I'd go with Andy Samberg and as a reference to Brooklyn nine nine Andre Braugher can play his adopted father
The lack of national diversity in the Discovery cast...
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I'd go with Andy Samberg and as a reference to Brooklyn nine nine Andre Braugher can play his adopted father
If gay actors were systematically excluded from getting work, then yes, it would be. The thing a lot of people don't get is that it's not about the characters. Characters are imaginary; nothing can hurt them. It's about the real live actors who are seeking gainful employment, and whether they're being discriminated against by the people in charge of hiring. There have always been plenty of gay actors who've played hetero characters -- Rock Hudson, George Takei, Anne Heche, etc. -- so casting hetero actors as gay characters isn't really depriving anyone of job opportunities. There are enough other job openings for LGB actors that it doesn't really make a difference. But trans actors face a lot more discrimination and have a lot fewer opportunities. The few trans characters that exist in fiction can provide such rare opportunities, so it's a greater blow to trans actors if they're excluded from such a role.
This is an excellent and compelling point.
Also, something that occurred to me, Exposure to trans people for most non trans people is relatively few and far between, I wouldn't be surprised if most non-trans actors would even know how to effectively portray a trans person anyway.
Provided that an actor/actress that's trans wants to play a trans character. Progressive Hollywood should not have problems with casting transsexual actors and actresses in any roles.
Yeah, Hollywood's progressiveness is generally lip service. Just ask the actors of colour, women over the age 40 who aren't meryl streep, and people of arabic descent all of whom are generally typecast and rarely given diverse roles. At the end of the day Hollywood is all about dollar bills and that will trump progressiveness every time.
And, then on the topic of "national" diversity, I wouldn't think Hollywood would have a problem finding this either. Obviously finding non-American actors isn't a problem.
I do find it odd that the crews aren't more nationally diverse with more nationally diverse sensibilities. Not that I think a show needs to make a point of it but this is a future earth society with a more unified earth, in a space organization of other planets, but ships still being predominantly human. You'd figure by natural extension there would be a greater national diversity among the crew. Not just a crew of "diverse" modern americans.
You are contradicting Christopher here. If non-trans actresses can't play trans characters then a straight actor does not know how to properly play a gay character.
IMO, good actors know how to play different people.
(insert sarcastic comment of agreement here)
I don't believe I'm contradicting Christopher, however I don't believe I made my point very well,
ON TOP of what about Christopher's comment I agree with, I also think there is something about exposure that helps portrayal.
These days, exposure to homosexuals is more common and accepted, I would think there are more straight people, who could effectively portray a homosexual character, Our exposure to many of them through other portrayals, stories, and general life experience of interacting with them lend to better understanding.
Yes, there is a certain amount of social injustice involved in limiting what few trans roles exist, to non-trans actors or actresses, right now especially. But on top of that, I'm not sure I'd have a lot of faith in your average non-trans actor to even effectively play a trans person.
Real life interactions with out gays and lesbians shows straight people that they are just the same normal, boring people they are. In the end the same is true for trans people. Actresses and actor should have no problem playing these normal persons.
I think this can come down to how invested an actor is in a role and what their work ethic is like. Any actor worth their salt would probably do his or her research and spend time with transgender people to get an in depth understanding of how to approach the role.
It's shit that there isn't more trans representation by trans people. But i think trans representation may paradoxically come from exposure to trans characters played by cis people. When I was figuring myself out in the mid 90's the few gay male characters on tv where played by straight men, but i still managed to identify with them. Those roles i think paved the way for more gay characters and eventually gay characters played by gay people.
I don't disagree in this particular case, because men playing transwomen gives a false impression of trans people to the general public. Although I think an argument can be made in a sci-fi setting like Trek, cisgender women could just as easily play transwomen roles (and vice versa) because gender reassignment would be much more advanced to the point that everyone would "pass" anyway.
Regardless, arguing that someone should only play their identity can lead to some awkward conclusions. Take, for example, John Turturro, a frequent supporting actor in Cohen Brothers movies. He's of Sicilian descent, but due to his looks, he's pretty ethnically ambiguous. He's played Jewish roles in several movies (Miller's Crossing, Barton Fink), and even played a Cuban man in The Big Lebowski. Was this insulting towards people of Jewish or Cuban ancestry?
The identity of an actress behind a role shouldn't matter.
