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Wednesday, September 04, 2019
If not now, when?: Falsettogate, and what it teaches us about meaningful minority inclusion
Exeunt Magazine: Falsettos, a 1992 musical by William Finn and James Lapine, is an incredibly Jewish musical. It opens with a song called “Four Jews In A Room Bitching” and takes place in the run up to a Bar mitzvah. It became apparent that none of the creative team or cast in this London revival were Jewish. We were concerned.
The most interesting line of this article is “Our group discussed the fact that while non-Jews could and should play Jews, that if they did so in rooms absent of any other Jewish voices, the misrepresentation, caricature, and misunderstanding that we had observed was likely.” I found this the most interesting line because you would never cast an actor who needed to be black as a white person and you shouldn’t cast a non-disabled actor to be a disabled character and you shouldn’t cast a cis-gendered person to play a trans person so where is the line in casting religious minorities. Someone’s religion isn’t necessarily inherent to their identity as a human in the same way that someone’s race, physical abilities, and gender are but still, someone can be a religious minority. I take a pretty stark stance on this view that someone who isn’t part of the minority that their character is but it is also impossible to legally hire someone just because they are a Jew so how would this go about. Does someone have to be part of that minority culture need to be cast in the show? Is it crazy to have an ultimatum that only minorities should be representing themselves in the creative team/on stage? It is good to hear about the Equity Equality Act in 2010 but is this enough to protect representations of minorities? This article raises some great questions that I think need to be discussed more in my day to day school life when we are looking at being equitable managers.
This is really rough to hear about. Even the Broadway revival only had two Jewish cast members. There's no excuse. It's not as if there's not talented Jewish actors, there are, casting directors just aren't willing to look. The idea of a "Jewish consultant" made me cringe. In a show that's about the coming-of-age of a young Jewish boy, written by a Jewish playwright, there's no reason not to cast Jewish actors. The idea that actors should be able to play anyone just because they are actors is outdated. Minorities should be able to see themselves represented in every capacity onstage. The author makes an important point when they say, "At what point does gentle self-deprecation turn darker when the joke is on us, but not by us?" When you put it in perspective, watching four non-Jewish actors sing "Four Jews in a Room Bitching," is not a good look and is extremely harmful. Not only are the actors not Jewish, none of the creative team is either. As a director, how can you stage a show having no education about the traditions and rituals the characters follow. I have the same issue with the production of Fiddler with Alfred Molina as Tevye, also, he sucked.
This article touches on a very relevant and poignant subject. While diversity of all sorts is important in the representation of certain events, periods, stories, etc., the representation of the Jewish faith often seems lacking. Perhaps it is due to the commonality of Jews being “white passing”, as Lenson writes, but - as he also notes - it is not skin colour that makes a Jew. The object of antisemitism must also be addressed; anti Semitic behaviours is not only that haracterised by, say, the Holocaust or by extreme acts of terrorism such as the Or L'Simcha mass shooting, but also by everyday anti-Jewish acts and sentiments. Assuming the best of the casting and creative teams, I’d hope that no one intentionally did not include persons of the Jewish faith in the casting or design processes. A lack of intent to exclude, however, does not negate the potential harm of the exclusion.
3 comments:
The most interesting line of this article is “Our group discussed the fact that while non-Jews could and should play Jews, that if they did so in rooms absent of any other Jewish voices, the misrepresentation, caricature, and misunderstanding that we had observed was likely.” I found this the most interesting line because you would never cast an actor who needed to be black as a white person and you shouldn’t cast a non-disabled actor to be a disabled character and you shouldn’t cast a cis-gendered person to play a trans person so where is the line in casting religious minorities. Someone’s religion isn’t necessarily inherent to their identity as a human in the same way that someone’s race, physical abilities, and gender are but still, someone can be a religious minority. I take a pretty stark stance on this view that someone who isn’t part of the minority that their character is but it is also impossible to legally hire someone just because they are a Jew so how would this go about. Does someone have to be part of that minority culture need to be cast in the show? Is it crazy to have an ultimatum that only minorities should be representing themselves in the creative team/on stage? It is good to hear about the Equity Equality Act in 2010 but is this enough to protect representations of minorities? This article raises some great questions that I think need to be discussed more in my day to day school life when we are looking at being equitable managers.
This is really rough to hear about. Even the Broadway revival only had two Jewish cast members. There's no excuse. It's not as if there's not talented Jewish actors, there are, casting directors just aren't willing to look. The idea of a "Jewish consultant" made me cringe. In a show that's about the coming-of-age of a young Jewish boy, written by a Jewish playwright, there's no reason not to cast Jewish actors. The idea that actors should be able to play anyone just because they are actors is outdated. Minorities should be able to see themselves represented in every capacity onstage. The author makes an important point when they say, "At what point does gentle self-deprecation turn darker when the joke is on us, but not by us?" When you put it in perspective, watching four non-Jewish actors sing "Four Jews in a Room Bitching," is not a good look and is extremely harmful. Not only are the actors not Jewish, none of the creative team is either. As a director, how can you stage a show having no education about the traditions and rituals the characters follow. I have the same issue with the production of Fiddler with Alfred Molina as Tevye, also, he sucked.
This article touches on a very relevant and poignant subject. While diversity of all sorts is important in the representation of certain events, periods, stories, etc., the representation of the Jewish faith often seems lacking. Perhaps it is due to the commonality of Jews being “white passing”, as Lenson writes, but - as he also notes - it is not skin colour that makes a Jew. The object of antisemitism must also be addressed; anti Semitic behaviours is not only that haracterised by, say, the Holocaust or by extreme acts of terrorism such as the Or L'Simcha mass shooting, but also by everyday anti-Jewish acts and sentiments. Assuming the best of the casting and creative teams, I’d hope that no one intentionally did not include persons of the Jewish faith in the casting or design processes. A lack of intent to exclude, however, does not negate the potential harm of the exclusion.
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