if it’s not Jane Austen or Dickens, the audience don’t understand

April 12, 2017 5:34 AM

"Between 2006-2016, of the films produced in the UK, 59% did not have any black actors in a named character role, and 80% of historical dramas in this 10-year period featured not one single black actor. The problem is not isolated to the United Kingdom by any means." Race and Roles in Historical Costume Dramas

See also the very interesting Tumblr People of Color in European Art History

posted by anastasiav (14 comments total)

There was a post on the same theme but about historical romance novels on the blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books about a month ago.
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:36 AM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

People of Color Tumblr isn't really very accurate nor scholarly--I wouldn't use it as a definitive resource.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:44 AM on April 12, 2017 [3 favorites]

I would say that people don't have to be scholarly on this topic; it's a solid fact that people of colour existed in these societies, they were extensive trade networks that funnelled people and material to London and European coastal areas, and removing any trace of non-white people in depictions of the past helps foster a historical revisionism of 'Englishness'.
posted by The River Ivel at 6:55 AM on April 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

Yes! Hell I would love to see these stories brought to screen. To the asshole exec who told David Oyelowo that no one wanted to see a period piece with a POC protagonist and focus I say let's name and shame them! I'm so sick of industry types and actors playing hapless victims of audience and market driven forces instead of the actual complicit shameless whitewashing cowardly (etc.etc.) people who should be held responsible. Thanks for the post!
posted by Lisitasan at 6:57 AM on April 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

I fell for Belle.
posted by fairmettle at 7:02 AM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

There are so many layers to this topic--not just the modern racist structures/conventional widsoms that won't produce "black" stories or hire POC actors, directors, writers; and not just the systematic erasure of the history of POC (not only the culture and achievement of both individuals and communities but also the mere existence in every day history), and not just the constant message to people of color that "we" don't have to make stories about you or for you, but also the impact on actors of color and audiences of all types who constantly encounter people of color only when re-enacting their subjugation at the hands of racist institutions and people.

i have not seen a lot of writing about that last point and it seems like an important one.
posted by crush at 7:39 AM on April 12, 2017 [7 favorites]

Also I have zero to less interest in yet another adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but that's beside the point.
posted by crush at 7:40 AM on April 12, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'm remembering the furor when Angel Coulby was cast as Gwen on Merlin, about how it wasn't 'historically accurate' and it was like. . . there is not a single part of this story that remotely historically accurate, not even taking into account that modern intepretations of Arthurian legends are a reinvention of a Victorian taken on romanticism and a more "English" time period that was largely based on the French using the story as a parable about 'hey knights, maybe don't indiscriminately kill commoners' five hundred years earlier which was then based on something that, two hundred years previous, a Welsh priest had tossed off as 'long ago history, and ps, have some prophesies' and nobody really believed were historically accurate at the time.

So yeah, there's a lot of racism involved in this.
posted by dinty_moore at 8:19 AM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

I think what I'm always surprised by is that people say "we want to see royals"and then ignore all the POC royals throughout history. Like you don't even have to be historically inaccurate, just set your period piece somewhere else.
posted by corb at 9:15 AM on April 12, 2017 [8 favorites]

I'm remembering the furor when Angel Coulby was cast as Gwen on Merlin, about how it wasn't 'historically accurate' and it was like. . . there is not a single part of this story that remotely historically accurate

I did not hear there was a controversy, and how ... disappointing and pathetic. (My family enjoyed that show a lot when my son was younger).
posted by chapps at 12:58 PM on April 12, 2017

Also, Daughters of the Dust is a period piece centred on a black community and it is awesome. It's true that slavery is the backdrop, but really it's just so much richer than that.
I carried that film in my thoughts for decades after seeing it at a campus cinema when it was released. Just such an evocative and beautiful film.
posted by chapps at 1:03 PM on April 12, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'm remembering the furor when Angel Coulby was cast as Gwen on Merlin, about how it wasn't 'historically accurate' and it was like. . . there is not a single part of this story that remotely historically accurate

It wasn't even ahistorically accurate to the fiction it drew from. I cannot believe that was a complaint.
posted by corb at 1:23 PM on April 12, 2017

When I say I cannot believe it, I don't mean I doubt you, I mean fuck those people.
posted by corb at 1:23 PM on April 12, 2017 [5 favorites]

Surely if such adaptations were so wedded to historical accuracy, everyone would be a lot uglier and have horrible teeth.

Discussing the casting of Freema Agyeman as Tattiecoram in the BBC production of Little Dorrit in 2008.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 7:29 AM on April 13, 2017 [2 favorites]