Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know theyāre the good guys, but the writers donāt have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, āWow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!ā Yeah duh, I live in this time period and Iām not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)
Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray letās say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. Thatās not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You donāt raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.
But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.
While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I donāt really think itās fair to call it āwokeā. In fact, itās almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be āwokeā originally meant having āwoken upā to the reality of systemic racismā¦ Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with ādiverseā casts are not really respecting that reality. Itās performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still donāt think itās āwokeā.
On your second point I have to slightly disagree. Taking Bridgerton as an example - set in something like Victorian England, but a racially diverse one. The Queen is black, thereās a black Duke. I think these things immediately set the story apart from real Victorian England. Ok, perhaps if you know nothing about history it might be confusing, but to me I see those things and immediately one of two things is true:
We are suspending our disbelief. Just like the pantomime dame, within the world of the play, is a woman and not a man in costume, we can assume that weāre seeing black actors playing characters who would have really been whiteā¦ Like Queen victoria.
The world we see is not an accurate representation of history. In this world we might assume that slavery was abolished sooner, or never started, and black people moved not just into the lower but the higher echelons of British society.
Given that itās fiction, I donāt mind either of these things. I think itās nice for people who arenāt white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isnāt trying to present a vision of real historical events, itās primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isnāt really medieval, Victorian romance doesnāt need to really be Victorian. We donāt need to see the systemic racism any more than we need to see the cholera or dropsy or whatever.
I will also just briefly shill for Taboo which I just finished - thatās a historical show which incorporates a ārealisticā amount of diversity into itās cast while maintaining (at least what appears to me) a level of historical accuracy. The story is fictional, although it appears around real eventsā¦ But the world it presents feels genuine. Crucially by contrast to Bridgerton, slavery plays quite an important role in the story - so here it would feel absurd to have a black Queen or Duke.
Havenāt seen Taboo but Bridgerton is a fantasy alt world - it can have steam-powered computers for all I care. My objection is specifically about falsely portraying real eras for the sake of casting diversity, which I think is a disservice to people who were held down in those real eras.
Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I donāt know what shows you are thinking of, but are they misrepresenting things, or are they just using blind casting and asking you to suspend your disbelief? This is something we do without thinking when watching theatre, but itās a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.
Suspension of disbelief is great for science fiction and fantasy, but I donāt think itās healthy to mask past realities. I donāt believe for one second anybody does āblindā casting - entertainment companies pander to what they think their audienceās main demographic wants, and they do extensive research to tell them what that is. They want to be on the audienceās side on every issue, support all the right things, criticize all the right thingsā¦ thereās nothing blind or random about any of it.
Perhaps, or perhaps the casting team had other goals that arenāt so obvious. While itās true there are purely capitalistic production firms, there are clearly things being made with artistic vision behind them, and sometimes that includes blind casting. Again, I suspect this is more prevalent in theatre, where audiences are more willing to accept, say, a woman playing King Lear, or black actors playing nobles in a historical setting. Because, on stage, you are already suspending lots of that disbelief - youāre not looking into a throne room, youāre looking at a stage - itās easier to take it a step further.
But while less is asked of you when watching a historical drama on TV, you are nonetheless suspending your disbelief. You know really that cameras couldnāt have filmed this in the Victorian era, thatās not really Henry VIII, and Jesus wasnāt a white guy. The question is what makes it too jarring for you?
I noticed youāre quite focused on the production companyās intent behind the casting. Maybe itās politically/philosophically motivated, maybe purely capitalist, or maybe artisticā¦ But you canāt really know. And should it even matter to you as the viewer? I understand trying to unpick the artistic decisions behind a piece, but those of the production company? That doesnāt seem like something to bring into your viewing experience - just perhaps conversations like this one on the internet.
Iād invite you to try suspending your disbelief as you might when watching the Passion of the Christ, and see if youāre able to enjoy these films/shows despite the historical inaccuracies.
