when race and sexual orientation are used as metaphors or analogies. It ain’t the same thing. Not by a long shot.”

Where in that paragraph is any association with an actor playing “gay” or Black”?

I re-read the previous posts. We were talking about how “being” something (gay, black, Gay & Asian) informs character that the writer is writing, NOT which actor can believeably pull off playing something he/she ain’t.

I’m sorry you misunderstood me.

I’m totally disinterested in discussing the nature of discrimination in the world on a screenwriting website. At least, not in this post…

I re-read the previous posts. We were talking about how “being” something (gay, black, Gay & Asian) informs character that the writer is writing, NOT which actor can believeably pull off playing something he/she ain’t.

I don’t understand this paragraph. What are you saying exactly (I’m not being sarcastic or facetious, I really didn’t understand the paragraph)

Where in that paragraph is any association with an actor playing “gay” or Black”?

Nowhere.

My response was to Craig’s post:

Allow me to use John August as an example. John is gay, but he most typically writes movies that don’t include gay themes or GAY ACTORS.

Craig - I agree that an “arbitrary” diversity pass to pretty up a finished script by dropping in artificial racial labels that have no bearing on the character’s story and the general plot seems a tad too, “Look, Ma! I’m being politically correct!”

Kevin - As a new writer trying to break in, I thought I was supposed to be the least “directorly” as possible as in THOU SHALT NOT PRESUME THE JOB DESCRIPTION OF OTHERS. Do not direct on paper. Do not presume to be the casting director on paper. Do not be the film editor on paper, and so on.

So… IF a character does not absolutely require an ethnic or racial or national or religious identity in order to get their story told then I always believed I was SUPPOSED to leave it out.

I have a finished screenplay about a mother fighting a lunatic for the life of her child and, as the writer, the most important aspect of this character for me is that she is a MOTHER. I do indulge in a bit of fantasy sometimes, imagining who would be good for particular roles and I can tell you I can see Halle Berry OR Winona Ryder playing the role of this mother as well as several other talented ladies. Their ethnicity matters not at all.

Does that mean I am a bad writer because I don’t have a mental fix on the race of my characters? If a characteristic does not help me to tell the story, then I don’t dwell on it.

I always just assumed that Casting or the Director would have more to say than me about all that.

I was just trying to tell a story.

And now you (or was it others here?) say that Hollywood defaults to white. That sucks. I write racially non-specific roles with no special intent that they be cast as white or any other color (meaning available to all) and now I am to understand that it all defaults to white? That just really sucks.

So what is the right thing for a new writer to do? What would you have us do?

And is Hollywood really that mentally constipated (still) in the new millenium? Dumb question, huh.

I was blessed with two parents who believed in raising their children with zero race-consciousness. At various times in my life, that’s led to some humorous and sometimes some heartwrenching moments.

But even with such parents who were determined not to raise up a crop of racists, I could not help being a child of the society to which I was born in 1950. As I grew up, there were no black or any faces of color (that I recall) in any television advertisements or in print media. I lived in a mostly all-white neighborhood (our one black family were the McDaniels - I went to school with Cheryl who became the most popular kid in school when her Daddy aka Bo Diddley gave us free concerts).

I remember when the TV show “Julia” premiered and how so much brouhaha was stirred up over the notion of a prime-time show being helmed by a black leading actress and oh my gosh, she was just doing NORMAL stuff like being a mother and working as a nurse. Oh my goodness, you mean black people do NORMAL STUFF, too? And you’re gonna show it on TV? THIS WAS CONTROVERSIAL BACK IN THE DAY.

Growing up in a bleached white coccoon has to have had its effect on me. It’s good to know that today’s generation will never really feel what that was like.

So, diversity in all media is essential and one way to achieve that is for the originators of product (screenwriters et al) to deliberately set out to, well… diversify. I get that.

But as an honest writer, how do I arbitrarily inject the proper helping of diversity into my stories and characters?

I’m thinking I probably agree more with the posters here who believe the characters must be created that way from the get-go rather than doing an artificial “diversity pass” after the fact.

However, I feel certain that all writers here probably read and re-read and edit and rewrite all along the way and part of polishing things up, of making any character come alive as in being a real living breathing 3-dimensional person could be their family back story, their heritage, their ethnicity.

So maybe it’s just a case of whatever works, works? Ethnic from the start or after the fact… if what you, the writer, end up with is a damn good story with believable characters, well, hey, that’s better than a jab in the eye with a sharp stick. Know what I mean?

I’d just like to hear more from Kevin about what he thinks we can do to shift the diversity balance in favor of all peoples being represented in the movies.

So, Craig, you wrote “Harvey?” In my university days as a screenwriting student (Alan Armer to be exact), I once wrote a “sequel” to Harvey that introduced the newest generation, Harvey’s grandson “Henry” and Elwood’s great-nephew (See, I let the spinster sister get married and have grandchildren of her own). All due respect to Mary Chase. Of course, if I ever showed you any of my student work, I’d have to kill you afterwards.

Just inserting an apology here because I thought we had to insert the HTML tag for breaks between paragraphs and woops, it made the breaks WAY TOO BIG. Sorry. That was not my intention. I hope I didn’t hurt your blog. Sorry.

Patricia:

I fixed it for you. :)

Just about all blogware is smart enough to convert returns as line breaks, so go ahead and type naturally.

