Birgit Kellner writes: >However, why is it "good" if actors and characters are of the same race? >Does this assumption not represent a rather romantic notion about the >"authenticity" of film as such, or its "realism"? If a film depicts a >character who is aging, we certainly do not expect the actor to be aging, as >well, but if a film depicts an Asian character, we naturally (?) presuppose >that the actor is Asian, too. I am not stating an opinion here, I would just >like to question the "natural" character of this presupposition. To which I would add: 1. Indeed, if we begin to insist that characters only be played by actors of the same race, the logical outcome is that actors can only play characters of the same age/gender/race/sexuality/physical ability etc., ultimately, actors will only play themselves. Obviously acting is the art (or craft) of pretending to be something you are not. 2. However, questions of realism and representation aside, there is the question of equity for actors. (Stephen Brophy already made this point.) In Hollywood, white actors generally have the latitude to play people of color, while actors of color can usually only play other people of color. (This is a gross generalization, as obviously there have been many actors who have "passed" for white themselves, or who have made careers of playing white roles. Add into the mix the performativity [masquerade] of race -- think Charo -- and we could say that actors of color perform their "own" race from a distanced, almost white, position.) Thus, on those occasions when I have argued for casting an actor of color, it is on the basis of professional equity -- actors of color need work. 3. Even when Hollywood has cast Asians and Latino/as by race, Hollywood has often cast across ethnic lines: e.g., Cubans playing Mexicans, Chinese playing Japanese, etc. As an Asian American who grew up without much contact with Latinos, I for one often cannot tell if (for example) a Puerto Rican actor is playing a Chicano role, but I can almost always tell if (for example) a Japanese actor is playing a Vietnamese role. For me, verisimilitude is destroyed in the latter case, and is more-or-less intact in the former case. For others, it will be different. (I take it that Kellner's question, in part, is "when and for whom does verisimilitude matter? and when and for whom do filmmakers take verisimilitude into account.) Does it matter if the film is "positioned" as an Asian American film (e.g., Tamlyn Tomita as Waverly Jong in _The Joy Luck Club_) or a mainstream film (e.g., Joan Chen as an Eskimo -- I don't know the tribe, sorry -- in _On Deadly Ground_) or somewhere in between Asian American and mainstream (e.g., Haing S. Ngor in _Heaven and Earth_)? 4. Finally, this may be a tangent but I think it is related: what about casting (e.g.) a Cuban American as a Cuban citizen or vice versa? If/when we insist on casting by race, should we also insist on casting by nationality? And (this may be too far off topic) do we want Cuban-accented English to portray a character who is presumably speaking Spanish, for the benefit of an English-speaking audience? (I'll invoke the example of _The Hunt for Red October_, where Sean Connery and Peter Firth shift, mid-scene with the aid of a zoom-in on Firth's lips, from speaking Russian to speaking accented English (Connery of course speaking some kind of Scottish/Russian hybrid accent).... Questions only, no answers.... Peter Feng University of Iowa ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]