Okay hereās my background - Iāve been involved in over 20 stage productions as an actor, director, assistant director, designer, set builder, and various other tech positions. This doesnāt make me an expert but it means Iāve been there and done that. Iāve seen Midsummer Nightās Dream done with 1930s gangsters, an all-black MacBeth in Stratford, England, and I was stage manager for a Comedy of Errors in a Hollywood Squares style set with a cigarette-smoking nun playing a piano. I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donāt need invite me to try it like youāre talking a kid about broccoli.
Casting directors do not cast āblindā except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration. I imagine this is even more true in television and movies, where thereās a lot more money at stake and a lot more people to please. They carefully control every element they can - if only because every person in those coveted positions is striving to prove how indispensible they are. Nothing is done at random except for occasional quick one-off decisions. I donāt object to comic anachronisms like throwing WWII German soldiers and Count Basieās orchestra into Blazing Saddles. Iām talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities.
Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material, but todayās audiences generally know very little about history except what they see in movies and on TV. You probably arenāt even aware that about 1 out of 4 cowboys in the Old West era were black. Ranch work was something a lot of freed slaves took up after the Civil War. But having grown up with American movies and TV, my mental version of the Wild West is almost all-white - with the odd asian cook, or an occasional black dude sweeping up in a saloon. I bet yours is similar. Thatās why I criticize the current trend of misrepresenting history as a carefully balanced well-integrated society. Whatever the reason, itās just a different generation trying to please audiences. Like every generation the one currently doing most of the creative work in Hollywood thinks itās more enlightened than every other one before it, which is another crock of shit. One delusion in the collective consciousness is no better than another.
I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donāt need invite me to try it like youāre talking a kid about broccoli.
Haha, ok, I wasnāt trying to be patronising - my suggestion was that you try suspending you disbelief in situations where you otherwise might not. Clearly you know what it is, I didnāt mean to suggest otherwise. Jumping ahead a bit to another relevant part of your commentā¦
Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material
Where I am suggesting you might suspend your disbelief is exactly that - a situation where you have knowledge that the world youāre seeing is inaccurate. Anyway, I donāt mean to come across as condescending, sorry about that.
Casting directors do not cast āblindā except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration.
Blind casting doesnāt mean you have to have no artistic vision. It just means you arenāt concerned with, for example, the gender or race of the actor. I saw a production of the Little Prince a while ago where the titular prince was played by a woman. Now, given the storyline (which was presented more or less true to the book) I think itās clear that there was no philosophical motivation behind the castingā¦ She was just small. Iām sure it was a conscious decision to cast someone small, but do you really think they specifically wanted a woman? I doubt it.
Iām talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities
This specific situation I can understand. The reason I was inclined to argue with your original point, and why I jumped to Bridgerton as an example, is that I have usually seen these arguments presented in relation to things just like Bridgerton, where they really have no placeā¦ So, do you have an example?
Iād also ask, given your example, what your perspective is on modern Cowboy films still presenting the old west as predominantly white?
Thatās another aspect of it - those practices arenāt ālibshitā theyāre corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.
Ya know, thereās a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a āBrave Maeveā campaign to encourage those in the closet to come out.
But then they tell her she has to be a lesbian, not bisexual, because bisexuality is ātoo confusingā, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not ātoo gayā, and sheās only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to āsend the wrong messageā
This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she canāt take having to be a āModel Minorityā at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander donāt actually save people to the whole world.
When I saw that, I was like āHoly shit, finally, someone else who understands why I, a transgender woman, actively avoid media that caters to the LGBT community. Finally, SOMEONE gets it and theyāre making sure other people get it too.ā
There are two kinds of wokeness I complain about:
Hernia level virtue signaling - this is when a production company is straining super hard to make sure we know theyāre the good guys, but the writers donāt have the brains to come up with interesting allegories, or even super-transparent ones like the half-black/half-white dudes in the TOS episode. All they can muster up is character dialog like, āWow, look how backward this time period is! So much misogyny and discrimination!ā Yeah duh, I live in this time period and Iām not stupid. (talking to you, Picard season 2)
Misrepresenting the past - this is when they portray letās say Victorian England or 1950s America as a fully integrated society where characters of all races mix freely, with equality at all levels. Thatās not how it was, kids. The black housewife in 1953 Ohio would not have a white maid, although she might work part time as one in a white household. You donāt raise social consciousness by painting a fake picture of history to avoid upsetting your audience. That does no service to the people who still feel the effects of those times.
