"Colorface" yesterday and today

J. Chang continues his series on race and casting. In part one, which I excerpted in Visual Verisimilitude in Movies, he noted the importance of authentic casting in movies. Now he discusses the inauthentic casting that occurred in the past and still occurs.

Note that "colorface" is his term for the collective practice of "blackface," "brownface," "yellowface," and "redface." In other words, of whites playing minorities on the stage and screen.

Casting & Race Part 2:  Defacing Color

By J. ChangAs white actors took up the work of portraying characters of color, many of them if not most of them probably had little actual meaningful interaction with people of color. Combine that with the prevailing notion that races were actually fundamentally different, these white actors would have to turn to safe places from which to draw their characters, Stanislavsky be damned. And that source would be, of course, minstrel shows and vaudeville, which had a history of portraying black characters, even if it was terribly racist--after all, the racism of yesteryear was actually the common sense of those that perpetuated it. (Although more than a thing or two could be said today about how a slightly more subtle racism still masquerades as common sense today.)

One of the significant problems of colorface at the time, beyond just keeping actors of color out of work, and being a tool of widespread proliferation of racism, was that, because of racism, it also impeded the actor's craft. Due to the segregated society and the limited meaningful interaction of people between races, people of color were likely mysterious to the white actors, and believing what racism would be telling these actors, they consequently restrained themselves from actually performing anything more than a series of stereotypes. In that sense, people of color watching these films would immediately be able to point out that, "that black person is nothing like an actual black person!" (using the vernacular of the time, of course). Unfortunately, also because of this racism, I'm pretty certain that the vast majority of the audience (likely white), also would not be fazed by these ridiculous portrayals of people of color.Why the practice continues a century later:I think there are several factors feeding the continued acceptance of colorface. First, I think the audience's ignorance is playing a big factor here. In some cases, the audience just doesn't know that the characters are supposed to be characters of color, so when they see a white actor playing a character of color, they just assume that the character is white too. Second, producers often will choose bigger name actors to headline their film because it creates a greater chance at profits and well, there aren't many A-list actors of color to choose from (which itself proves that societal racism is still very active today)--this also helps ease investors into joining a film. Third, I think that the notion of colorblind casting, from theater, has made its way into film, but in a rather selective form which disregards the abstraction of the theater and often, but not always, to the favor of white actors.

Finally, I think that, for the large part, the mainstream audience has largely bought the Mighty Whitey myth. Part of that also includes this concept that white equals neutral, as opposed to a distinct race, and can consequently fill any role. Which is why I think the public response to characters getting actors of the wrong race cast can often be so minimal. Well, that and the cynic in me screaming that the mainstream audience (as well as the majority of people) tend towards apathy when it comes to more "invisible" issues like systemic racism that don't obviously impact their daily lives in a tangible way.Comment:  For more on the subject, see Friday, Tonto, Jacob Black, et al. and A Brief History of "Redface."