Camille, looks to me like we mostly agree and you win. Of course, I’d have the same problems with the term “blond” if it was used as racial terms are, to discriminate and unfairly keep a class down. I still say we made races — by assigning certain traits of character to certain traits of appearance and that’s where it went to hell. I’m saying at it’s inception, the moment people started totting up the physical aspects that define a member of a race, their whole reason for doing it was racism and discrimination. If it did more good than harm, I’d say keep it, but I think the balance is far in the other direction. But you can’t fight city hall…except whenever you fill out one of those forms. It does lead to going to absurdity — esp. w/the whole politically correctness thing leading to so many changes in terminology — seems the pattern is this:

Starting the timeline where it’s not TOO offensive:

First, a certain oppressed class is referred to as “colored” — the C in NAACP still stands for “colored”, and the “A” before it means advancement, so we can’t call them a racist organization, at least not against Colored People…

…hate groups co-opt the term “colored” and link all unfavorable associations w/that “race” to the term “colored”…

So, the CP’s changed to “black”…

…hate groups slur “black people”, so THAT takes on negative associations…so…

CP and B people ask you call them “Afro-American”…

…then African American…

Till someone links AA’s to the negative associations previously associatated w/their race. And then…something new…

It’s absurd. Where’s it end? I’m hoping with “race”-mixing till several generations from now, no one is much more any race than any other enough to care, or care what anyone else is, like the end of Dr. Seuss’s “The Star-Bellied Sneetches”.

Meanwhile, I’m from Minesota, so blond GOTS to be yellow, sometimes verging on white for me.

Kevin — Diesel doesn’t “play” overrated — he EMBODIES it.

Love to all.

cbs

Camille, looks to me like we mostly agree and you win. Of course, I’d have the same problems with the term “blond” if it was used as racial terms are, to discriminate and unfairly keep a class down. I still say we made races — by assigning certain traits of character to certain traits of appearance and that’s where it went to hell. I’m saying at it’s inception, the moment people started totting up the physical aspects that define a member of a race, their whole reason for doing it was racism and discrimination. If it did more good than harm, I’d say keep it, but I think the balance is far in the other direction. But you can’t fight city hall…except whenever you fill out one of those forms. It does lead to going to absurdity — esp. w/the whole politically correctness thing leading to so many changes in terminology — seems the pattern is this:

Starting the timeline where it’s not TOO offensive:

First, a certain oppressed class is referred to as “colored” — the C in NAACP still stands for “colored”, and the “A” before it means advancement, so we can’t call them a racist organization, at least not against Colored People…

…hate groups co-opt the term “colored” and link all unfavorable associations w/that “race” to the term “colored”…

So, the CP’s changed to “black”…

…hate groups slur “black people”, so THAT takes on negative associations…so…

CP and B people ask you call them “Afro-American”…

…then African American…

Till someone links AA’s to the negative associations previously associatated w/their race. And then…something new…

It’s absurd. Where’s it end? I’m hoping with “race”-mixing till several generations from now, no one is much more any race than any other enough to care, or care what anyone else is, like the end of Dr. Seuss’s “The Star-Bellied Sneetches”.

Meanwhile, I’m from Minesota, so blond GOTS to be yellow, sometimes verging on white for me.

Kevin — Diesel doesn’t “play” overrated — he EMBODIES it.

Love to all.

cbs

I just wanted to bring closure and say I have nothing else to say and I appreciate everyone’s comments.

Not that I’m Craig or anyone important*. Just sayin’

• Although I will be. You’ll be playing with Crazy Stu action figures one day.

“Look mummy, he’s a writer doll.” “What’s it do?” “Drink whisky and complain a lot! ITS SO MUCH FUN! Can I have one, huh, huh, huh?”

I don’t belive I DID “misunderstand” you.

However, any further conversation seems to be pointless and perhap inflammatory so I will bid you a good day, sir.

PATRICIA:

I think the only reason why I tend to also think in terms of casting (after my writing is finished and not before) is because I’m also a Producer and I’ll have a lot of input on the casting process.

I’d just like to hear more from Kevin about what he thinks we can do to shift the diversity balance in favor of all peoples being represented in the movies.

Well, here’s the funny thing about Hollywood. Everyday you’re gonna run head first into two factors that don’t necessarily work well together:

ART and COMMERCE

As artists we have a responsibility to engage, question, and manipulate our society while hopefully reflecting a realistic culture. I tend not to ever think in terms of race for my characters because most of the time, their race has absolutely nothing to do with the story…at least in the stories that I like to tell.

Now that’s a funny thing to say considering the movie I just produced is entitled I Believe in America.

The movie is about the independence movement of Puerto Rico. It’s a subject that most Americans don’t know about even though the film was just featured in The New York Times because a Puerto Rican nationalist was just killed by the FBI. Here’a link if you want to read the article
http://www.ibelieveinamericamovie.com/newyorktimes.htm

Anyway, when it came time to cast the film, the director and I never thought about what race to cast these specific characters. Heh, heh, heh, you must think we were nuts, right?

Nope.

Here’s the kicker, Puerto Ricans are a nationality NOT a race. The Director’s father (a Puerto Rican) was black like me and his mother looked like Carol Burnett. The Casting Director got a lot of submissions from the usual suspects of Latinos (Esai Morales, Jimmy Smits, etc.) but you know what? We ended up hiring Jamie Harris (Richard Harris’ son) as the lead. We also cast Melissa Leo (21 Grams) in another big role.

I know that no matter what, we’re all gonna recieve flack for this casting. But it’s realistic casting. Not all Puerto Ricans look like Jimmy Smits. Puerto Ricans come in all races and we just wanted to cast the best actor for the job.

And this is where Craig and I generally disagree…

If you write all these specific races in your screenplay, the casting director will only send out “Breakdowns” for the races that were specified in the screenplay. Now there are some casting directors that will think outside the box and bring in different races…just in case.

But that’s sort of my point. If a casting director can bring in another race contrary to what’s in the script and it works out just fine, then the original race of the character didn’t matter.

Again, unless the character’s race is a specific plot point (A Time to Kill, Crash, Monster’s Ball), it really doesn’t matter. For me, as a producer I like to see scripts where the character’s race is unspecified.

This doesn’t make Craig wrong, mind you. It’s just his way of writing. But the truth of the matter is that if every character’s race is specified, there will be less and less chance for diverse characters in a movie.

And I’m not talking about the Day Players. As a society it’s not okay to say, “Sure there are ethnic characters in my film. What about the Indian Delivery Boy with the 2 lines?” No, sorry that’s not good enough.

In Jurassic Park that easily could have been Don Cheadle instead of Sam Neill. Does that mean we should have cast Don instead. No. Whoever the best actor is should get the role no matter what their race is. But if the character’s race is specific, that will never happen.

