Introduction
A recent article by Bonnie Greer named The White Stages enumerates the lack of presence of black actors in British theatres (Greer, 3 May 2008). This situation was supported by various reports which appeared in the mass media supporting the ‘underexposed’ state of black British actors (Land, 11 April 2008 ), the drain of talented black actors from Britain to America (Harewood, Friday 9 May 2008), lack of black stars and blacks getting fame and awards (Akbar, 16 October 2007), and the question of colour blind casting in Britain (Rule, 8 September 1990). This issue leads to the lack of acting opportunities for black actors in Britain and the causes which prevent them from attaining their rightful position.
British racial construct has been embedded in the imperial past of the country and ever since the arrival of the African-Caribbean immigrants in Britain there has been an innate racialism against blacks who were always considered to be the ‘others’. This concept of otherness has helped the British society to develop its stereotypes of blacks and in their superior attitude Britons prefer not to mention blacks in their soil and turn a blind eye to their existence.
Given this social construct in Britain it is argued in this article that commercial cultural media such as television, theatre, and cinema has historically taken forward the British construct to completely neglect Black culture, history, artists and above all Black existence. Going through the history of the media we see that there has been a presence of ‘vicious circle’ of racialism which prevents blacks actors from attaining lead roles: “People say we can’t employ women, disabled people, Africans, Asians, in these major leading roles because they never played major leading roles. Obviously, that vicious circle will never be broken unless at some point people have the imagination to give people chances.” (Rule, 8 September 1990) This shows that the Blacks have been traditionally been cast in minor, non-significant roles and are still being cast in similar roles as there are no liberal directors in Britain who can take up the onus task of taking the ‘risk’ to cast a Black actor.
The ‘risk’ factor of casting a Black actor is so intense that in several television dramas, Black actors were taken off air in order to gain more audience or popularity. There were many controversies which amounted due to depiction of inter racial relation on screen or casting of a black man in a significant role like that of God in a West End musical. Colour-blind casting in Britain is still a thing of future even when many argue that the lack of black roles is due to unimaginative director and writer and not racialism, but practical experience shows otherwise. The complete whitewash of British history which fails to mention even one black-related incident in Britain is very difficult to accept.
Further, the industry continuously talks of black directors or writers who are emerging but Greere criticises this view by saying, “Black people… are consistently underemployed, underused. Invisible. I can hear the arguments out there about “emerging playwrights”, and so on. We’ve been emerging for so long we should be in the stratosphere by now.” (Greer, 3 May 2008)
This paper argues that the Black subjugation in seeking employment opportunity in the British entertainment has been present throughout history and is still persistent. The reasons behind this are both social and economical. Social causes are due to the imperial past of the British who feel that Blacks are supposed to be invisibles and need to be neglected. This view is further extended to the Darwinian idea that Blacks belonging to a lowest strata of evolutional have lower capabilities and carry ‘dirt’ and ‘filth’ that can defile the British society. So their culture and tradition has to be erased and removed from the white face of British media.
These stereotypes emerge as a strong point in moulding the decision of the media to telecast black actors and black dramas. Further British society has acceptance for Black stereotypes and not real Black life. This prevents black actors from getting more imaginative and better roles in British dramas because of constriction of stereotypical roles played in a story.
Thus we see that the main problem in the absence of employment opportunity for black British actors is mainly due to social construct and racialism even though the authorities believe otherwise. Due to societal discourse of racialism against blacks they are not openly accepted in the mainstream, and have to rely only on a few minor side roles which are a waste of their talents. Thus, the problem is more social racialism against ethnic minorities in Britain which hails itself as a multicultural nation.
The paper is a theoretical study of the past historical representation of blacks and the societal constructs that have led to the depiction of blacks in that way. We relate this to the study of discourse of British society and try to enumerate the social, cultural and economic reasons which prevent black actors to be employed in lead roles in British dramas. We see that the societal constructs of the British society has led to the neglect of British black actors who fail to gain any worthwhile position in the British entertainment industry.
We segregate the paper into three parts: the racial discourse of the British society, the state of the black actors in British entertainment industry and the reasons behind this neglecting attitude towards black actors in Britain. In the end we conclude that it is the British society that at large contributes to the lack of acting opportunities for the British actors and preventing them from gaining stardom.
Racial Discourse of British Society
The level of multicultural acceptance and integration in the British society is supposed to the highest among all other European countries (Parekh, 1997; Blommesteijn & Entzinger, 1999), but still there exists rampant discrimination, racism, and segregation of minorities in the country. As has been argued by Parekh (1997) that even though Britain is a tolerant country it does not imply that it is devoid of racism, rather it should be kept in mind that there are different facets of equality.
The British society presents an amalgamation of various ethnicities especially blacks of African-Caribbean descent. So in the true sense it is a society which is de facto multiethnic. The multi-ethnic Diaspora in Britain inflated when the former colonies moved to the metropolitan areas to seek employment and to meet the requirements of labour in Britain during industrialization. It is in the post-colonial era that many of the people came to Britain from the colonies to seek employment and education. Thus, the history of ethnic minority of Britain is engraved in colonial violence and expansionary strategy of Britain.
As has been argued by Hall argues that this feeling of being a part of a colony and British exclusion has brought the minorities closer and has helped in creation of their British identity (Hall, 1992). Due to the colonial past of Britain and subjugation of the colonies by force and violence has led to the creation of the conditions of sensitivity in determining the British politics of migration and integration. It has been argued that British culture has a dominant effect on the colonial ethnic minorities in the country (Hall, 1992) but fails to explain the true reason behind the social and cultural exclusion of these minorities. The official ideologies of inclusion and integration are reflected in the legislation that, not only, permits but also protects religious and linguistic diversity.