But oh right, I forgot, the point is profit not genuine social consciousness - sorry, my bad.
/edited for grammar
While I agree with your first point - corporate pseudo-progressivism is a stain - I donāt really think itās fair to call it āwokeā. In fact, itās almost the opposite of what woke is supposed to mean. To be āwokeā originally meant having āwoken upā to the reality of systemic racismā¦ Corpos thoughtlessly stuffing games/films with ādiverseā casts are not really respecting that reality. Itās performative. There is an argument that it improved things for actors regardless, but I still donāt think itās āwokeā.
On your second point I have to slightly disagree. Taking Bridgerton as an example - set in something like Victorian England, but a racially diverse one. The Queen is black, thereās a black Duke. I think these things immediately set the story apart from real Victorian England. Ok, perhaps if you know nothing about history it might be confusing, but to me I see those things and immediately one of two things is true:
Given that itās fiction, I donāt mind either of these things. I think itās nice for people who arenāt white to be able to imagine themselves in those stories, even if in the real history things would have been much different. Bridgerton isnāt trying to present a vision of real historical events, itās primarily a romance. Just like mediaeval fantasy isnāt really medieval, Victorian romance doesnāt need to really be Victorian. We donāt need to see the systemic racism any more than we need to see the cholera or dropsy or whatever.
I will also just briefly shill for Taboo which I just finished - thatās a historical show which incorporates a ārealisticā amount of diversity into itās cast while maintaining (at least what appears to me) a level of historical accuracy. The story is fictional, although it appears around real eventsā¦ But the world it presents feels genuine. Crucially by contrast to Bridgerton, slavery plays quite an important role in the story - so here it would feel absurd to have a black Queen or Duke.
Havenāt seen Taboo but Bridgerton is a fantasy alt world - it can have steam-powered computers for all I care. My objection is specifically about falsely portraying real eras for the sake of casting diversity, which I think is a disservice to people who were held down in those real eras.
Fair enough, I have seen the same arguments applied to it is why I used it as an example. I donāt know what shows you are thinking of, but are they misrepresenting things, or are they just using blind casting and asking you to suspend your disbelief? This is something we do without thinking when watching theatre, but itās a bit more subtle when watching television or films because they go to lengths to make the environment feel more real.
Suspension of disbelief is great for science fiction and fantasy, but I donāt think itās healthy to mask past realities. I donāt believe for one second anybody does āblindā casting - entertainment companies pander to what they think their audienceās main demographic wants, and they do extensive research to tell them what that is. They want to be on the audienceās side on every issue, support all the right things, criticize all the right thingsā¦ thereās nothing blind or random about any of it.
Perhaps, or perhaps the casting team had other goals that arenāt so obvious. While itās true there are purely capitalistic production firms, there are clearly things being made with artistic vision behind them, and sometimes that includes blind casting. Again, I suspect this is more prevalent in theatre, where audiences are more willing to accept, say, a woman playing King Lear, or black actors playing nobles in a historical setting. Because, on stage, you are already suspending lots of that disbelief - youāre not looking into a throne room, youāre looking at a stage - itās easier to take it a step further.
But while less is asked of you when watching a historical drama on TV, you are nonetheless suspending your disbelief. You know really that cameras couldnāt have filmed this in the Victorian era, thatās not really Henry VIII, and Jesus wasnāt a white guy. The question is what makes it too jarring for you?
I noticed youāre quite focused on the production companyās intent behind the casting. Maybe itās politically/philosophically motivated, maybe purely capitalist, or maybe artisticā¦ But you canāt really know. And should it even matter to you as the viewer? I understand trying to unpick the artistic decisions behind a piece, but those of the production company? That doesnāt seem like something to bring into your viewing experience - just perhaps conversations like this one on the internet.
Iād invite you to try suspending your disbelief as you might when watching the Passion of the Christ, and see if youāre able to enjoy these films/shows despite the historical inaccuracies.
