Cultural bigotry
mardi 18 janvier 2022 à 23:49The triumphal march of cultural bigotry advances ever onward: there is a movement to allow only Jews to play parts that are Jewish.
There are many intersecting subsets of Americans (for instance) who have a certain aspect of their culture in common. New Yorkers tend to have much in common, and so do Texans. But not all New Yorkers are similar, nor all Texans, nor are all Jews. With equal validity, casting directors could be compelled to classify parts and actors into lots of small pigeonholes.
Here's a part for a white Midwestern Evangelical Christian. There's one for an Irish Protestant. And that one, for a Texan Evangelical from Austin. Another role is someone from Dallas. Yet another, from a rural area near the Mexican border. These cultures are not the same.
Here's a part for Hasidic Jew of Polish background, from Brooklyn. That part likewise, calls for a Jew of Polish extraction, but Orthodox. There's a part for a mostly assimilated not-very-religious Jew from a New Jersey suburb, who went to a prestigious university, like per parents. And another for one who went to a community college. These cultures are not the same either. Which of those differences are the most important?
Who should be allowed to play a transsexual Nazi Eskimo (as suggested in "Can't Watch This", by Weird Al Yankovic)? Or a neo-Nazi playwright (as in The Producers)? Should those roles be limited to actors who are real American Nazis?
Productions won't carry this to the point where it makes casting impossible. But those are not morally significant questions — only variations among groups of people. If it is ok to ignore most of these divisions, then it is ok to consider only the ones that are important for good performance of any particular role. Along with everything else that is important for a good performance.
If gentiles are forbidden to play Jewish parts, gentile actors will demand, for fairness, that Jews be forbidden to play gentile parts. Here are some Jewish actors who have been very successful playing non-Jewish parts, and might have been barred by cultural bigotry.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Robert Downey Jr, Douglas Fairbanks Jr,
Mira Furlan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Kate Hudson, Harvey Keitel, Hedy Lamarr,
Peter Lorre, Leonard Nimoy, Sean Penn, Rhea Jo Perlman, William Shatner, Eli Wallach,
all three stooges.