You see, most of the movies that star ethnic leading men and women were not written that way. They were changed to accomodate the stars. But I’m becoming less and less interested in “stars”. I prefer really good actors. And the really good actors won’t ever get that chance.

Now COMMERCE will tell you that your film will make more money if a white person is in the lead.

That’s absolutely TRUE and it’s absolutely BULLSHIT.

Overseas, Vanilla Sky with Tom Cruise will make a lot more money than if it was starring Denzel Washington. They’re both stars but Tom Cruise is a true “International Star”.

But movies like that aren’t really meant to play overseas. It’s the Comedies and the Blockbusters that make the dough. And when it comes to Blockbusters, the movie is the star. If you put enough explosions in the film nobody will care what color the actor is who’s running from the blast.

As artists we actually have the power to change these perceptions. It’s a very powerful thing. We can change certain aspects of our society…that is, if we let that happen.

To which, Kevin, I agree and repeat my earlier remark to Mr. Insufferable, that the giving of evidence, truth or fictional, can certainly impact social justice even if it was not designed by the author to do so.

Kevin,

“I’m sure Craig was expecting this. In the United States it is still impossible to have a conversation about race without it degrading into racism, prejudice, and oppression. “

Which goes back to my point that Craig’s original response to the original question is guilty of the very same sin as that which he criticizes. If he had taken it into the realm of general necessity, instead of the specific issue (which could just as easily have been clothing as race), we wouldn’t be having this long back and forth. Now, instead of discussing when it’s important to note specific characteristics in your script, we’re discussing race. And the original point was meant to be screenwriting, no?

Here’s the REAL question - when is it acceptable to make note of a character’s specific characteristics, whether it’s race, nationality, shoe style, hair color, or the type of car they drive?

Here’s the only real answer - when it matters to the story. Applies to everything equally. Wonderfully simple, no?

kevin arbouet

while it may be hard to believe, i don’t see skin color. if i read your work and it’s good, i’m not surprised when i meet you and find you’re black. or, white. or, anything else.

same thing goes if you’re work is poor — when i meet you i won’t be surprised by skin color, no matter what it is.

i know, though. most people do see (you) as a ‘black writer’, and not just a writer. and most of these people will be white. it’s true

it’s a touchy subject but i don’t give a damn. if you’re a schlub it’s because you’re a schlub. if you’re a genius - same thing. skin color does not come into play

Jabez:

I think you have a very valid point. I believe it really has to do with specificity and not so much race.

Alan:

You’re right. Bad is bad and good is good. I just wish the rest of the entertainment business felt the same way you do.

Just for fun, I’d like to hail from the oft-referenced locale of Salt Lake City and note that a disproportionate amount of our street crime is committed by Latinos and Pacific Islanders. Disproportionate, that is, compared to straight population breakdowns, without throwing economic strata into the mix.

Here’s another stupid little insight.

I’m a HUGE comic book fan. Craig is right about superheroes movies. The muggers and thieves are all white. But that’s the way it’s been in the actual comic books since the 50’s.

I don’t know what their reasoning was but even in the Fantastic Four comic book, the Yancy Street Gang looks like the cast of the Outsiders.

Everybody’s reality is different. I got a ton of tickets 3 years ago and had to appear before different judges. Every judge I appeared before was a different black woman.

DIfferent parts of the country have different realities.

Kevin:

You’re right. Comic book characters have, for the most part, lacked any form of diversity. And on those occasions when publishers have stepped outside the norm, they’ve usually made in effort to call attention to said exceptions. Which of course, just makes the norm even more evident.

I agree with Craig that as a writer you need to think about the race of the character and put in any clues that come up as you write the character. I am also in favor of going back and changing characters race, gender, sexuality etc. , along with their dialogue if necessary, to make the script better. It’s called rewriting. Patricia- I submit that as the writer, while writing you MUST assume the job of the casting director, the director, the editor, the composer, the production designer, cinematographer, and even the actor. Again while you are writing. Otherwise you are not writing a screenplay you are writing prose, and have fun with that. When writing a screenplay you are writing for a visual medium. If you cannot see it when you write, it what are you writing? Just dialogue?
General- I am white. I grew up in Hawaii. I was a racial minority. I am gay. I am a sexual minority. I grew up Mormon and am now non-christian. I have always been a religious minority. Yet I am a white, middleclass, actor-sized male. How would you write that as a 5 line character in a script?
My point is I agree with Mike. Make your characters interesting, give them an unexpected history. As writers we create the soul of the character, the soul is flavored by every detail we come up with including race. We must not write soulless characters. Comics- Gotham is a nick name specifically for New York City. (Metropolis is also New York City though given an intentionally generic name.) When Batman, Superman, and even the Fantastic Four first started out (1920’s-1960’s), street gangs in New York were GENERALLY white males, between 18-35. So that is what they portrayed. The world of the comic book however is one where poeple don’t age (Lois Lane should be well over 100 by now) and things don’t change (with the glaring exception of technology) nearly as fast as they do in the real world so they have lagged behind the times some what in portraying crime. The movies are reflections of the world within the comic, hence the blonde muggers. Then again when was the last time you heard of a criminal painted up like a Joker, or dressed up as a cat?

Kevin:

Going back to something you said a while ago, 24 IS the best show on television!

In Seasons 2 and 3, a minor continuing character was CTU Agent Baker. Agent Baker was played by the excellent Daniel Dae Kim, who looks and is totally Korean! No one on the show ever asks him, “Hey, Agent Baker, how did you get that name since you’re totally Korean?” No one seems to care.

Now I don’t know whether that was something the writers thought up, or the producer, director, or what. But 24 does that all the time — a Spanish operative and his half-Japanese wife, a Korean agent with an Anglo name, all of whom sound and act and are American!

24, by the way, is run by a self-described “right-wing nutjob.” Draw your own conclusions.

Which is why there is a lot of torture on the show …

The show is well written and realized (a friend of mine had a major role in season 3) but I don’t know that its the BEST one - one of the better ones, you bet.

