jezebel.com: Hollywood is in the business of representation. Actors pretend to be others, directors control artistic images, PR departments manage their clients’ images, and agents—if Entourage’s totally convincing portrayals are to be believed—claw each others’ eyes out to represent actors. But Hollywood also fairly regularly fails to represent the lives and the interests of anyone who is not a straight cis white man, most visibly, in casting notices and choices.
5 comments:
Okay, so I never realized that these biased and racist casting calls were ever so blatant about their intentions of excluding so many performers, and openly talking about the certain aesthetic they’re going for in an offensive way. The wording in the Nick Jonas casting call immediately puts white women as a preference and objectifies the qualities of other racial profiles as “flare”. Also, having grown up idolizing Nick Jonas, admittedly my first concert was the Jonas Brothers opening for Aly and AJ, I’m appalled at this new image he is crafting in his career. He went from celibacy rings with all of his brothers to musical theatre star extraordinaire, to this terrible and trying to be sexy image. It’s definitely hard to see an article like this, especially connected to a higher profile celebrity, and it almost negates all the progress being made by the other more powerful women in the industry.
Well, I can't say I'm surprised about any of this. I find it interesting that the casting company thought they could legally bully the posting off of the internet. Do they not realize how stupid they look when they clearly don't have legal standing and then send a C&D? Also, I guess the PR of their casting notice may be bad, but trying to squash the poster is obviously even more negative PR. This is a great example of bad-reactive Public Relations in a company. A much more appropriate stance would of been to create a press release and public posting about the requirements of casting and that a specific type of person was needed to best artistically represent the vision of the production. I also don't think the "star" Nick Jonas is at fault here. Sure, it probably should of been brought to his attention, but I doubt he was aware of what his agents and employees were posting when trying to cast his latest music video. Obviously he has better things to do and worry about, which is why he employs said agency to begin with.
Although none of this comes as a shock, which I think is a comment in itself about the state of our entertainment industry, I still did not quite expect the level of legal technicalities involved in the aftermath. I think many people, not just those in Hollywood, attempt to use legal scare tactics to get their way, and most of the time it works. Most people don't have the money to hire an attorney to explain or fight legal action, so will usually comply. That said, I also think the effort that was put into removing the posted content should have gone to editing the casting call and issuing an apology. I have seen articles detailing that progression of events, where a company has had to apologize and take down a call because someone posted it on social media. Now, I don't think we need to go as far as requiring an apology from the "star" themselves, as likely they actually had very little to do with the wording of this particular posting, but those actually involved in the posting of this should be held accountable.
I continue to be surprised every time I read a blatantly sexist and/or racist casting call, but I don’t understand why because they seem to only get worse and worse. I cannot believe a Nick Jonas music video casting call asked for “stunning female models… mainly Caucasion… with possible ethnic flare, like Indian or South American”. Ethnic flare? What does that even mean?! It’s so gross how we quantify and calibrate ethnicity as if it’s on some kind of scale from beautiful to not. Why are some races other than caucasian “palatable” while others aren’t? And of course, these standards are so much higher for women than they are for men. I’m surprised I didn’t hear about this earlier, because, as the writer says, something this blatant from such a big brand would have the potential to cause quite a stir. It’s crazy how this situation spiraled out of control, and how the casting company used their immense financial power against one single person who threatened to “expose” their ways. It’s so sad to see how difficult it is to speak out against injustices, even with high-profile companies such as this.
Whenever you hear about casting calls promoting only certain types of people, everyone screams racist, or not diverse. I can’t say I’ve ever felt that way in that regard. If you chose me, you chose me, if not, you didn’t. To limit the type of people in a particular call leads to discomfort. Discomfort for others because they aren’t given the same opportunities and might feel they are good enough. I can understand limiting to a call to be all male or all female, because I doubt you’d actually cast a male as a female or vice versa unless that is what you were trying to go for. To have a company make threats that they know they can’t follow up on is just being a bully. No one like a bully. It is getting to the point that you can’t say anything to protect others without fear of putting your career on the line, or in this case getting blacklisted from the industry for a social media account post.
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