Even though the presence of black people in Britain can be traced back to the sixteenth century (Myers, 1996), the mass migration from Arica and from Asian countries into the West was in the period of Second World War when the western world was in dire need for unskilled and semi-skilled labour (Malik, 2002). Many of these blacks were invited to Britain to meet the labour crunch of the country and were ‘invited’ to take up citizenship under the terms of Nationality Act of 1948, which entitled a member of the British colony to receive British citizenship. But not all intended to take up jobs as unskilled labours. Many wanted to pursue higher studies or take up other skilled employment, which saw the reason behind the second wave of migration from the Caribbean.
The British concept of national identity is that of Protestantism, empire and parliamentary democracy monarchy and a conception of national character which was the birth child on British colonialism. Ethnic minorities in Britain have been neglected and has been deliberately been excluded by the majority.
Tracing the history of Black people in Britain we see that during the Industrial Revolution in Britain there were three groups of ethnicities who dwelled in the country: the Irish, the Jews, and blacks and Asians commonwealth immigrants. They arrived in Britain successively and occupied different geographical areas. All these races were subject to similar kind of prejudices due to their ethnic origin which shows that ethnicity assumes same importance as class in people’s discourse (Richards, 1997). In Britain the discourse was to define oneself not only as a part of something (in case of Blacks the Afro-Caribbean community) but also as not a part of something (not Britons or non-Whites).
This aspect of not being a part of something has been termed as “the other” or the “outsider” (Richards, 1997, p.60). In Britain the black immigrants have been subjected to these slurs throughout the history: blacks are dirty and unhealthy, they are promiscuous and a moral threat, they are the “White man’s burden” and thus economic threat, and they have cultural practices which are a threat to the nation’s culture. Thus, it is the immigrant groups who are blamed in times of national crisis, be it social or economic.
Before the Second World War blacks in Britain were concentrated in the seaport towns of England and were employed primarily as unskilled labours. But with the advent of the 1950s there were a large amount of immigrants who migrated to the UK from the Commonwealth countries. Even though the number of blacks was low, they were visible and were settled and employed in “old industrial working-class areas” (Richards, 1997, p.61).
With the advent of the black immigrants, there arose a racist attitude towards the immigrants among the host population and there formed assumptions which bore the legacy of the erstwhile Empire. These assumptions regarding the blacks formed the societal discourse. In this regard Richards quotes Joseph Chamberlain:
In the first place I believe in the British Empire and in the second place I believe in the British race. I believe that the British race is the greatest of governing races that the world has ever seen. (Richards, 1997, p.61)
Thus there arose industrialization, scientific advancements and racialism in the post war years in Britain. Due to this there developed a racial and ethnic hierarchy in the society with the top echelon being taken by the Whites, the brown and the yellow faces next and the blacks at the bottom (Richards, 1997). This developed an inherent inferiority among the blacks who failed to achieve the bare minimum required to gain acceptance in the British civilization. They faced with political, religious, economic, and cultural inferiority.
The societal hierarchy was further strengthened by the Darwinian Theory which stressed on the evolution of man from apes. The prevalent belief that ran was that the blacks were ranked low in the evolutionary scale and the British measured at the highest.
Even though different African tribes were acknowledged, all blacks were stereotyped as gallant enemy and faithful servant. But since the late 1970s Britain benefitted hugely from the racial diversity of the society but still ethnic minority workers were disadvantaged in the workforce (Laybourn & Collette, 2003). There existed rampant discrimination against blacks and they were under-represented in all spheres be it politics, trade union or entertainment. Thus there developed a society which was ‘multicultural’ i.e. a society which was heterogeneous and people in it received heterogeneous treatment. So blacks were discriminated against the Whites. Quoting John Rex in relation to the development of multicultural society in Britain, Laybourn and Collette states:
…‘a new goal has become widely accepted in British race relations, namely that of multi-cultural society, but that the meaning of this term remains remarkably obscure’; the result would be ‘a society in which people are not equally but differently treated’, although he doubted whether this would be achieved in Britain. (Laybourn & Collette, 2003, p.249)
Thus, there arose the question of equal opportunity to all in order to make the British state a truly multicultural society embracing diversity. But blacks in Britain were constantly discriminated against: Whether in business and the professions, in politics, music, or sports, Blacks in England look worse off (Small, 1994, p.4).
Hall et al. describes the racialism in British society as “the land which they are in but not of, the country of estrangement, disposition and brutality” (Hall et al, 1978, p.357). This shows that the black British culture has suffered both neglect and marginalization in the British society which has continued the discriminations against Blacks in the British society.
History of Black Actors in UK
The participation of Africans with Britons during the Victorian age (1837-1901) had been through sports (primarily boxing) and entertainment (Bourne, 2001). Ziggi Alexander stated that even though Black actors were present in the media White actors in clack faces were more popular among the British audience in the 19th century (Alexander, 1987). Black-faced actors were extremely popular with their singing and dancing even though they were infused with racial caricature and stereotyping. This trend continued even in the sixties and the seventies when an extremely popular show was aired on Saturdays in BBC, where white-men “blacked up to sing the praises of dear old Alabammy, surrounded by leggy (white) dancing girls” (Bourne, 2001, p.5).
This was thought to be visually striking especially with the advent of the coloured television in 1967. One interesting outcome was that with popularity of “black” comedy in the media, there was job for a few black actors present at the time. But such representation and racial “caricature” of the Blacks in the media needed to be stopped in a multi-cultural and multi-racial Britain.