Okay hereās my background - Iāve been involved in over 20 stage productions as an actor, director, assistant director, designer, set builder, and various other tech positions. This doesnāt make me an expert but it means Iāve been there and done that. Iāve seen Midsummer Nightās Dream done with 1930s gangsters, an all-black MacBeth in Stratford, England, and I was stage manager for a Comedy of Errors in a Hollywood Squares style set with a cigarette-smoking nun playing a piano. I understand suspension of disbelief, so you donāt need invite me to try it like youāre talking a kid about broccoli.
Casting directors do not cast āblindā except background crowds, and even then the overall look and feel is as important as paint scheme and set decoration. I imagine this is even more true in television and movies, where thereās a lot more money at stake and a lot more people to please. They carefully control every element they can - if only because every person in those coveted positions is striving to prove how indispensible they are. Nothing is done at random except for occasional quick one-off decisions. I donāt object to comic anachronisms like throwing WWII German soldiers and Count Basieās orchestra into Blazing Saddles. Iām talking about serious stories where everything seems to be meticulously recreated except the painful elements of society are being whitewashed for the sake of pleasing modern-day sensibilities.
Suspension of disbelief only has meaning for an audience that already has knowledge of the material, but todayās audiences generally know very little about history except what they see in movies and on TV. You probably arenāt even aware that about 1 out of 4 cowboys in the Old West era were black. Ranch work was something a lot of freed slaves took up after the Civil War. But having grown up with American movies and TV, my mental version of the Wild West is almost all-white - with the odd asian cook, or an occasional black dude sweeping up in a saloon. I bet yours is similar. Thatās why I criticize the current trend of misrepresenting history as a carefully balanced well-integrated society. Whatever the reason, itās just a different generation trying to please audiences. Like every generation the one currently doing most of the creative work in Hollywood thinks itās more enlightened than every other one before it, which is another crock of shit. One delusion in the collective consciousness is no better than another.
Haha, ok, I wasnāt trying to be patronising - my suggestion was that you try suspending you disbelief in situations where you otherwise might not. Clearly you know what it is, I didnāt mean to suggest otherwise. Jumping ahead a bit to another relevant part of your commentā¦
Where I am suggesting you might suspend your disbelief is exactly that - a situation where you have knowledge that the world youāre seeing is inaccurate. Anyway, I donāt mean to come across as condescending, sorry about that.
Blind casting doesnāt mean you have to have no artistic vision. It just means you arenāt concerned with, for example, the gender or race of the actor. I saw a production of the Little Prince a while ago where the titular prince was played by a woman. Now, given the storyline (which was presented more or less true to the book) I think itās clear that there was no philosophical motivation behind the castingā¦ She was just small. Iām sure it was a conscious decision to cast someone small, but do you really think they specifically wanted a woman? I doubt it.
This specific situation I can understand. The reason I was inclined to argue with your original point, and why I jumped to Bridgerton as an example, is that I have usually seen these arguments presented in relation to things just like Bridgerton, where they really have no placeā¦ So, do you have an example?
Iād also ask, given your example, what your perspective is on modern Cowboy films still presenting the old west as predominantly white?
deleted by creator
You took the words out of my mouth, both of those are such libshit that I cringe my asshole out.
Thatās another aspect of it - those practices arenāt ālibshitā theyāre corporate shit. Same as sticking a big GREEN label on random products.
Ya know, thereās a scene in The Boys where Maeve is outed as a bisexual, so they decide to promote her queerness as part of a āBrave Maeveā campaign to encourage those in the closet to come out.
But then they tell her she has to be a lesbian, not bisexual, because bisexuality is ātoo confusingā, and even then they police what behaviors she is and is not allowed to do; she can be a lesbian but not ātoo gayā, and sheās only allowed to date feminine individuals while presenting as masculine or vice versa because to do otherwise is to āsend the wrong messageā
This basically ruins her life, forces her girlfriend to break up with her because she canāt take having to be a āModel Minorityā at all times, and Maeve is left so broken she almost reveals the fact that she and Homelander donāt actually save people to the whole world.
When I saw that, I was like āHoly shit, finally, someone else who understands why I, a transgender woman, actively avoid media that caters to the LGBT community. Finally, SOMEONE gets it and theyāre making sure other people get it too.ā