h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Interesting Op/Ed piece - I recently watched part of 'Raging Moon', a film from 1971 in which Malcolm McDowell plays a paraplegic person and Nanette Newman plays a person with polio so they both use wheelchairs and live in a home for wheelchair users, so I pondered this subject...

" I would agree that talented, qualified actors of this type should be given consideration. I do not, however, feel that this should be the only criterion for choosing an actor for a role. The actor's ability to convey emotion and tell the story should be paramount."

Was this argument used in relation to race in the past, when people didn't necessarily have to be not-white to play a particular role, as makeup was sufficient?

In relation to disability and LGBT+ portrayals, I wonder if there is a bit of 'ick factor' going on, if that's the right phrase, so producers or whoever think that audiences will be happier seeing a film about a disabled/LGBT+ person if they know that the actor is not actually disabled/LGBT+ so it is all fiction. But then the audience potentially gets the impression that such characteristics are only a 'costume' and people can pretend to be 'normal' if they put their minds to it... (Not to mention the fact that the script needs to be sufficiently good so as not to rely on lazy stereotypes, and it may be easier for producers etc to work with actors without the characteristics as they are less likely to notice or complain about issues in portrayals...)

"So, should actors be allowed to play disabilities? "

Ah, that is a key sentence - on the one hand you can view disability as something like piano playing skill, but on the other hand it is about *people*... To play someone with the identity of 'disabled person' then you can inhabit the character better if you have the identity of 'disabled person' as someone with the identity of 'piano player' (rather than a person with the ability to play the piano) can be played more vividly by a person with the identity of 'piano player'.

I certainly agree that if an actor does play someone with characteristics that other actors already possess, then they shouldn't get an award for it, but they certainly do, for being so 'brave' to put on that 'costume'...

"There should be more films and television shows that take this sort of diversity for granted."

Yes indeed

Thanks for tipping me off to this post! I didn't realise I wasn't subscribed, and I worried that bringing up the subject had offended everyone.

I know what you mean, I think. That's one of the reasons I thought the whole subject was worth looking at. Nobody should ever tell a story about a person dealing with a disability - whether it's a physical one, a mental one, or some human-imposed disadvantage that's not really one at all, like membership in an ethnic group - in such a way that audiences think of that person as 'other'. At least, that's my take. I wonder if it ever occurred to anyone to criticise Russell Crowe for his portrayal of John Forbes Nash, I mean, other than me....just a stray thought...I guess not, he won an award for that, didn't he?

I also agree with you that an actor who has some experience of whatever it is he or she is portraying is likelier to do a better job of it.

I didn't mean to imply that having a disability was like playing a musical instrument. I meant that dealing with any disability - using workarounds - is a skill every bit as noteworthy as athletic achievement or musicianship or any other acquired skill. That's how I've always regarded it, from my friends in school who used Braille so adroitly, or people whose sign language is fluent...I'm kind of proud of the way I kept working in spite of the cataracts, even though I once sent someone a document in 20-point type by accident...

Ethnicity? It's kind of a mixed bag. When we think about the things studios did in the past, we're furious. But I just watched a movie in which Robert De Niro played an Irish American priest. I'm not sure I bought that, but that's just being picky. It seems to be okay with most of us for Lou Diamond Phillips to play a Navajo. Even the Navajo don't seem to mind. Ethnically, he's Philippine, Scots-Irish, and Cherokee. Nobody seemed to care if he played a Thai king, either. At least he looks more like someone from Thailand than a Russian from Siberia...

I was going to say that we probably couldn't figure this out, but I suspect we can. We are probably able to tell the difference between art that is used to explore human experience in an honest way, and entertainment that is patronising and rude.

Would that work as a distinction, to your way of thinking?

Yes, definitely a good subject for discussion A tricky one, as words mean different things in different contexts, eg disability can be relating to an impairment, to coping strategies, or to external factors that people have to work around, so it's not just about an actor being able to sit in a wheelchair, or whatever.

That is an interesting point about Lou Diamond Phillips - in a similar way there are disabled actors who don't play the role of a person with exactly the same impairment as them, but there is some sort of shared understanding of what it is to be a member of such a group that underpins the portrayal...

"We are probably able to tell the difference between art that is used to explore human experience in an honest way, and entertainment that is patronising and rude."

I'm not sure - 'Will and Grace' A87901220 is an example that springs to mind where on the one hand it was groundbreaking in its portrayal of LGB people, but on the other hand it often relied on stereotypical humour and it was emphasised that the actor playing Will was not gay...

"Curiously, the only people who tend to complain about this sort of thing are musicians"/disabled people/LGBT+ people?

It is getting better, though - there are a few actors around in the US who have cerebral palsy, for example, and Liz Carr http://lizcarr.co.uk/ from the Wirral is a trailblazer too

I know what you mean about 'Will and Grace'. I've seen very little of it, but it seemed sort of stereotyped to me. I put it down to my general dislike of the people in sitcoms.