Casting a Black Actor
The question of casting a black actor in liberal roles has been an area of debate for many years and many have sought to understand the reason behind the reluctance to cast the coloured artists in challenging and lead roles. In this section we try to ascertain why there has been reluctance on the part of the British directors to cast black actors.
Race has been a part of the English dramas since the Shakespearean plays (Hendricks, 2000). This has been argued by Ania Loomba when discussing race in Shakespearean plays: “For at least the last two hundred years, “race’ has functioned as one of the most powerful and yet most fragile markers of social difference.” (Loomba, 2000, p.203) Loomba’s essay demonstrates the place race held in Shakespearean plays. She highlights the blackness of the characters in Shakespearean play:
Othello does not move from a glamorous black to a hated Turk; rather, we need to notice how both blacks and Turks can be glamorized as well as hated in contemporary representations, and how the two were interconnected, both in Othello and in the culture at large, via the Spanish discourse on Moorishness, via medieval stereotypes of black Turks, or Egyptians, and also by more recent developments in global relations. (Loomba, 2000, p.206)
Given Loomba’s stand on the prevalence of race in early British drama, we now concentrate on the racism in the modern English drama. Daileader presents the racialism as seen in Shakespearean dramas in the localized fight of the modern black actors in the physical English stage (Daileader, 2000). According to Daileader the colour of the actor playing Othello is of no consequence as long as the actor presents the characters that Othello posses: “to be playing the same character in [whatever Shakespeare play he acts] – and the more one looks at that character, the more he looks like Othello” (Daileader, 2000, p.178).
But Daileader further argues that for any Shakespearean roles (or rather any other roles) a director has to be a liberal to initiate ‘colour-blind casting’. Thus, Daileader argues that in contrast to the liberal ideas of ‘colour-blind’ casting, a director who employs such a stance must have true “liberal intentions in casting a black actor [in any role] will have to work hard to surmount audience preconceptions” (Daileader, 2000, p.195) thus, the racial stereotype discourse of blacks in Britain affect the intentions of any liberal director as well as audience acceptance of the black actor in the character.
In a more recent trend of casting black actors in black films and plays have not been great successes in Britain. The reason behind this is the lack of black people watching black dramas. Usually was has been noticed is that the present day black plays usually deal with contemporary issues and the black voice to present the Black Briton’s point of view. Bit surprisingly mostly the viewers of these plays are Whites and not Blacks. The lack of Black audience has also led to the downfall of black theatre in Britain, which in turn reduces employment for black actors. As has been suggested is that the black theatre has not been able to be successful in Britain due to the Black community’s cultural infrastructure in Britain (Peacock, 1999).
Thus we see that the non-casting of blacks in British dramas is primarily cultural. It is due to the social constructs which does not see Blacks in Britain favourably. Thus black actors are not used in main roles or challenging characters for they are not taken to be anything apart from the erstwhile stereotypes that the British society harbours. Cultural impact in formulating the social discourse has made blacks a non-expected and accepted artist in even modern plays. Even in the modern times British audience prefers watching blacks as villains. This is in conjecture with the beliefs of the Christian Western Europe. Thus, prominent roles are usually played by whites while the black actors receive minor and non-descript roles.
In conclusion we can say that the dearth of good roles in British drama for black actors is due to the prevalence of anti-black sentiment and a stereotypical discourse against blacks in Britain. So any positive representations of blacks in dramas are not acceptable as they negate the very basis of the representation of black sin historical movies. Another problem that can be seen is due to the social construct of blacks in Britain, black actors in lead roles like that in Othello are not widely accepted due to prevalence of high degree of racial feeling. Infrastructural problem arises due to the lack of black viewers. All these reasons prevent even the most liberal of directors in casting blacks in lead roles.
Black Actors
In this section we do an evaluation of the works of Robert Adams and a few other black actors and would share their experiences with British racialism in drama casting in the UK.
Historically directors casting black actors have faced problems. For instance in the movie Men of Two World, director Dickenson casted Robert Adams in to role of Kisenga, a black singer. Controversy arose when Dickenson approached the National Gallery to shoot the opening sequence of Kisenga playing at a lunchtime concert. Dickenson was refused the usage of the Gallery by Dame Myra Hess, the famous pianist who played during the war years in National Gallery, on grounds of Adam’s colour:
But Dame Myra Hess, the famous pianist who organized and gave concerts at the gallery during the war, refused permission, declaring that no black man had ever been permitted to play at any of her concerts. As a result, Dickinson had to reconstruct the National Gallery in a film studio. (Bourne, 2001, p.74)
Even Dickenson had reportedly shown his racial attitude when he commented on Robert Adams after the shooting: “his was less performance than behaviour” even when Adams was praised by the critics for his excellent performance as Kisenga (Bourne, 2001).
