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Will Smith - not black enough to play Williams Sisters' father?

Information Analyst

Penultimate Amazing
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BBC News: Is Will Smith too light for this role and why does it matter?

"Earlier this week, it was reported that Will Smith could be starring in a new project called King Richard, telling the story of Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams.

While Smith has yet to confirm the news, it didn't stop fans from tweeting their excitement about the idea of the star portraying such an accomplished man.

But there were a few who weren't so pleased with the choice, and not because they were questioning the star's talent, but because his skin tone isn't considered dark enough.

In recent years, Hollywood has made progress in representing minorities on screen, yet we still find ourselves circling around the issue of colourism."
 
Hollywood makeup artists can do almost anything including darkening the skin of Smith. But is that then considered blackface?
 
William Parcher said:
Hollywood makeup artists can do almost anything including darkening the skin of Smith. But is that then considered blackface?
Click to expand...

I'm betting it almost certainly is.

I recently read through a bunch of Walter Moseley's crime fiction. One of his longest-running series is about Easy Rawlins, a private eye in 40s Los Angeles (the first book, Devil in a Blue Dress, was adapted as a movie starring a very young Denzel Washington).

Moseley is black, and his main character is black. The Easy Rawlins stories have given me a lot of food for thought, and a whole different perspective on what it might be like to be black in America, both then and now. I don't pretend to know how accurate my new perspective is, but it's definitely made me re-examine a lot of my assumptions, and a lot of my easy dismissal of some topics and concerns.

Anyway, one thing that struck me about the Easy Rawlins stories is that every time Rawlins encounters another black person, he describes not only how they're dressed - code for their class and social status, among other things - but also how they're colored. No two people in the black communities of Los Angeles appear to have the same skin tone, in Rawlins' world. Some are light enough to pass as white, and do. Others are so black they're almost blue. I have no idea what that's code for. I assume it's something that matters between black people, and that as an outsider it's probably none of my business. I figure Moseley has more to say to his black readers than to me, and that's okay.

But now it looks like somebody, somewhere, has decided that whatever opinions black people might have about skin color between themselves, those opinions are now everybody's business.
 
William Parcher said:
Hollywood makeup artists can do almost anything including darkening the skin of Smith. But is that then considered blackface?
Click to expand...

I don't think they are the same.

"Blackface" is, was, and always will be a racist caricature. Darkening to make Will Smith's face make him look more accurately like Richard Williams is no more "blackface" than making up Helena Bonham Carter to look like Ari is "monkeyface"

Bruno Ganz was made up to look more pallid for his portrayal of Adolph Hitler, especially in the last few scenes; does that mean it was an example of "whiteface"?
 
Seems to be what is now quite typical, an opinion piece disgused as a news article. The "great" thing for journalists wanting to opine rather than report these days is that they can find anything they want on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram etc as a leaping off point so they "report" it as "news", so, that they can wax lyrical about any topic they want.
 
Information Analyst said:
BBC News: Is Will Smith too light for this role and why does it matter?

"Earlier this week, it was reported that Will Smith could be starring in a new project called King Richard, telling the story of Richard Williams, the father of tennis icons Venus and Serena Williams.

While Smith has yet to confirm the news, it didn't stop fans from tweeting their excitement about the idea of the star portraying such an accomplished man.

But there were a few who weren't so pleased with the choice, and not because they were questioning the star's talent, but because his skin tone isn't considered dark enough.

In recent years, Hollywood has made progress in representing minorities on screen, yet we still find ourselves circling around the issue of colourism."
Click to expand...

Geezes Twitter has to be one of the worst of inventions

It can make one or two nobody's from who knows where "tweets" turn into international news.
 
theprestige said:
Anyway, one thing that struck me about the Easy Rawlins stories is that every time Rawlins encounters another black person, he describes not only how they're dressed - code for their class and social status, among other things - but also how they're colored. No two people in the black communities of Los Angeles appear to have the same skin tone, in Rawlins' world. Some are light enough to pass as white, and do. Others are so black they're almost blue. I have no idea what that's code for. I assume it's something that matters between black people, and that as an outsider it's probably none of my business. I figure Moseley has more to say to his black readers than to me, and that's okay.
Click to expand...

This seems to hark back to the internal hierarchy amongst blacks referenced in Roots, in that some slaves were differentiated on account of just how "black" they were. If sections of the black community now want to reintroduce it, that appears somewhat retrogressive.
 
smartcooky said:
I don't think they are the same.

"Blackface" is, was, and always will be a racist caricature. Darkening to make Will Smith's face make him look more accurately like Richard Williams is no more "blackface" than making up Helena Bonham Carter to look like Ari is "monkeyface"

Bruno Ganz was made up to look more pallid for his portrayal of Adolph Hitler, especially in the last few scenes; does that mean it was an example of "whiteface"?
Click to expand...

Yes, this, exactly. Actors use all sorts of techniques to become the character they portray, and make-up has long been one of them. It’s equivocation to dismiss any use of darkening make-up as “blackface”, which, to my mind, as to yours, is a very specific thing. If it’s done badly, then the make-up may well look like blackface (not too surprising, since blackface is a very crude attempt at portraying someone with dark skin), and should be rightly ridiculed (but not necessarily for being racist, though these days people should know better).
 
It is utter ***** from some idiot tweeters

Period dramas in the UK have white make-up to make the actors look whiter, as during the early periods, people actually wore white make up* because it is period and they did.

(Containing lead funny enough, so they kept dying)

Next we will have a "English program set 250 years ago is white face as they hate black people" from 2 nobodys.
 