Deadwood’s pretty good.

Shoot, I miss OZ … Fontana rocks …

Joshua:

When I was an agent I had 3 people as Series Regulars on Oz. I don’t know of any other show that worked the way that Tom Fontana would do it. He hardly even used his casting director. He met one of my actors at the gym and then a week later he was on the show. Bizarre!

And who doesn’t love torture?!

Isn’t it weird how some of the best shows on TV are all on Fox:

Family Guy, Arrested Development, 24, Prison Break, The Simpsons…how the hell did that happen?

Kevin, I visited your link and read the story. I remember seeing something on TV a long time ago about some of the convicted members of this Puerto Rican group being freed. What actually happened to them?

All of you are brave to tell the truth when it does not paint the FBI or our government in a good light. I once made a website about Leonard Peltier and the man who made my graphics donated them, he believed in Leonard’s cause, but he wanted to remain anonymous because he was afraid of the FBI. I was also warned by some other people that they had been harassed for having made yet another webpage about the Peltier case.

Whatever. My ancestor Robert Treat Paine signed the Declaration of Independence of this nation and he DIDN’T do it so one day I would be afraid to tell the truth about my own government. And the FBI, from time to time, have been the bad guys.

Good G-d Almighty, just look at the level of crap rising in government circles these days. I’m not meaning to turn this into a political discussion, really, I’m not.

But, aside from pure entertaining for the giggles or the screams, don’t writers and others involved in the making of movies have an opportunity to influence the culture in one direction or another?

Isn’t that why you did your movie?

Should we use our abilities to do more than just tell a story? Is it okay to try to jiggle up the audience’s brain cells and make them think? And isn’t it rewarding when you can do that.

Oh yeah, I meant to also comment on Fox offering some of the best entertainment on TV, both intentional and unintentional as in their “News” Department - now THAT’S fun to watch. Not exactly what I’d call news, but fun to watch ;).

Getting back to the main topic of conversation - writing - are we really supposed to let social justice, idealism and equality get in the way of the story we’re telling?

If I’m going to write a story about four Wall Street executives, I’m not going to have an Asian-American, a Latin-American, an African-American and an Anglo-American, just because it’s a nice cosy way of looking at the world. I’m going to have four Anglo-Americans. I’m not saying that’s how things should be in the real world, it’s just a representation of how they are. Personally, I think we should be striving to maintain some form of realism, even if it’s flawed, so that the viewers can see it, and recognise it, and connect with it.

If I do a Diversity Pass, it’s gonna smack of political correctness. And people are SICK of political correctness - it’s too clean, too plastic, too sterile, too false.

Plus, everyone’s up going “I’m this race, and that doesn’t mean anything about how I act. I don’t even think about it.” Hell, I was taught in my first year of high school that characters aren’t just defined by how they act, but also how others act towards them and how they act toward others. And based on all these people taking the Opress-o-meter too seriously, race is a factor in how people act towards each other.

Therefore, we need to take race as a character consideration. It shouldn’t be a factor in reality, BUT it should be a factor in your script. You can’t just make every character a different race from everyone else for the sake of social diversity and equality, unless your script is called “Magic Happy Fairy Land of Social Perfection”.

Adam, I understand what you are sayng and I agree with you that political correctness should not dictate story. On the other hand, are you absolutely certain there are no Hispanic or black or Asian stockbrokers?

I guess the point I’m trying to make is, when you come from my generation, if you were to go by what you saw on TV and in movies and the rest of pop media, you might come to the conclusion that people of color didn’t get married, worry about bills, how their kids were doing in school, have sex or do any other human activity because we simply weren’t alloweed to see it or think about it. People of color were pretty much invisible altogether in mainstream media.

Our society has come a long way from that and I have no doubt that our mainstream media images had a great deal to do with shifting the culture in more diversified directions.

So it doesn’t hurt to give some thought to what images we choose to present in our work but we still need to keep it honest. Some of the good work can be done by writers but a lot is left up to the “Hollywood establishment” which I understand defaults to white because that makes for “good commerce.”

I think other colors and other faces might also make for good commerce if they were given a chance to be mainstreamed. Hollywood is afraid.

Patricia:

The story of why the Puerto Rican prisoners were pardoned is much to long for this blog as I feel like I’ve already hijacked it to some point!

I will say that the movie took 5 years to get made with a ton of opposition coming from all fronts. It’s very hard to do a subversive movie but even harder to keep it from looking like you’re standing on a soap box trying to convert the masses.

Serial, the movie I co-directed which will come out around the same time as I Believe in America, is also a “message” movie about the dangers of the media and the effect it has on society (and vice versa). For some bizarre reason we were actually allowed to shoot at the CBS News desk. It was so surreal. I don’t think they realized that we weren’t really painting the news media in a flattering light.

Nothing makes sense anymore…

Patricia:

I know that Hispanic/Black/Asian/etc Wall Street executives exist. The problem doesn’t arise through presenting minorities/non-whites/etc in typically white-dominated areas of reality - the problem arises through presenting that as though it is regular, usual or normal for them to be there, as though they are always there, as though it’s typical. It’s not typical. It’s atypical. And that needs to be acknowledged by the writers, and the creative team. Not to say that we need to have a whole movie focussing on race relations, but it needs to be there at the back of the brain while the movie is being created. It may just be as simple as a longer pause before someone’s reaction, or a different word being used, but race is going to play a factor, subtle or overt, in the chemistry of characters.

Just a quick note to say that I offered similar advice for sexism a while ago here: http://projectorfilms.blogspot.com/2005/12/gender.html

Sorry that I haven’t been able to respond, but I’ve been off doing research for my next book. However, I did want to respond to Adam’s assertion that to have diverse characters smacks of “political correctness”. Whenever I hear a writer talk about political correctness, and how they don’t like it, I instantly think, “lazy writer”. The concept of political correctness is used as a crutch for writers who don’t want to think about the possibility that there may be characters for their scripts that are more complex, but may be unfamiliar to the personal experiences of the writer. So they don’t break out of their own comfort zone.

