Racebending.com

by Jhenne, Racebending.com staff

Just this October, the Screen Actor’s Guild released its annual Casting Data Report, and the findings were far from inspiring. Despite a small rise in roles for actors and actresses in 2007 (a whopping total of 29.3% of roles going to minorities) the state of representation is once again on the decline, with this year’s results dropping to 27.5 percent.

The breakdown of film and television roles reveals that 72.5% of the roles go to Caucasians, with 13.3% going to African-Americans and 6.4% to Latino-Hispanics, leaving Asian-Pacific Islanders and Native Americans splitting the bottom four percent, pulling in 3.8% and 0.3% respectively, with the final 3.8% is listed as other/unknown.

Why such a glaring disparity between the percentages?

It seems that the main issue lies in the heart of Hollywood itself; although constantly heralded as “forward-thinking” and “progressive,” its casting practices remain firmly rooted in the past, leaving actors and actresses of color stuck on the sidelines.

While incidents of blatantly racist casting practices like Brownface have declined (though the pseudo-taboo is still in existence, as illustrated by Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of Mariane Pearl and films like Universal Studio’s I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, to name a few) minority actors in Hollywood are still being offered the short end of the stick.

Nowadays, instead of using makeup and prosthetics to approximate the -often stereotypical- features of minorities or presenting color-faced caricatures, actors and actresses of color are simply sidelined in favor of White performers (for example, Taylor Lautner’s portrayal of Twilight’s Jacob Black, a character of Native American descent) or whitewashed out of storylines entirely, ala Dreamwork’s animated adaptation of Sinbad, SciFi’s rendition of  Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea, or Kevin Spacey’s 21.

It would seem that Hollywood harbors a willingness to not only customize roles for White actors, but a penchant for altering roles custom-tailored for other ethnicities as well.

This incident goes hand in hand with the (outdated) idea that White actors are simply more relatable, -and thus, more bankable- than actors and actresses of color.

In his book, Privilege, Power, and Difference, author and sociologist Allan G. Johnson touches down on Hollywood’s assumption that only whites can relate to everyone, noting that in our culture, white serves as the assumed race unless otherwise specified. Johnson goes on to point out that films starring actors and actresses of color are “likely to be tagged and devalued” -and likewise otherized- as a “Black film” or an “Asian film,” while a movie headlining Caucasian actors are never identified as “White films,” because the audience, no matter who it’s comprised of, is postulated to be able to relate to a White (more often than not, male, heterosexual, non-disabled) lead, while films starring minorities just don’t possess crossover appeal. Too much minority-inclusion and audiences may mistakenly pigeonhole the film as a secularly minority-film.

Bankability & the Quality of Roles [AKA: The Bankable Star Conundrum.]

This preference for White actors -clearly a factor in the underrepresentation of minorities in Hollywood- is usually defended using one key buzzword; bankability- a star’s likelihood of ensure a film’s financial success, simply by starring in it.

While this trait is seemingly intrinsic for White actors the fear of disregarding the “mainstream” (i.e. White) audience still creeps up, even when A-listers like Will Smith are signed on, as the casting of Hitch illustrates.

In an interview with MSNBC.com, Smith noted that Eva Mendes was cast as his character’s love interest because execs feared that “a black couple would have put off worldwide audiences whereas a white/African American combo would have offended viewers in the U.S.” In a separate interview with the Birmingham Post, Smith goes on to say “There’s sort of an accepted myth that if you have two black actors, a male and a female, in the lead of a romantic comedy…people around the world don’t want to see it.”

It is important to note that the percentages of SAG’s casting report aren’t capable of delving into a similar issue currently faced by minority actors; the quality of roles. Because minorities aren’t deemed as “bankable” stars, they’re often limited. When actors of color are cast, it is often in secondary roles; the sidekicks or antagonists, the background characters, or as racial stereotypes.

In an interview with Premiere Magazine actress CCH Pounder mentioned similar hardships when it came to auditioning for the role of a judge on LA Law instead of a criminal.

“…I went and read for the judge, and they were all like, `Oh, wow, I guess, yeah, she could be a judge…There are black judges, aren’t there?’ That was one of the quotes I heard in the room. `There are black judges, aren’t there? I mean, that are women.’ And somebody said, `I’ll look it up.”

Another example can be found in the upcoming Green Lantern films; both based on the DC Green Lantern comics. While there are a multitude of GL incarnations spanning a variety of races, African-American actor Common was tapped to play the Lantern’s most recent embodiment, John Stewart in the ensemble Justice League movie, while Caucasian actor Ryan Reynolds was chosen to play a previous Lantern -Hal Jordan- in the in the standalone film.

Breaking In [AKA: The Bankable Star Conundrum; Part Two.]

The current sorry state of minority representation in Hollywood presents yet another challenge to actors and actresses of color: how to break in to the business.

While relatively unheard of, White actors are pitched as “up and coming” or “breakout” stars -doubling back to the idea that White = relatable and safe- Hollywood seems weary of minority newcomers. Instead choosing to cling to already established workers, like Denzel, Antonio, Halle, and Jackie.

Of course, this rationale leads to a detrimental cycle; as a minority, if you haven’t held enough blockbuster roles, you have no bankability-guarantee. If you have no bankability-guarantee, you won’t be offered any roles to build a portfolio with.

Considering organizations like the NAACP and the East West Players, it quickly becomes obvious that talented actors and actresses of color exist, Hollywood simply needs to open their eyes -and their minds- to take heed, lest we have another shrinking SAG minority report in the future.