Lead? That's the least of problems. Whitening your skin during renaissance involved getting chronic poisoning levels of ARSENIC.

That said the article still seems stupid to me. Equality doesn't apply when there is a substantive difference, i.e., relevant to the job. E.g., does anyone think it's "colourism" (whatever that means) if we don't cast Leonardo Di Caprio as Martin Luther King or Samuel Jackson as Churchill? :p

Mind you, IF make up can make up for it, sure, go for it, but the pretense that any mention of skin colour in a casting choice is racism is just stonking stupid.
 
theprestige said:
I'm betting it almost certainly is.

I recently read through a bunch of Walter Moseley's crime fiction. One of his longest-running series is about Easy Rawlins, a private eye in 40s Los Angeles (the first book, Devil in a Blue Dress, was adapted as a movie starring a very young Denzel Washington).

Moseley is black, and his main character is black. The Easy Rawlins stories have given me a lot of food for thought, and a whole different perspective on what it might be like to be black in America, both then and now. I don't pretend to know how accurate my new perspective is, but it's definitely made me re-examine a lot of my assumptions, and a lot of my easy dismissal of some topics and concerns.

Anyway, one thing that struck me about the Easy Rawlins stories is that every time Rawlins encounters another black person, he describes not only how they're dressed - code for their class and social status, among other things - but also how they're colored. No two people in the black communities of Los Angeles appear to have the same skin tone, in Rawlins' world. Some are light enough to pass as white, and do. Others are so black they're almost blue. I have no idea what that's code for. I assume it's something that matters between black people, and that as an outsider it's probably none of my business. I figure Moseley has more to say to his black readers than to me, and that's okay.

But now it looks like somebody, somewhere, has decided that whatever opinions black people might have about skin color between themselves, those opinions are now everybody's business.
Click to expand...

Yes, Mosley educated me when I didn't think I needed help. Coming of age I had Baldwin to reference. Mosely both educated and entertained me. A favorite.
 
theprestige said:
I'm betting it almost certainly is.

I recently read through a bunch of Walter Moseley's crime fiction. One of his longest-running series is about Easy Rawlins, a private eye in 40s Los Angeles (the first book, Devil in a Blue Dress, was adapted as a movie starring a very young Denzel Washington).

Moseley is black, and his main character is black. The Easy Rawlins stories have given me a lot of food for thought, and a whole different perspective on what it might be like to be black in America, both then and now. I don't pretend to know how accurate my new perspective is, but it's definitely made me re-examine a lot of my assumptions, and a lot of my easy dismissal of some topics and concerns.

Anyway, one thing that struck me about the Easy Rawlins stories is that every time Rawlins encounters another black person, he describes not only how they're dressed - code for their class and social status, among other things - but also how they're colored. No two people in the black communities of Los Angeles appear to have the same skin tone, in Rawlins' world. Some are light enough to pass as white, and do. Others are so black they're almost blue. I have no idea what that's code for. I assume it's something that matters between black people, and that as an outsider it's probably none of my business. I figure Moseley has more to say to his black readers than to me, and that's okay.

But now it looks like somebody, somewhere, has decided that whatever opinions black people might have about skin color between themselves, those opinions are now everybody's business.
Click to expand...

" don't call out bigotry if it isn't white people " is what I got out of that. With a side of " not that I'm saying I know anything. .. " if even you are not confident you know anything ,kind of hard to make a case for listening to you.
 
sadhatter said:
" don't call out bigotry if it isn't white people " is what I got out of that. With a side of " not that I'm saying I know anything. .. " if even you are not confident you know anything ,kind of hard to make a case for listening to you.
Click to expand...
Callings out bigotry is easy. I can do that in my sleep. Harder is trying to understand where people are coming from and what's actually going on.

It's probably bigotry. My belief is that everyone is a bigot in at least a couple of ways. You and me included. But humans are complicated and conflicted. Bigotry alone doesn't explain anything very well.
 
Some girls experimented by putting bleach crème on their skin hoping to make their skin lighter. Some were even told not to marry a dark skinned male because they wouldn’t want to have his blood in their gene pool. Many of these girls said they grew up wanting to be like “Barbie” with long blond hair they could comb. Kiri concluded her study by stating how these images of whiteness as the norm is affecting the Black children and how little have changed since the original doll experiment. Young African Americans are still facing constant demeaning images of themselves while trying to find their identity through these challenging circumstances.
Kiri Davis: " The girl like me."
Click to expand...

 
theprestige said:
Callings out bigotry is easy. I can do that in my sleep. Harder is trying to understand where people are coming from and what's actually going on.

It's probably bigotry. My belief is that everyone is a bigot in at least a couple of ways. You and me included. But humans are complicated and conflicted. Bigotry alone doesn't explain anything very well.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm bigotted against robots, for example. They ain't human and they're taking our jobs. Just think of how many secretary jobs were lost to answering machines alone. Well I ain't talking to them. They should go back where they came from :p
 
Gary Oldman is probably the only actor who could truly pull that role off.
 
Without reading the article... let me guess. A couple silly people on twitter questioned Smith's skin tone for a role, and someone decided to write a story about it as if it's a serious issue.
 
TBH I'm just surprised that it's the BBC. I would have expected it to be more like one of the alt-right "OMFG, reverse racism" sources. As in, "OMFG, guy discriminated for being too white, we're oppressed, bla, bla, bla." You know the shtick. Seems right up their alley. But then I suppose some of those must have never gotten past the "problem" that they'd be defending a black guy, even if not the blackest :p
 
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