We writers tend to believe in our own brilliance, and that brilliance comes from whatever limited experiences we have in our brains as we sit down to write. So instead of challenging ourselves, we simply fall back on what we know. That’s why we consistently get cliche versions of characters, whether you’re talking about race, gender, or sexuality. You assert that you’d have four white stockbrokers because that “real”. I assert that that’s not real, but lazy. Just because minorities have lesser numbers in different industries doesn’t make them atypical of that industry, just a minority. To use your logic, then every script would contain characters that fit preconceived notions of where a racial group would logically fit. Again, that’s lazy and historically, it’s what Hollywood has done best.

One of the problems is that I think a lot of writers use the base line that their characters are automatically white and then they think of perhaps creating minority characters. Maybe that’s good or maybe that’s bad. Again, my solution is not so much about changing how any writer approaches their craft. I honestly could not give a damn about what anyone else writes. But I am more interested in having a diverse group of executives who buy scripts. Maybe then we could begin to clearly identify which scripts are presenting a rich, diverse world, or the ones that present an insular world with one dimensional characters. And by the way, that goes for films that contain nothing but all black casts too(Soul Plane anyone?). But until then, get used to the mediocrity that are the boring characters in “Rumor Has It” and its ilk.

I’ve just been emailed and it seems like my link doesn’t go through correctly in the previous message. It should be http://www.inglewoodrudeboy.blogspot.com. If someone could correct it, I’d appreciate it. Thanks!

In my last screenplay, there were several people who misinterpreted my characters who weren’t caucasian, and also misinterpreted my intentions for putting them in the script. The main problem was with a character called Carmen, who is Hispanic and beautiful. The character is very insecure, and short-tempered, and more than one reader said “Céleste, not ALL Hispanic women are like that.” It’s odd, I didn’t think anyone thought that way about Hispanic women. I really took that to be more representative of the their idea of the ethnicity than mine. Had they been paying attention to the story rather than the stereotype, they would have recognized that Carmen’s life, and especially her circumstance in this story, has made her the way she is, not her skin or accent. But I’m not losing any sleep over it.

Craig’s views are pretty much exactly what I expected them to be. In fact this is how I expect most White folks in any position of power in Hollywood to think.

Hi everyone ?

Boy I am glad I subscribe to Shooting People NYC which is how I discovered your spirited conversation. Everyone has a lot of interesting comments and I?d like to weigh in as a NYC ?Black? actress. Let me say at the outset that in this dialogue I am not going to speak for the whole ?actors of color? spectrum as is always the burden placed on ?Black? actors in these kinds of discussions. I did my time studying acting everywhere in NYC with the whos who and then an MFA from a so-called ?prestigious? program in addition to going overseas and training at RADA & still never got a break. Worked for free on films, theatre ect and zero as far as real roles. As one person mentioned in the posting, I too have witnessed dozens of non-actor people off the street be given shots at roles and SAG cards. Was told more times than I can count by White casting directors & agents, ?If you were White with your training, you?d be on Broadway & having more bookings.? We all know this is true, but as an actor-employee, not much you?re going to do about it at the actor-only level. So, unlike a lot of non-celebrity Black actors I have been around here in NYC who still want to believe Hollywood is going to change post-?Monster?s Ball? and ?Crash? (yeah, ok..!Kumbayah!) I decided to try to take charge of my own destiny. A couple of years ago I finished up my NYU Producer & Screenwriters Certificates & attend workshops & network across these two disciplines in order to get my own projects in gear. The projects I am working on are in the Historical Fiction genre. Yes, Black people were there and intense study will reveal that to anyone interested. Networking in the historical scholarship and foundation community has netted a lot of success, new ideas and skill sets as well.

Plain and simple, the state of America?s film and television industry is pititful. Shameful in fact. When you have broadcast and cable news (even Fox) showing more diversity than Hollywood content, you know we are in trouble. This entrenched racism is very sad. It is in defiance with the reality that is changing by the day through technology advances and individual experience. I had had it with the liberal fa硤e Hollywood has gotten away with forever, talking about ?Conservatives? as if they represent the bastion of Liberalism. What Hollywood is full of are Liberal racists who are the worst thing that could have evolved out of the post-Civil Rights era we are living through. Blame Bush, Cheney, Rove, Trent Lott & the rest for a lot, and they deserves their blame for what they do, but so far, they are not Hollywood Producers or Hollywood Film Money Men (at least not yet-whew!) The blame lies with the Hollywood conglomerate bosses. Oh yeah, blame also goes to smug, self satisfied and complacent ?Black? Hollywood male actors (and the few women too) who are Oscar winners and nominees. Yep, those same folks who finally made it off the backs of Black ticket buyers who supported their careers long before they became ?bankable?(back in their TV and small film days) and White filmgoers now go to see them. They like it the way it is and refuse to do anything to create change. They are Hollywood?s new ?Negroes?. Lots of us have already found out not to look to them for any radical change. It is offensive to hear some of their commentary about how they owe nothing to the Black community in terms of change. Especially Denzel who insists now after years of speaking out that he is ?no role model?. Never have his words rung more truthfully than recently. We?ll see how far his box office goes without his core audience which is Black. Sorry, Denzel!

