How Colorism affects Casting

 

“Good Representation Matters | Colorism and Casting” was created by Cheyenne Lin in 2020 to talk about Black and Asian American representation on screen and how colorism plays a role in who is cast. In the video, she discusses the fine line between real life identification and on screen representation, the limited representation of the Black experience that colorism causes, and how casting a light skinned actor in place of a dark skinned actor can change a character's role within a story. The lack of representation means that less unique stories are able to be told and people are not able to see themselves on screen, which is an isolating experience. 

As a result of white supremacy, casting directors tend to cast actors with eurocentric features and light skin because they are seen as the standard of beauty. This means that people without those features or darker skin color are given less roles and representation within the film and TV industry. A result of this is the racialization of tropes, which feeds into the cycle of who is cast as a particular role. If audiences only see light skin actors with eurocentric features in heroic roles, an association is made between the appearance of the character and their role in the story, leading it to become the dominant norm. On the opposite side, actors with dark skin and non-eurocentric features being cast solely as villains draws a connection between the two. Author Patricia Collins writes about the effect mass media has on society’s view of masculinity: 

Tarzan constitutes one well-known example of how mass media shapes White masculinity within U.S. society. The construction of White masculinity is not confined to fictional images. Whether the composition of the U.S. Senate or executives of global corporations or an American literary canon that glorifies the exploits of pioneers and patriots, elite White men run America. It doesn’t matter that, to paraphrase the title of a Hollywood film of the same name, “White men can’t jump,” because they can make others jump for them. Moreover, because this group so dominates positions of power and authority, the view of masculinity patterned on Tarzan, U.S. senators, corporate executives, and cowboys is well known and is often taken as normal, natural, and ideal. It becomes hegemonic in that the vast majority of the population accepts ideas about gender complementarity that privilege the masculinity of propertied, heterosexual White men as natural, normal, and beyond reproach. In this fashion, elite White men control the very definitions of masculinity, and they use these standards to evaluate their own masculine identities and those of all other men, including African American men. (185)

Diverse representation is important for this reason, as it leads to these tropes being subverted and audiences seeing themselves in roles previously not afforded to BIPOC actors. 

The problem with “colorblind” casting is that it does not focus on how a person’s race and features affect the story. The example Lin gives is the casting of Sunspot in The New Mutants. Originally, the character in the comics is a Black man, but in the show he was played by a white man. This erases how Sunspot’s Blackness affects his actions and worldview, changing how his character operates within the story. Whitewashing BIPOC characters is common with adaptations of books and comics into TV and film. The director said that he was looking for an actor that “looked like he grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth”, and as a result, implying that only a white character can look rich. This casting choice reinforces the stereotypical image of wealth and doesn’t allow for the story to explore the interaction between the character’s race and other factors in the show. Subversion of racialized tropes is not able to happen because the character already fits within the hegemonic idea of the trope. “Racism and heterosexism also manufacture ideologies that defend the status quo. When ideologies that defend racism and heterosexism become taken-for-granted and appear to be natural and inevitable, they become hegemonic.” (Collins 96)

The hegemonic ideology of whiteness that is upheld through Hollywood’s casting choices is inherently racist, whether it is addressed or not. Eurocentric beauty standards affect who is cast, and by extension, uphold the racialized tropes used as storytelling devices. There needs to be intentional casting that includes a diverse range of actors in Hollywood so that more experiences and identities are able to be represented. 

Citations:

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Sexual Politics. Routledge, 2004.

“GOOD Representation Matters | Colorism and Casting.”, Youtube, Cheyenne Lin, 25 September 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkHmYBxWxvI&ab_channel=CheyenneLin