Even in the modern times there has been little change in the status of black actors in Britain. As has been argued by Down that even in the present day black actors face the racialist indifference of the British society (Down, 2006 ). He argues that it is not difficult to speak of a White British star but even when there is a plethora of talented black British actors, there are little known black actors in Britain:
…could anyone think of a black British movie star? The blank faces and silence that greeted my question were only broken finally by an uncle vaguely recalling a familiar black face in Love Actually – “You know, the one who was married to Keira Knightley’s character…what’s his name? (Down, 2006 )
Down further states that there are few successful black British actors in modern drama and their relatively less exposed and famous acting career is questioned. He puts forward the question that even though this group of black British actors are equally talented as their American counterparts, why is it that they fail to achieve similar fame. He went on to explain that the difference lies, not in “America’s relative size and wealth of opportunity being something of a copout argument” but the problem lies deep into the difference between ‘black culture’ and the British society. He further argues that the black culture in Britain, unlike that in America is “barely 60 years old” and thus fail to achieve the comfortableness with black stereotypes which has enhanced the career of many American black actors like Will Smith et al. He thus states:
With arguably less of a significant “black culture” in Britain, cinema at home has by contrast fewer obvious roles destined for black actors, who are forced to compete with the rest of the pack for the few starring places. (Down, 2006 )
But Down is not fully convinced with his argument and states that there are other reasons which prevent black actors to reach the stardom. There are some who advocate that there are not enough Black talents in the country. But this is not a satisfactory reason for the number of black Britons attending drama schools are increasing every day. Thus, even though there are black actors in hit television drama series like EastEnders the well black pair Rudolph Walker and Angela Wynter who plays a couple in the series had to resort to exhibiting their work in self-promoted exhibition (Land, 11 April 2008 ). As has been stated by Angela Wynter, “There is a lack of visible Black British role models in the media – however, they do exist – and young people cannot easily find a reflection of themselves that they can relate to. They can’t find it on the TV or on the cover of a glossy magazine, unless it is brought in from America.” (Land, 11 April 2008 )
There is a recent debate which has sprouted around Ali G. Who plays an Asian character is believed to taking forward the legacy of Sasha Baron Cohen who paints a black face and plays the role of a Negro. Nina Wadia in an interview with Akli Tajder states that “it brings out…was exactly the struggle that Asian and black actors face in this country [Britain].” (Scriven & Vaughan, 2003, p.158)
Thus we see that there is no significant presence of Blacks in the British entertainment industry and that is why a large number of black actors are moving to the US to achieve their share of fame. Hence an acute problem of talent drain from the British entertainment industry has been observed in the recent times and David Harewood comments on the situation:
As a relatively successful black British actor with nearly 25 years’ experience, it’s no surprise to me that Greer talks of an American actor friend who “keeps bumping into black Brits at auditions who can sound more American than he does”. Many of these are close friends of mine who have grown tired of waiting for their careers to take off here and have headed west, where they are taken more seriously and are regularly seen for leading parts with real weight, depth and authority – the kind of roles we would struggle to get here. They are thriving in America, to the extent that some of them are regularly appearing in Hollywood movies and top US television shows. Idris Elba, Lennie James, Marsha Thomason and Marianne Jean Baptiste are big stars in the States, but here in England they join the queues awaiting roles. (Harewood, Friday 9 May 2008)
Thus, we see that the challenge that black actors face in British society to achieve even minor roles is huge. The society at large is still not out of its imperialist regime and still feel the Afro-Caribbean people as ‘others’ rather as one of them.
Reason for Few Black Actors and Acting Jobs in UK
The reason behind the lack of Black actors gaining popular roles or further accessibility in British dramas or films is due to the social discourse of African/Caribbean in Britain. British dramas or movies have seen a historical neglect or impassiveness towards Blacks in Britain even though they have been residing in Britain before the arrival of Blacks in the USA. Even if Blacks were considered for roles or there were Black characters created in the scripts of dramas they were usually very minor roles or stereotypical caricatures of the reality. In this section we deal with the reasons behind such indifferent attitude towards Black actors in the UK.
Indifferent Attitude to Blacks
One reason that has been identified to be the reason why Black actors do not have enough jobs in UK can be that there are not enough roles or parts written for them to play (Armstrong, 2007). The reason lies in the media stereotyping and the cultural construct of generations of Britons that there has been Black presence in the UK from the mid 16th centuries. The invisibility of Black presence in Britain is one reason of so few black roles in the visual media.
Stephen Bourne presents his concern for near exclusion of Blacks from British films (Bourne, 2002). He attributes this exclusion to the coloured people from the British popular cinema as a part of the “wider workings of racism, representation, racial politics, and policy in Britain over recent decades” (Bourne, p.48). One reason for this is due to categorical almost non-presence of blacks in British historic films with fleeting appearances by extras. Blacks have been seen in British films such as in David Lin’s Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948), The Men in Grey (1943), etc. An exception to the usual rule of casting blacks as extras was The Sailor’s Return (1978) that featured a black female protagonist, which was denied theatrical release (Bourne, 2002).
The 1980s was considered to be the renaissance period for Black British films (Pines, 1996; Street, 1997). Earlier there has been a marked neglect of black practitioners in British films. But during the eighties Black filmmakers sought to challenge the persistent stereotypical representation of ethnic minorities was broken. The present attention of black presence in television and cinema has been a phenomenon which developed in the eighties. During this time black films have been able to represent their political and social concerns through their cinema. But these changes have not been successful in changing the employment situation and their representation patterns of blacks in British films. One reason for this is institutional and cultural marginalization of black film makers. As has been stated by Pines:
However, these developments have not led to the complete radicalization of the cultural terrain, because black independent media practitioners to a very large extent are still hamstrung by, and thus are having to continue struggling against, recruitment institutional and cultural marginalization. In other words, the “dominant” cultural and funding bodies have thus far succeeded only in accommodating certain elements of change, without really altering the fundamental structures in their thinking and in institutional practices. (Pines, 1996, pp.183-4)
So we see that the absence of Blacks from movies and their presence in only marginalized roles was due to the lack of white writer’s initiative to inculcate black characters or to provide due weightage to their character. Thus there was an increasing societal pressure to erase black faces from the history of cinema.
