‘Must be able to play Caucasian’

‘Must be able to play Caucasian’

I’m no actor, but I’m guessing I can play Caucasian as well as most people.

But I’m neither ‘tough as nails’ or a girl, so the part will likely go to someone else.

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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }

opusNo Gravatar December 22, 2009 at 1:51 am

Just out of curiosity I wonder what a non-caucasian actress would have to be able to do to be qualified or able to portray “caucasian”?

Also out of curiosity do they say the same type of thing for the other caucasian parts in the film?

jicNo Gravatar December 22, 2009 at 2:04 am

Isn’t this an example of ‘burying the lede’:

THE COEN BROTHERS ARE REMAKING TRUE GRIT?!?!

cftotoNo Gravatar December 22, 2009 at 5:49 am

JIC — The news of the Coens remaking “Grit” was out there already, so I thought the oddest part of the casting call was the search for a ‘caucasian’ …

KNo Gravatar December 22, 2009 at 5:37 pm

Actually, it would be interesting and perhaps even amusing if they had, say, an asian and used eye makeup to simulate a caucasian. It would fit right in with the white guilt fad that seems to be going around.

DagnabbittNo Gravatar December 22, 2009 at 10:46 pm

Hey!

I could play Caucasian – especially since the definition covers Iranians and East Indians (unless, being typically obscure, the Coens meant natives from the Caucusus; or perhaps mixed-ancestry actors, like Michaela Conlin, Tamara Taylor, Jennifer Tilly, Halle Berry…) – since I play one every day on the telephone, apparently (inside j/k to Toto) ….

jicNo Gravatar December 23, 2009 at 1:42 am

I’ve been thinking about this:

Obviously, the character is white, and they want a white actress to play her. Perfectly reasonable, right? But the trouble is that people tend to get race, ethnicity and culture all mixed up. So if the casting call said something like ‘white actresses only’, you’d get a lot of hispanic, arab, etc. actresses who could play the part feeling excluded. This is despite the fact that those actresses arguably are white, because those designations don’t really have much to do with race.

Why “caucasian”, not ‘white’? Because most people consider those terms interchangeable, even though they aren’t really, and because caucasian sounds more ‘precise’ or ’scientific’ to many people (even though, again, it isn’t really).

To sum up: people can be silly.

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