Again, it's not about the characters. GeekUSACarl is right that gay/lesbian characters don't work as an analogy, not in this day and age, because there's far more representation for them in the media than there used to be, and because they're not as excluded from opportunities. Trans characters now are where gay characters were maybe 30 years ago -- they're rarely depicted at all, and tend to be stereotyped as bad guys when they are portrayed. And they aren't well enough understood as a group for non-trans people to be adept at understanding how to play them appropriately.
You can't draw facile analogies between different categories and assume they're exactly the same. Each group has its own problems and challenges to face, and you have to be able to listen and learn and hear what people in those groups are telling you.
In theory, yes, if all else were equal, there'd be no problem with actors playing categories of people different from themselves. The problem is that all else isn't equal, that there's a lot of discrimination and prejudice, and so there are some cases where that kind of casting ends up being exclusionist or appropriative or promotes a misconception. So you can't make blanket generalizations -- you have to be alert to the potential pitfalls in each distinct case. Pretending that everything is already equal does not make things equal, because pretending a problem doesn't exist does nothing to solve the problem.
Or depicted with tragedy,
which isn't in and of itself a bad thing, in fact tragedy often does promote sympathy, which I think in tv and news media did help the awareness heterosexuals had of homosexuals,
Another thing where Trans people are now that homosexuals may have been at thirty years ago,
I can tell you confidently That I work with gay people, I'm sure there may be some here or there that are in the closet but I can tell you there are many more openly homosexual people in my work place.
I may very well work with a trans person, but I honestly don't have a clue, there is no openly trans person I've ever met personally, I'm sure this is the same for many "average joes and janes" I'm not even sure most viewers would necessarily know whether or not they are watching a good portrayal of a trans person without knowing a trans person is playing the character, I mean how many viewers would have a solid frame of reference for it? The sad thing is most of the craft of acting is fairly universal but I feel the idea may be so foreign to so many they'd be a "smidge" lost. We all have imaginations, sure but I think it helps the average viewer to have a frame of reference.
Hollywood routinely tells trans women they “don’t look trans enough” and hire a man for the role. Not only those it rob a trans person from getting to add something to a performance that a cis person can’t imagine, but farther pushes the idea that trans women are men. Which leads to bigotry and murder, which is absurdly high for such a small portion of the population. It’s 1 in 12 as of right now. I roll my eyes when anyone says Hollywood is progressive.
At the end, you talk about politic. I don't care about the American politic, unless what they do to my country. It's your internal affair anyway. But is it fair to complain about a TV show just because of they don't comply with your version of political view? Movie is a work of art. You shouldn't talk about job opportunity, LBGT right, and skin colors diversity when you rate about it. Because those are political view / matter. Not the art itself that you talk about. I won't give my comment about the political right of USA. I just feel pity that Star Trek has become an object of political complain. Of course, unless Star Trek is a political show that talk about politic.
Yes its been done before, a very competent English actress played the role of King Richard in Shakespeare's Richard III. I doubt there were many complaints. Black actors take part in Shakespeare's plays and they do not only play Othello.
The whole point is that it's not about me. I'm not the one who's being discriminated against. But I have enough basic human decency and empathy that I don't want others to be discriminated against either. That's not politics, that's just not being a selfish jerk.
Besides, it's easy enough to recognize that if people with diverse viewpoints are creating fiction and art, it makes the fiction and art more interesting, richer, deeper. If it's all coming from just one point of view, that makes it more limited and boring. So more diversity among the creators of fiction and art is good for everybody.
What, do you think "art" is some magic thing that wafts down from the heavens? Art is a job. It's something people work to create, something they get paid to do. You only get to enjoy it because they worked hard to create it, and because they were given the opportunity to create it. So you should show some consideration for their labor, just like you should show consideration for the labor of the people who grew the food you eat, made the clothes you wear, built and maintained the roads you drive on, built and maintained the electrical grid you depend on for power, etc.
Seriously????? Star Trek has always, always been a work of social and political allegory. It's promoted equality and racial and gender inclusion, spoken out against prejudice and war and economic injustice, you name it. I was just talking a few weeks ago to Twilight Zone expert Mark Dawidziak, who used to cover Star Trek and other SF extensively for Cinefantastique Magazine back in the day, and he was telling me how much Gene Roddenberry was influenced by Rod Serling's use of fantasy and science fiction as a way to sneak controversial political ideas past the television censors, by disguising commentary on today's problems as stories about fantasy worlds. Using art as a vehicle for politics was a large part of the reason Star Trek was created at all.
Are the roles of men or white people limited in any way? Are they struggling to have their voices heard? No, no reasonable person would think that. It’s a different situation.
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