There were few films made in the history of Black films in Britain which showed African stars were The Song of Freedom (J. Elder Wills, 1936). The movie starred African-American actor, singer, political activist Paul Robeson. Robeson became a star in British films in the 1930s. The problem that Robeson faced was a conflict with an extreme colonialism and glorification of the British Empire (Bourne, 2001).
The movie depicted Robson in the act of the protagonist, John Zinga, who is a London-born docker who acknowledges Africa as his ancestral place. The character of Robson in the film demonstrates an aristocrat, a man of charm and intelligence and other black characters a deviation from the stereotypical “shuffling idiot, faithful retainer, happy-go-lucky hedonist, or menacing-con man” (Bourne, 2001, p.54)1. The film presented real emotion, every day toil and sense of displacement of Blacks in the White man’s world.
In a more recent example of British films, we consider Noting Hill (1999), one of the most popular British films today. The movie which is set in a predominantly African Caribbean neighbourhood stars only two Black actors in bit-roles. Hugh Grant while stating the reasons why Notting Hills was his “favourite bit of London” fails to include in his list the event for which the area is most famous, a two day carnival of the African-Caribbean neighbourhood. The movie has been criticized for whitening the most famous Black area in London.
Though some work has been done in the television medium for depicting blacks in TV serials and dealt with issues related to Blacks in the UK. A Respectable Trade (BBC1, 1998) was based on the late 18th century trading of Africans through the Bristol port., Vanity Fair based on William Thackeray’s 19th century novel showed Felix Dexter in a hilarious performance in the role of servant Samuel who was not presented as a racial stereotype but as a “figure who exposed the shallowness of his materialistic employers by asserting his superiority” (Bourne, 2001, p.61). But these examples of usage of Black actors in British films or historical films were not continued in the present day films.
But the present day historical movies like Shakespeare in Love and Elizabeth (Shekhar Kapoor, 1998) continue to avoid black presence in the British society since the 16th century. One exception to the trend off non-depiction of blacks in historical or literature based movies was Canadian director Patricia Rozema’s version of Mansfield Park (USA/UK/1999) explicitly related the tale of slavery demonstrating the genteel lifestyle of Sir Thomas Bertram and his family was based on the plantation earnings in Antigua and the dreadful abuse of the slaves in the plantation. But given its background and stress on plantation slaves, the movie did not have any depiction of black characters, thus no prominent black actors were included.
According to Bourne, the absence of blacks from British films is a phenomenon which he calls “‘colour-blind’ discourse around race and racism” present in British Whites even to the present day (Bourne, 2001, p.62). They British, including politicians as well as film-makers, believe that not “noticing” the Blacks they are being non-racist. But the fact is the contrary as Bourne states: “Nothing can be further from the truth: for to refuse to ‘notice’ the colour of the person’s skin is to deny their history, culture, and identity.” (Bourne, 2001, p.62)
Social construct of Blacks means watching Black stereotyping and caricature of the 1960s which cannot be aired anymore with the human rights activism. But the avoidance of using black actors altogether is a concern of the British to erase the history of Africans-Caribbean’s living in the UK (Bourne, 2002).
Thus, we see a categorical omission of Blacks from media and their history in Britain from the British history and literature is a conscious effort to avoid their presence in the country. For this reason, movies have avoided in bringing in stories and incidents which will acknowledge the presence of Blacks in the British society and their regular life. The main aim is to maintain the whiteness of the silver screen, the stories, and the directorial intention to show black performances is an effort to erase ‘blackness’ from the face of media and British history.
Black Casting in British Theatre
Black theatre in Britain has undergone a varied change and acceptance level as there was racial dogmas ingrained against ethnic minorities in the British society. This has been discussed by J. Ellen Gainor who argues that there has been a low key acceptance level of African plays in Britain which were not taken as ‘black theatre’ but as ‘immigrant drama’ (Gainor, 1995). The difference in social strata encompasses biological difference and that of race and ethnicity in the UK (Hall, 1996). In Britain there has been a case of fracturing of the British actors in White and Black strata which has resulted in formation of the British society.
In the USA a conference was held on American Actor’s Equity held a conference on the subject of “colour-blind casting”. The conference presented four recommendations: first, “societal casting” which implies employing ethnic actors, second, “cross-cultural casting”, third, “conceptual casting” wherein ethnic actors make specific points, and fourth, “colour-blind casting” implying casting without reference to the ethnicity of the character (Billington, 1993, p.343).
These in the British context it can be observed that in Britain there is almost negligible “societal casting” on British blacks the way they live their lives. There are very few plays written and enacted in contemporary Britain which demonstrates “pluralistic, multi-cultural society” (Billington, 1993, p.343). Even though majority of playwrights like Frayn Gray, Hampton, etc demonstrate to be liberal and radical figures, they fail to venture beyond the British whiteness in their characterization. According to Billington the depiction of blacks in racial stereotypes is due to the perpetuation of social myth.
Cross-cultural casting wherein the whole story is transposed in ethnic cast has become a trend in the UK. Such examples can be found in Michael Rudman directed Measure for Measure at the Lyttelton and Tara Arts’ transpositions of European classics in Asian settings (Billington, 1993).
Presently there is a group of directors brewing up in the UK, who deliberately denies tokenism, have casted black actors in non-traditional roles. For instance John Adams tries to reflect British multi-racial pluralism which he has depicted in his films: “black Banquo in Macbeth, a black Maria in The School For Scandal, and in Priestley’s When We were Married, a black daughter with white parents” (Billington, 1993, p.345).