There is simply dearth of ?balanced? roles for Black women. This ridiculous lie of ?bankability? sells to those who do not bother to do their homework. As one poster alluded to, perhaps other non-White actors could achieve ?bankability? if given the chances given to White actors. There are actors who have multiple flops and on the money level, no other films should be handed to them but are-repeatedly. In the trades the recently, Disney stated that the kids show ?Raven? has made their cable station number one. Has there been en explosion of more shows about African-American girls as a result? No, more White ones have been popping up. Now America has begun creating racist reasons for allowing White actors like Anthony Hopkins and Renee Zellweger to play ?Black? characters. What, for ?bankability? reasons? Get out of here. That is flat-out racist, period. Anthony Minghella should be ashamed of himself for that ?Cold Mountain? fiasco. So much for British liberality. As an American, there is nothing I hate worse than to see a Brit emulate American racist Hollywood b-s! This should be unacceptable in today?s America which seems to be regressing to the ?Birth of a Nation? standard by the day couching racist reasoning in false money terms. Further, this ?bankability? standard seems to apply only one way when you look at the shows and films propping up one White ?nobody? after another without a film or previous box-office track record. No history was required for them, just ?Whiteness? for casting purposes which has been morphed into the racist cleverness of ?marketshare?. Marketshare is a relevant concept, naturally, however, the 24-hour a day muscle put behind keeping out balanced ?racial? and/or ?ethinc? representation on screen has reached a fever pitch. They know a market exists and as a poster said, ?Hollywood is afraid?. It?s all about ?non-Black? for reasons beyond box-office and that is clear. Well, with the explosion of technology linking the web to the television and people voting with their feet out of the movie theatres, we?ll see what ?marketshare? really reveals over the upcoming years. Obviously these excuses relating back to ?marketshare? make it clear that Black box office dollars mean nothing. Clearly Hollywood is convinced as are you that Black folks just don?t go to the movies and therefore are irrelevant. Ok, guess my dollars spent on ?Syriana? and ?Good Night, Good Luck? were wasted?

Agents have impact only when determining who to represent for the pitiful amount of roles out there for ?Black? women. Often they already have one ?Black girl?. Always more room for a White one who has or has not studied acting for the reasons already stated in the posts. Casting Directors are order takers for the Producer. Not unless they have the kind of relationship where the producer cares to accept an alternative casting suggestion do they have the freedom to do so. What is needed in order to shift this racist American stagnation is for more great writers (and actors) with your mindsets to become Producers or Co-Producers. To stop sitting on the fence singing ?We are the World?! I can?t tell you how many times I have been asked if I were ?Hispanic? or ?Biracial? so that I could perhaps be castable. Obviously ?Black? was just not acceptable. I once had producers on a prominent commercial for a well-known Americana product company make certain that I had a wedding ring to denote that I was married although I was the only Black face on screen during a scene where the main character was furnished with multiple siblings, parents and grandparents. I also had two young ?Biracial?-looking children in another scene but no husband anywhere to be found. I have had producers on well-known soap operas remove me and have my clothes changed to drab because I looked too good against the White main female charaters. Fact being, I simply outshined them. Too bad for me trying to look my best thinking I might finally cut a break. As to Kevin?s comment about Don Cheadle vs. Sam Neill for ? Jurassic Park? casting regarding the ?best actor? for a particular role, I have to take issue. Why is it that hands down White actors are always benefiting from that rule? Are you telling me that there are not great actors out here who are Black? Come on, Sam Neill is not a box-office draw in America. They wanted a White actor in the role, not simply who was best and you know it. It is ridiculous of you to conclude that Tom Cruise eclipses Denzel by sheer fact of him being who he is as an ?International Star?. Does unequal representation and suppression of other would-be Cruises powered by power-broker producers as he was factor in at all for you? No one Black has ever been given the boost Cruise has-period. How do you know if someone couldn?t achieve that status given the machine behind them? You don?t because the jury is still out because we are still fighting to get a shot. The majority of films coming out of that cesspool in Hollywood are to perpetuate mediocre America?s Whites-only dream with the fa硤e of equality. That world where only White women and men get romance, marriage, families and great jobs. That world where only if a woman is White, Hispanic and now Asian, they are the beauty standard and desirable to men for dating and marriage to well-to-do (or any) men of White and Black backgrounds specifically. Of course, real life tells a very different story in America and the rest of the world. As a Black woman, the message from Hollywood is that I am just plain ugly and worthless to American society and represent no value. Isn?t that the point in a nutshell? Let?s stop the lies already. It is tired, beyond boring and outright insulting.

This is what is going on in the falsely labeled ?progressive? America of the 21st Century. The current British television and film diversity system is where America needs to move toward. Britain?s system is certainly not perfect, but it is volumes above America in terms of television, film and theatre as far as diversity and that is not saying much. There is a racist core in Hollywood that is entrenched in its own self-imposed isolationist society and uses every drop of blood to stay there. So-called ?Independent? filmmakers had better take heed for their chiding of the Hollywood system too meanwhile they are becoming just like them. No matter what real life depicts via satellite or cable tv with its 1000 and counting channels, that core want to stay in its own American-style Victorian era as one of my screenwriting colleagues says so well. What good are 1000s of channels which all depict the same thing. This is why we have to work hard to be the owners of content by learning the skills involved in making and broadcasting and showing it on the new platforms. I am very hopeful and believe that Technology has created the positive shift many of us have been looking for. That is for those of us who are working hard as hell to get our content developed and out there through these alternative means. As Gordon Gekko said so well all those years ago, ?Greed is good. Greed works?. Well, Hollywood greed is causing them to crash and burn big time. I say, lets get out of the way of their downfall and do what we are here to do-create! Maybe like in ?Lord of the Rings? Sauron?s wall will finally come crashing down due to the weight of its own avarice. I plan to be out of the way!

NubiaNYC:

Sorry about the weird formatting in your post. I think if people compose comments in something that’s not plain text like Word, it gets screwed up a bit when it goes through my blog software.

NubiaNYC:

I think you kind of misunderstood my comment regarding Sam Neill and Don Cheadle. I was illustrating the point that the best actor should always get the part no matter what the color. Fact of the matter is, we really don’t know who came to audition for the role (Sam Neill was not offered the role. He had to audition).

I believe that writers need to make their characters specific and interesting but I don’t necessarily think that race should be an issue. We don’t need “affirmative action” for movie roles. But we do need the opportunity. Writing characters that are race specific limits opportunity for ethnic characters.