Also, I'm wondering if popular entertainment isn't niche-marketing itself to death. We have films and television/streaming series for gamers, for instance, and afficionados of the graphic novel, and audiences from this age group or that age group...a lot of the humour is of the 'inside' variety - often disguised as 'referencing' - and I'm wondering if soon, nobody will be able to talk to anybody outside their demographic.

In other words, I wonder if popular entertainment isn't becoming more exclusionary than inclusive. The problem with mass-marketing is that it usually aims for the middle of the Bell-shaped curve. What I wish artists of all kinds would do would be to ignore that curve in terms of subject matter - but aim to include everyone in the audience. That way, writer and actors of all life experiences would be able to share those experiences with a wider audience.

PS - I didn't mean to ignore your query about whether the musician remark applied to disabled people or LGBTQ+. Of course not, I was being facetious about musicians. Nobody cares if musicians feel offended.

I meant that they were the only ones, probably, who got disturbed about bad mimicking of musical performances. Just as pilots are the only people who notice that the pilot in the movie has probably just set the controls for disaster, and physicists and astronauts are the ones yelling, 'You can't hear that in outer space!'

What I did mean to point out is that filmmakers can be horribly sloppy. They don't really care unless somebody yells about it. They also tend to avoid subjects that require too much specialised understanding.

My advice is always: if you want to see good films about subjects important to you, get somebody who really knows the subject to write a terrific screenplay. And then lobby hard until they finally make the film. And make sure they get good technical advice.

Audiences could be just as entertained by a well-made movie that portrayed a situation accurately as they would be by something thrown together. And they'd get the added advantage of learning something they could *use*.

Yes, that is true that sitcom characters are sort of caricatures for comic effect so stereotyping is likely to occur if the script writers aren't careful...

"Also, I'm wondering if popular entertainment isn't niche-marketing itself to death."

That is something I sometimes wonder too - I mostly watch broadcast television so it shows me things that I didn't know I would like, whereas in streaming it would be very easy to watch something and then be served more of the same and not be able to find anything different because I wouldn't know what to search for... On the other hand, talking to people in other demographics eg via h2g2 helps to get recommendations for different things and find out what we didn't know we didn't know!

"What I wish artists of all kinds would do would be to ignore that curve in terms of subject matter - but aim to include everyone in the audience."

Yes indeed - it seems that is very much possible to do but difficult to reach the audiences in a mass-market environment with pressure to do more of what was successful in the past rather than something new and unproven...

"Audiences could be just as entertained by a well-made movie that portrayed a situation accurately as they would be by something thrown together. And they'd get the added advantage of learning something they could *use*. "

Yes indeed

We could hope that, maybe, somebody in the film industry would see this discussion and take some notes.

And you're right about those streaming services: because I will always watch documentaries about the Holocaust doesn't mean I only want to be shown Holocaust films. I tend to do a lot of breadcrumb following through Netflix and Amazon Prime.

Apropos of this, be sure to read Awix's review in next week's issue. He's got some comments along similar lines as he reviews 'Green Book'.

I even found an interview with the Julliard-graduate pianist who did the music and 'hand work' for this film, which was interesting. I haven't seen the film yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH_j-9j6eDQ

As far as I can tell there's a spectrum of theories of what an actors role is. One end is:
'All actors should be blank slates, able to play any role regardless of their own age/gender/ethnicity/shoe size/favourite colour etc'
The other end is:
'Only people with those exact characteristics should play that role'

The trouble with the first end is that people with matching characteristics are often more convincing in those roles than people who have nothing in common with the role they are playing. In theory if you are a voice artist in radio or for animation there are no limits, but in practice it still attracts criticism such as the debate about Apu in 'The Simpsons'.

The trouble with the second end is that taken to its logical conclusion it is impossible. So if the script was a historical drama featuring a young Queen Elizabeth I, only a person who is a Tudor queen in England during her reign could play that role, specifically only Queen Elizabeth I could play a young Queen Elizabeth - and she's dead. If it is science-fiction, only a real can play an .

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That's a nice summary of the actor dilemma, BB! As the Doctor said about the Big Bang,'Why didn't they ask someone who's been there?'

I think actors are aware of the problem of experience - at least, some of them are. Some consult with eyewitnesses/authors of books/the person they're playing to 'get it right'. They go hang around hospitals and police stations and FBI bureaus, etc.

Another thing I've noticed: the farther back in history a story goes, the less likely it is that someone will object to an actor's choices. Right now, there's all manner of argument about 'Green Book', but nobody gets excited about those bogus Tudor movies.

Although I used to work with a classicist who raved for about a week after seeing 'Troy'. Now, *that* could have used a consultant.