But according to Billington, there is a right way to choose an actor on the basis of his/her quality as an actor to justify the character for which he/she is being cast (Billington, 1993). According to a black British actress, Josette Simon, as quoted in Billington, believes that “If the experiences that character goes through are related to colour, then it’s difficult for someone who isn’t that colour to play the part. If the primary thing is the kind of person they are, then anyone can play the role.” (Billington, 1993, p.345). She further says that she has no qualms against white actors playing Othelo as long as they do not paint their face in black.
Further even though the casting in British theatres has “loosened-up” but the viewership is still hugely concentrated. Moreover there are very few imaginative casting offered to the coloured actors. As Philip Hedley points out that playwright can loosen the casting situation in Britain even further. For this he relates to a play named My Girl by Barrie Keeffe which is a Leytonstone love-story and mentions that the characters could be of either colour (Billington, 1993).
Even though experimentations are undergoing in British theatrical scene with plays, both contemporary and classical, but still there is an increasing segregation in the viewership and theatre casts. Billington refers to this as black plays for black audience and white plays for whites.
Black Casting In TV
The question so multi-cultural casting in television dramas has become a popular debate in the Britain today. Even though early television dramas which featured black actors but they were usually all-Black cast, thus creating no real sense of integration. But in light of broader areas of discrimination and higher artistic expectations of Black actors, they started taking small parts or started working as understudies.
Black actors faced a difficult time making their career because there was no financial backing provided to them (Malik, 2002). Further there was no institutional backing for Black actors. There was a definitive lack of institutional funding and help for black actors in the UK which prevented Black actors to get a fair chance. There is a distinct colour-blind approach in the British media against Black actors which prevents any possibility of shedding light on the problems faced by Black actors in Britain. The Black actors failed to get roles due to the alleged colour-blindness of the produces and their underlying racial discrimination.
Another reason that affected Black actors’ chances of getting a role was to “blacking up” of White actors to play Asian or African parts by citing reasons such as lack of experience on the black actor’s part or they had an inappropriate style.
Radicalized omission of Blacks from theatrical and television performances in Britain has been a prevalent process. Various movements by Black actors and intelligentsia were fought to “reassert their own tradition in the face of dominant tradition” (Malik, 2002, p.37)2. These movements showed the desire of Black artists to express their qualities in the host country Black theatres were set up. One such was the Unity Theatre set up by Oscar Abrams to encourage Black artists, playwrights and poets. This led to build “unions, relationships and solidarity amongst Black artists.” (Malik, 2002, p.37)
There was a paucity of Black writers who could tell the ‘black story’. As Malik has argued that White writers were the tellers of the ‘black story’ were Whites. One such drama was A Man from the Sun (BBC, 1956) which presented the lives of Caribbean settlers in Britain and the difference between the real and the mythical Britain. Many other plays in the fifties in the BBC showed controversial issues related to race and ethnicity and gave birth to the ‘race conscience’ production on television. But racialism against Blacks continued with the definitive lack of Black presence and themes in the UK media in such shows as ITV’s Play of the Week (1956-67) and BBC’s Play of the Month (1965-83).
For instance a play by John Hopkins called Fables (BBC1, Tx. 27.1.65, part of The Wednesday play series) made fleeting references of the apartheid in South Africa and painted a fantasy Britain with its racial tolerance and equity, a Britain where Blacks gained political and economic power and Whites were subjugated. But the screening of the play was delayed for it was though that it might stir racial tension. Thus Fable took its viewers through a voyage were the racial relations were transposed and the power equation in the British society was altered.
This drama featured many prominent Black actors such as Carmen Munroe, Barbara Assoon, Dan Jackson, Thomas Baptiste, and Bari Jonson. In the 1960s Black characters was almost absent in ‘serious’ drama and Whiteness was the dominant British way, Fable was a change from the taken-for-granted Black and White relation and position in British society. Fable was a change from the dominant Black characters as murderers, pimps, prostitutes, etc.
One television series which did away with the uncomfortable silence of Blacks and racism in Britain was Till Death Us Do Part (BBC1, 1966-68, 1972, 1974-75). It made direct references to the existing racial differences and to Black people in Britain which aimed at breaking the usual norm of British television of handling racial themes awkwardly and politely. This showed a deviation from the usual portrayal of Blacks in the British television. Stereotypes of Blacks in British television dramas were a portrayal of colonial discourse which showed the domination of power in depicting the Black Britain.
In the 1980s there was a shift in the genre of dramas in British television which made a structural shift from classic-single play format to a more populist form of soaps, primarily due to the increase in commercialization. This led to a dual effect to the presence of Blacks in dramas – first, they had an increased presence in contemporary dramas, and second there was a decreased need for Blacks in traditional, more classical dramas. This to a great extent restricted the employment opportunity of the Black actors in Britain (Malik, 2002). The new trend was associated with commercialized production of television dramas which increasingly open to the experienced commercially successful actors and people who were considered high-profile as that confirmed high viewership.
Launching and producing new drama series were considered to be an investment and producers were willing to take fewer risks which subsequently led to the exclusion of Black actors as well as writers as they were considered to be risky as their acts were “too narrow in their agendas or creative range” to attract large viewership (Malik, 2002, p.143). A study on Black and Asian representation of Blacks and Asians in more than 600 television dramas in British television in 1984 showed that it was only 2.3 percent of actor cast and that majorly the Black characters were seen in a narrow range of roles which were highly stereotypical (Manuel, 1986).
But Whites were seen in diverse roles in terms of age, background, class, occupation, etc. The study further indicated that Blacks were hardly ever represented in caring relationship with each other or in family situations and were usually shown as violent or hostile (Manuel, 1986). One serial which gets mention in the report was a four-part serial King of the Ghetto (BBC2, 1986). The serial was based on immigrant Bangladeshis who resides in London’s East End which showed grossly stereotypical image of the characters – corrupt Asian businessmen, and illegal community leaders – which were shown to represent the politics of the East End community.
