Seeing your self-practise - Race and stereotyping

As we started to move on in the discussion, we began to talk about ethics and particularly race. Does the colour of your skin change how you are perceived within the industry? As someone who has experienced working on a variety of jobs, I can say white privilege was something I became very aware of, very quickly. When working on a Bollywood awards show, I was told part of the reason I was hired, was for because I was "white and blonde". This very reasoning most certainly left a stale taste in my mouth. Surely that is discrimination I thought to myself. Shouldn't it be about the dancing? But sadly, this is a situation, I have seen many times before. During my time at Drama school, I was always told "Go for the parts you fit, physically". I remember as clear as day, my contemporary teacher telling me, "You will never get lion King, because you're white" But hang on a second, I thought, isn’t there white South Africans? I also thought isn't this very stereotypical and racial profiling, to which he answered "It's just the way it is, there are parts you can play and there are parts you cannot" 

Lion King Article

I remember reading an article on Lion King the musical, which discussed racial profiling and  how Lion King could be seen as representing black actors/actresses. But the article also, goes on to talk about how they could be doing a massive injustice for black performers by categorising them into these very stereotypical roles. Author, Ada Barume goes on to explain in her article, 'The lion king reminds us that musical theatre is racial' ,                          "Perhaps this criticism is too harsh on what is a theatrical realization of a children’s film        about the animal kingdom, but surely the idea of Africa as a wild and untamed terrain        inhabited only by animals is a dangerous one that reinforces colonial ideas of civilizing a     savage land. To depict these animals with almost exclusively black actors also sets a            worrying precedent. It could, on one level, be considered more appropriate to use black        actors to represent ‘African’ animals, but it is also worrying that these animals seem to         perform the same “rituals” and exhibit the same social relations as those, imagined in         colonial discourses, of the “the natives”. The concept of the tribe and the chief, portrayed      through the allegory of the Animal Kingdom, is one that is associated with blackness in      the post-colonial European imagination" (Barume, 2017).                                             

This very article got me thinking about all the other times I watched a film, tv series or dance video and thought why couldn't that role be portrayed by a different race? Cant we be better? More diverse, more imaginative. I recently watched a brilliant one-off series called 'Hollywood' on Netflix, released on 1st May 2020. This post world war two series delves into lives of several aspiring filmmakers and actors who will do almost anything to make it. I remember watching this one scene and bursting into tears. This amazing actress who was up for the lead role was told she could never be the lead, that unfortunately the audience will not accept a black actress as being the leading lady. After, the white actress, who was not deserving of the role, drops her part, this breathtakingly talented black actress steps in to take the role. She ends up wowing the crowd over and they end up breaking numbers and the movie becomes a huge success. Of course, I know this is a series but the very fact they chose to tell this story, really got me thinking. It made me think someone of a different race, gender or a performer who identify as part of LGBTQ + community should be able to play a wider more diverse range of roles. Why do we have these limitations still? Isn't it our responsibility as part of the entertainment industry to creative and re-define, imagine, and tear up the stereotypes that we have so ignorantly stood by accepting?             

I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks guys :)