Lawrence:

I’m afraid you may have misunderstood me. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t have diverse characters. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t deliberately diversify all your characters, or most of your characters, purely for the sake of diversity. Have a Hispanic rapper in your film, have the priest as an Asian, have the CEO as a black guy, but don’t do it just because you want more Hispanics/Blacks/Asians/etc on screen. Don’t do it because minorities get sidelined in the casting process. Don’t do it because you think you’re gonna change the world, and stop people being racist. Do it because the story is better with your rapper as a Hispanic, with your priest as an Asian, with your CEO as a black guy. But if your story is better with the stereotypical white CEO, the stereotypical white priest or the stereotypically black rapper, then go with the god-damn stereotype.

And the story will be better or worse with the races changed. Don’t act like the races don’t mean anything to the story, just because you don’t like races to mean anything. Your race changes should change the story. For example, our black CEO may have gotten his college education thanks to affirmative action or he may have been denied promotions due to under-handed upper-level racism. These may not be mentioned in the writing, but you need to know it, just in case it could be referenced or acknowledged.

Kevin & Adam —-

First I need to tell you that what we need is for ?affirmative action? couched in lying ?marketshare? rhetoric to stop on behalf of White actors. The casting scales have become so obvious to the public that people make jokes about America representing itself as a Whites-only society again. Back to those good-old days ala Charleton Heston?

I agree with you that the “best actor should always get the part no matter what the color” and that is precisely the point. Somehow that standard always benefits White actors across the board because there is a predetermination at the producer (and/or media conglomerate control) level that dictates that a White actor is going to be chosen 9x out of 10-Period. Let’s not play games and pretend that there are not a disproportionate number of White actors getting jobs over everyone else. If you haven?t come to a casting session here in NYC and you?ll see it for yourself. Check out the so-called Breakdowns for a laugh. By law they have to pretend to abide by Title VII EEOC law, but in practice are never made to. Other public companies are sued flat out for what Hollywood gets away with today and every day in terms of blatant discrimination. We as African-American actors are supposed to know that and act accordingly in our expectations as to the calls we will be sent to as opposed to our equally trained and talented White counterparts. Everyone in the Actor community knows that race IS a factor used by Hollywood and Broadway. Whether you are the ?best? actor for the job here in NYC for an Oscar Wilde play revival and are Black, you may get called as part of lip service but never cast. Take a look at the shows. Why has the much beloved Phantom of the Opera here in NYC remained White after all these years. Are you telling me that those are the ?best actors? and they all JUST HAPPEN to be White year after year? Oh, am I going to hear a bogus ?business? reason? That is a load of bollocks. This same society used the same kinds of excuses to keep other White ethnic groups out of certain lines work if anyone?s mind has gone to revisionist history in this fantastical Bush era and needs to be cautioned before joining the fray.

Come on, I assume from your postings that you have a pretty good grip on the way things work in Hollywood. By your standard of the best actors getting the job, it begs the question as you mentioned who was even considered (seriously) at the producer levels as opposed to a required by law lip-service flip to diversity. Mentioning that Sam Neill had to audition and not offered the role was pretty silly. The point is that Whites are getting the majority of auditions for straight-out racial reasons. White actors are not creating the situation, which obviously Hollywood conglomerates are and so-called ?Independent? film companies. They are simply benefiting exclusively from a racist policy. This goes behind the scenes as well. Those folks may not have a hand in being able to stop what is done but they don?t mind reaping the million-dollar benefits while an entire sector of people who deserve equal consideration and opportunity do not get the same access they do. To your quote, ?Writing characters that are race specific limits opportunity for ethnic characters?, I will add my own. Writing and casting characters exclusively White as a ?default? limits this industry and this country from moving forward. People in this industry need to share the blame for this disgrace. This is the 21st Century and America?s artists claim to be progressive. They used to be the leaders in activism. Now they have become corporate puppets and the sad quality of creative product out here that passes for Hollywood is evidence of that. For all the useless diversity and ?best actor? getting roles chatter, what happens every day in reality which people like me are subjected to in this business is an unfortunate return to a nouveau racist corruption stench by Hollywood sycophants which should have been washed away long ago. What is this, South Africa redux? Should I strike up the band and play ?Ain?t gonna play Sun City?? It is tiresome to hear the false twaddle coming out of these suck ups to Hollywood so-called ?Indie? filmmakers and so-called ?Independent? film organizations. They take people?s membership money and hand Hollywood stalwarts awards every year. Every time a new festival comes out, it is jam packed with Hollywood satellite film companies which call themselves ?Indie? as a branding tool and are succeeding at blocking out true Indie folks beating the pavement trying to get films done & seen. Wanna be independent? Get mad enough to get off the breast of the Hollywood money train which they don?t want to give you anyway &/or probably never will while stringing you along and learn how to finance a film on your own! Yes, Kevin, race SHOULD NOT be an issue and it would be nice if White Hollywood executives would stop making it an issue. It is an issue for them and they want to project their issue to the world so that it can remain as they see it, no matter how much diversity comes into this country these days through films, satellite and cable. The world is as they see it, not as any screenwriter writes it, not as and good actor tries to use his or her skills to play it. Their world is like them: ?White?. Yes, Adam, ?deliberate? NON-diversification is NOT just either. I don?t know if you spend a lot of time within the walls of Corporate America and financial institutions in general since you mentioned it in your previous post:

?Patricia: I know that Hispanic/Black/Asian/etc Wall Street executives exist. The problem doesn?t arise through presenting minorities/non-whites/etc in typically white-dominated areas of reality - the problem arises through presenting that as though it is regular, usual or normal for them to be there, as though they are always there, as though it?s typical. It?s not typical. It?s atypical. And that needs to be acknowledged by the writers, and the creative team. Not to say that we need to have a whole movie focussing on race relations, but it needs to be there at the back of the brain while the movie is being created. It may just be as simple as a longer pause before someone?s reaction, or a different word being used, but race is going to play a factor, subtle or overt, in the chemistry of characters. Posted by: Adam Scott at January 8, 2006 02:02 AM?