This serial raised the question of Black authorship and the representation of Black stereotypes in British dramas, which confirmed that Black authorship may/or may not do away with the racial stereotypes with which Blacks were smeared with throughout the television history. This showed that the increasing demand for more commercially successful drama series which neglected the higher social cause and showed what the popular British racial discourse believed in. Thus the reduced employment opportunity of black actors is also a phenomenon which started in the 1980s in the British television.
One example of omission of Black British actors from British dramas was Coronation Street which is one of the most successful dramas in British television ignored the existence of Blacks in Britain for many years. Even though plans existed to change the face of the drama nothing came up subsequently. In more than three decades of its airing in the British television, Coronation Street had only a handful of Black characters appeared in the drama. In between the appearance of Thomas Baptiste’s appearance as a bus conductor and Angela Griffin’s appearance as a hairdresser, only a few characters were seen in the drama in minor roles. According to Bourne the roles representing Blacks were “so small that, if you blinked, you missed them!” (Bourne, 2001, p.170)
Another appearance of Black artist in British television was in 1960s drama series Emergency – Ward 10 (ITV, 1957-67). This series had shown black actors occasionally like Frank Singuaineau appeared in 1961 as a patient, Earl Cameron as Lucky Jones, etc. But Joan Hooley who appeared as an African doctor from a wealthy family made the greatest impact in the series. Her first appearance in the serial was in 1964 and soon was shown in a critical romance between her characters Dr. Louise Mahler and a white doctor, Giles Farmer played by John White. But problems for the serial arose when they had to air a scene of a kiss in the bedroom between the duo, which was thought to become too controversial. The scene was considered to be risky as it had the potential to incite racial feelingly, which would not had been a problem if the actress was White. This led to the alteration of the original script and the bedroom kiss was “banned”.
In 1974 Equity’s Coloured Artist Committee mentioned British television and criticised the lack of Black artists in British television.
Crossroads was the first British drama to incorporate a black family in the series. But their stay was short-lived. The Black lead played by Carl Andrews as Joe ‘Mac’ MacDonald in 1978 was present till 1986. Given British serial’s lack of Black actors, the appearance of a regular Black character in Crossroads was a remarkable phenomenon. It is believed that the introduction of Black characters was deliberate to promulgate racial tolerance in the great White drama.
Many actors have complained to have been deliberately removed from their jobs. One such incident was by actress Dorothy Brown in 1987 who played sports instructress Lorraine Baker in Crossroads revealed to the press that she was sacked due to the sweeping changes a new produces was introducing.
There is a trend of not showing Black characters in isolation among White characters separated from their fellow men. Such a case can be demonstrated in Brookside. Sharon Rosita who played the role of Kate Moses was staying with her friends, a group of three other White girls. Kate is represented as a down-to-earth, bubbly character who was stalked by a psycho who eventually killed Kate. Her family came to pay her last tributes in her funeral. This was the only connection to the Black world in the serial. She was a black character, like many, without any contact with the Black world. A more detailed analysis shows that her character did not gain a proper depth.
Her work life was not exemplified as that of the White characters, and her life or private life was not dramatised as that of the White characters. Her character was a token role given to show diversity in the casting, but with little attention played on her character.
Interestingly Rosita Played friendly and likable Kate for a year but the scriptwriters failed to develop her character in Brookside. She never became a major character or an interesting one as her friends Sheila or Bobby Grant. Christine Geraghty described Kate a classic case of ‘singleton strategy’:
Little attention was paid to her private life and unlike Sandra she was not involved in stories dealing with her work as a nurse. In the main, she was a foil to the more dramatic lives of her friends and comforted Sandra and made tea for Pat during their various cries. Given Kate’s marginal position, it was somehow appropriate that she should be the one of the three to die in the siege even though the death was based on contingencies other than her ethnic origins. (Geraghty, 1991, pp.142-3)
For the one year of the appearances of Kate, she remained as a ‘token black’ who, once introduced in Brookside made little impact on the main story other than being a sidelined character. This has been the fate of numerous black characters in British dramas. Even though in the present day there are Black characters in British dramas they do not have a real dramatic scope or a scope to present the Black cultural context. Usually they are portrayed as dull and unidimensional. Some feel that British producers often cast black actors to fill the quota so as to follow the diversity norms.
As has been stated by a British black actor Treva Etienne that “Once you’re in that situation, the producers don’t know how to deal with having a black actor in the scenario. So we get a black actor walking around, playing the part, but never really feeling involved or part of the overall action.” (Etienne, 1996)
This trend was seen in many British television dramas such as BBC1 soap EastEnders, which was started in 1985 with the aim of showing the diversity of London’s East End’s social and cultural diversity and multi-racial community. But the drama failed to create black characters which were as interesting as their white counterparts or being given a substantive part to play.
The drama started with a few Black actors including Tony Carpenter (Oscar James) and his teenage son Kelvin (Paul J. Medfold). Then Sally Sagoe joined as Tony’s wife Hannah and Judith Jacob joined in 1987 as a social worker. But these characters were not long lived. Most of the characters departed amid controversial situations. Before departing the series, Oscar James commented that the BBC failed to promote the Black characters in the same as the White characters as because viewers, the producers thought, were more interested in watching the antics of Dirty Den and his wife Angie than the Carpenter family:
…the powers that be do not think I am interesting enough. Is it because I am a member of an ethnic minority? How often do you see Paul J. Medfold being publicised?…It’s as though the BBC are playing us down. I can’t believe the white majority of the public are against blacks being stars. They don’t give a damn. (James, 1987)
In 1994 a black character Alan Jackson was introduced in EastEnders which was played by Howard Anthony. He played the role of a good, reliable, hard-working father. He was well merged with the British society. This portrayal was a departure from the Black stereotypes. But the all-good Allen failed to catch the viewer’s interest and his extramarital affair with a bad girl Frankie was highly unbelievable.
