There have been a lot of high profile incidents of "problematic" casting over the last few years. I even did an article that mentioned a few back when it was announced that a Black actress was cast as Ariel in Disney's upcoming live action The Little Mermaid. For some people, putting an actor of colour in a role they feel is "traditionally" that of a white person is an issue. I find this irritating at best, horribly racist at worst, particularly in cases like Ariel where the character in question isn't even a human being to begin with. How can a mermaid be "traditionally" white? She's a mermaid. She is traditionally half fish and since no person on earth fits THAT parameter it seems pretty petty to be concerned about the colour of her skin.
So that whole argument is done. It's a new world and there's going to be a Black Superman. Deal with it.
There is another, less high profile area where race and casting are going to come into conflict and I wonder how the issue will play out there.
A little background here.
I don't listen to the radio. I had decades of over-saturation in pop music and I just can't stand the vapid dj chatter and repetitive song selection so I found another solution. I prefer to drive in a quiet vehicle or listen to audiobooks while I drive. I am also partial to British comedy and there are some great British radio comedy shows out there.
One of the best is something called "Cabin Pressure" written by John Finnemore. Finnemore plays hapless flight attendant, Arthur, on the show as well. The now mega-star Benedict Cumberbatch plays Captain Martin Crieff on the show. It ran on BBC Radio 4 from 2008 to 2014. What's interesting there is that in an episode that aired in 2009, Cumberbatch did something that today I suspect he would not do. At one point in the episode he affects a "comedic" Asian accent as he recounts buying a watch in Hong Kong.
I'm not condemning the man or even the moment. At the time (only a dozen years or so ago) it wasn't noteworthy and shouldn't be considered an issue now. The entertainment industry has in the last five or six years gone from regularly using white actors doing various ethnic accents to going to great lengths to have actors of colour fill those roles, particularly in animation.
The reason I use Cabin Pressure as an example is that John Finnemore writes A LOT. He also writes another BBC 4 show, John Finnermore's Souvenir Program. A couple of years ago, a moment on that show went something like "A long time ago, in a land far, far away...but don't worry, we aren't going to do the accents..."
John Finnemore's Souvenir Program has a cast of four, all white British actors, two men, two women. They did another skit that started with one of the actors naming the other "Ranjit" that then broke the fourth wall as the cast discussed how to handle doing various ethnic characters on the radio, particularly when the cast is all white folks.
In a lot of ways, for radio comedy and drama, the new racially sensitive reality is going to be a bigger problem than it will be for film and television. In live action film and television you cast one actor for each role and pay them accordingly, so producing a more racially real landscape doesn't change much on the balance sheet. It's a little tougher for animation, since one talented voice actor can do several characters on a single show. While it will likely add some cost to productions like The Simpsons to add actors of specific ethnic backgrounds to match the ethnic backgrounds of various characters, it's not likely to force any huge changes in the animation landscape.
Radio is a little different. A show like Finnemore's skit show can have four talented actors create literally hundreds of characters over a long run, often using accents for comedic effect. Not anymore. Shows like Finnemore's will have to eliminate certain skits and characters, perhaps hire additional talent and make different choices in the writing, but in the long run a more racially egalitarian approach likely won't make more than a small financial and cultural ripple on the radio comedy landscape. Still, it will force writers to make some changes in their approach but I am of the opinion that it will make comedy better not worse. Let's face it, folks...the days of funny accents actually being funny are gone. I feel myself cringe every time I get to that particular episode of Cabin Pressure when it's in my listening cue, so I'd say good riddance.
So I seem to be saying that this is all just a little rocking of a huge boat and for the most part that's likely to be true. But. Remember the other thing I listen to while I drive?
Audiobooks.
Traditional audiobooks employ one actor to read the entire book, affecting voices for ALL the characters. Consider Roy Dotrice. He has recorded the audiobooks for all five of George R.R. Martin's so far written books in the Song of Ice and Fire series. That's Game of Thrones, folks. Dotrice actually holds the Guinness World Record for his work on the series, voicing over 1000 different characters over the course of the five books. Now this series is set in a fictional world, so there's an argument that any "offensive" accent he uses doesn't actually reflect a "real" place or ethnicity, but that's a razor thin line. I've listened to plenty of books where a white actor reads a "real" ethnic character in a "real" accent that definitely isn't their own.
I can't say I have any idea of the nuts and bolts of casting and producing an audiobook, but I'm fairly sure that it'd be prohibitively expensive to pay different actors to come in to play any ethnically sensitive parts. Then if you do that, what about the male actors who voice women and vice versa when recording an audiobook? At least a third of Dotrice's 1000+ characters were women. If you hire an additional actor to fill a role due to the need for an authentic accent, how is it reasonable to not hire a woman to voice the ladies in the book? What about children or characters that are trans? I'm not trying to be facetious, even if does sound like I am. It's a serious question and I really do wonder about a "slippery slope" scenario.
I'm not sure how this area of the entertainment industry is going to handle this new reality. I'm not even sure that anyone is asking this particular question. Yet. I'm pretty sure that someone will, sooner or later and when they do, I really wonder how it will all play out.
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