I have been working within that community for many years for the top 10 of the financial and legal entities in America and take offense at your commentary. Are you familiar with what is now ?typical? or ?atypical? in that community since you are attempting to speak with authority? You may have some limited basis for your data, but it by no means represents the change in the landscape of executive representation although more remains to be done. To assert that representing diversity in executive jobs in stories about ?Wall Street? or otherwise is some kind of reverse tokenism against reality is just plain wrong. Yes, there are typical White CEOs aplenty. There are also a lot of other folks out here too these days. What, aren?t there Asian priests and Hispanic rappers out here? Why does there always have to be a reason stated why a character is NOT White? No explanations are ever offered, we re supposed to accept the American bigoted ?default? as viewers.

The tokenism that passes in this industry for diversity is a joke and should not be acceptable to anyone in the creative community just because that person?s particular group is reaping a benefit from the status quo. All ethnic groups are entitled to 360 degrees of diversity in roles, not just the White community. If the REAL independent community finally raises its head instead of continuing to bask in its dull rhetoric and actually CREATES change like it is supposed to be, maybe American media can finally get away from its pathetic stagnation. Then some of us viewers can finally stand to go to the movies and turn on the tv again.

PC (or some sort of squeemishness) really comes into play in period films. I’m talking about black characters (minor and medium roles) and how they are portrayed in films that are set in the 60’s or 50’s or earlier times. Not that I have particular films in mind at the moment. But I think that nowadays neither black nor white people like to be reminded of how things were really like a few decades ago when racism and discrimination was much more overt than it is now and to an extent institutionalized. Unless the film is actually about racial issues, the main protag black etc.

But I have a great film idea for black screenwriters! Or white for that matter.

There was this black director/screenwriter/producer back in the 30’s or 40’s who worked way outside the system (Hollywood) and made dozens of really low-budget ‘blaxploitation’ films. He was also an exhibitor. He travelled around in black (rural?) communities and screened his films to appreciative audiences. When he’d collected enough money in admissions he went ahead and made a new film.

Unfortunately I don’t remember the guy’s name. But film historians would. I read a lengthy article about him on the internet some time ago, written by some film historian who has studied him.

His films still exist - or at least a handful of them. According to the article they’re almost sub-Ed Wood in terms of quality but have this surreal racial edge. Once the Civil Rights Movement got under way his film were probably thought to be a total disgrace.

The real man was apparently quite a character. I think a film (or better yet a TV show - like an almost-all-black Carnevale) based on his exploits would be cool and definitely different: He produced films on his own terms and eked out a living doing it; he was a loner; he was constantly on the road and probably a big-shot (and great womanizer) in the poor and uneducated communities he was exploiting. A more interesting subject, in my mind, than Ed Wood because he had an audience. In Ed Wood (the film) you never get a sense of what Wood’s audience was (probably because he didn’t have one).

A friend of mine has spent a lot of time in Nigeria and he tells me that (thanks to cheap DV cams) there are lots of travelling producers/directors/exhibitors who make local stories for local people, much the same way this guy did.

I know I’m veering away from the subject of the original post - sorry Craig!

Perhaps you mean Oscar Micheaux? If so, here’s a link to his biography.

http://tinyurl.com/dzmr3

(hope the link works!)

Mariama

Yes, it must have been Micheaux. There can’t have been many such entrepreneurs.

NubiaNYC:

Although your comment may be a bit ranty, there are a couple of things that, funamentally, I agree with. But I do think you’re way off on a couple of issues, especially your condemnation of Hollywood.

This is the 21st Century and America’s artists claim to be progressive. They used to be the leaders in activism. Now they have become corporate puppets and the sad quality of creative product out here that passes for Hollywood is evidence of that. For all the useless diversity and best actor getting roles chatter, what happens every day in reality which people like me are subjected to in this business is an unfortunate return to a nouveau racist corruption stench by Hollywood sycophants which should have been washed away long ago. What is this, South Africa redux?

Uh…

Just so there’s no misunderstanding, let’s discuss what controls Hollywood.

Because it’s not Race.

It’s MONEY. And rightly so.

Ethnic main characters in film will always be a minority because ethnic people in life are a minority. The point of all this is not to change Hollywood. I see people trying to do that all the time and they never get very far. Never, Never, Never. But you also have to understand that the problem actually isn’t with Hollywood. It’s society.

When Hollywood makes the assumption that each ethnic group has their own marketability, it actually isn’t an assumption. It’s a fact.

Take Diary of a Mad Black Woman. Please.

Arguably not a very good movie (I thought it was cheap and amateurish but there a TON of people who disagree with me) but the movie opened at Number One with 21 million dollars. There’s really no way for me to prove this but I can bet Craig’s house that the majority of the moviegoers did not look like Tom Delay. Now is this racist?

Of course not.

Markets and Demographics exist. It’s not an invention of the KKK.

Take My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Double Please.

When I saw that movie I was the only black person in the theatre. So when a studio believes that Tom Cruise will make more money Worldwide than Denzel Washington, unfortunately they are correct. Notice I didn’t say better movie…

Now it’s time to completely contradict myself.

Things can change. But not the way you want it to. As minorities in life we’ll never be majorities on film. It won’t even be half and half. But film should at least reflect real life and show some diversity. Like I said before, the television show Friends is a world where ethnic people do not exist in New York City. That’s just ridiculous. But it’s not racist. It’s lazy. It’s lazy writing that refuses to diversify on the page.

And this is where we make the money people. This is where Hollywood takes notice. Movies like Sleepless in Seattle will make $100 million dollars. But when you make Jerry Maguire and represent two different ethnic make-ups you can make $150 million. That’s why I call specific race writing, lazy writing. Why make 50 million dollars with all white characters when you can make 100 million dollars with diversified characters?

I think Bringing Down the House is a pretty lousy film. It starred Steve Martin and Queen Latifah. It cost about 35 million to produce. And when I saw it in the movie theatre I saw a range of 18 year old Black teens to 65 year old white people.

It grossed 132 million dollars.

Imagine if it starred Steve Martin and Brittany Murphy. Or Queen Latifah and Martin Lawrence. This is pure conjecture but I think it probably would have made a lot less money.

More Diversity. More Money. That’s the way to appeal to Hollywood.

And maybe, just maybe, we can even have more interesting stories…