EastEnder has also been accused of wasting talented black actors. In this context we must mention Alan’s mother Blossom Jackson. She is a non-descript figure details about whom are not even mentioned in the soap. The drama does not tell which Caribbean island she comes from or which church she visits. She never interacts with other black women of her age group which makes her almost an invisible entity in the drama. All she has to do is speak a one liner: “You want another cup of coffee?” her interaction with her grandson lacked any form of humour or tension or passion as has been seen in case of Peggy and Grant. She doesn’t even react to the Alan’s extramarital affair with a bad girl. All this shows the reluctance of the scriptwriters and producers to make black characters more realistic and appealing to the viewers.
This reluctance to showcase the character was not due to the lack of acting capabilities of the actress. Mona Hammond who played Blossom’s part in EastEnders was RADA-trained and had experience in stage acting where she played parts in dramas of Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde. She had been acting since the 1960s in television dramas and sitcoms. She thus deserved to play a better part than what she was offered for in the end it is the authors who would be responsible for casting the talented actors and showing-off their acting capabilities. In this regard Joan Hooley has mentioned that:
There is still tokenism in television where black characters are concerned…She says she feels demoralized by her 18-monthrun in EastEnders: ‘I think they could have done better for me. I mean, there were many big stories happening when I was in. I sort od sat back and waited and thought, well, Tiffany’s dead now and Bianca and Grant have gone and there’s this big murder story and all that and I waited and waited and bugger all happened.” (Hooley, 2000)
Another aspect of the deprivation of Black actors rested in prevention of airing Black dramas like the Empire Road. The drama started in 1978 in BBC2 which was a five part drama series. Created by a Guyanese writer, Michael Abbensetts, who wrote all the scripts, this drama was supposed to do away with the racial and ethnic stereotypes of blacks in British soaps and show their lives. For this drama BBC employed a black director, Horace Ove and three outstanding actors Norman Beaton, Cornie Skinner-Carter and Joseph Marcell in leading roles. The second series was commissioned in 1979 and it continued till 1980. But then it was taken off abruptly without any explanation:
Empire Road was given a lot of media coverage. It was hailed as the Black Coronation Street. Enormous expectations were raised within the black community… The series was well-received by the press… Michael [Abbensetts] was invited to do another ten episodes for transmissions the next year… The [second] series was screened at a later hour and got higher viewing figures than the first series had done. In spite of that it was taken off. I [Norman Beaton] have never been given a satisfactory explanation as to why this extraordinary decision was reached. It was getting a larger audience. It had bigger audiences than some of the other programmes that were transmitted on BBC2. More important than this, however, was the fact that it was the only indigenous drama series on television catering to the specific needs of Afro-Caribbean community… Yet Empire Road was abandoned. To many of us it was a grossly insensitive decision. (Beaton, 1986, p.214)
Thus we see that Blacks in British television has gained marginalized representation throughout the ages. There has been a gross neglect of black characters or incidents from early historical dramas. An almost neglecting attitude to Blacks in classical dramas was also significant. Then there was the problem of misrepresentation of Blacks which was the popular British discourse. These three led to reduced roles in dramas of Black British actors in television. Thus there was a representation of Black actors in the British television but in characters which were nondescript and lacked lustre and drama in them. They were usually minor characters or sideline characters which never assumed the attention of the main characters which caught the spotlight.
British Black Culture
There was a parallel genre of cinema which developed in the eighties in the UK which was termed as ‘black cinema’. These were basically black independent films and videos which demonstrated the cultural politics which evolved in the eighties in the country which aimed at breaking the old norms of racial relations and multi-culturism. But in the post-multiculturism in the 1980s Britain, the emphasis of these films shifted to a broader and critical political and cultural situations.
There was a stress on archival excavation of the black people’s history in Britain and showcasing their story. So these movies showed the black perspective of the black Britons. But these did not gain success as the largely White British society and White British intelligentsia turned a blind eye to the black-related cultural matters, even when they were meant to say a lot about Britain in the 1960s and 1970s.
Clearly there was a gross marginalization of the black filmmakers and films which resulted in snatching away the employment of the numerous black actors and many were taken away from potential good roles. Here we see that the hindrance of development and employability of black actors in Britain was a largely cultural acceptance phenomenon. To understand better we see deeper into the situation.
Black filmmaking faced a crisis within British cinema culture. One reason that is evident as a reason for the lack of growth of the Black film industry is organizational base which could have aided the growth of the black films which could have made a bigger impact on the cultural scene in Britain (Pines, 1996). Another hindrance to the development of black films was the black produced images and dominant representation of the British culture. These films projected black people positively which negated the historic representation of blacks in films throughout history. It contradicts the race related discourse of black imagery in British films through history.
The fear of the conservatives to repress black films was evident as blackfilms of the first generation like Horace Ove’s Pressure and Manelik Shabazz’s Burning an Illusion (1981) dealt with linear structure which concentrated on political awakening of the protagonist. In both the films the naive central character evolves eventually with an active political consciousness. The only point of difference between the two movies lies in the fact that Pressure largely centres on the dissolution of the “black Britishness” while the latter refers to the development of a positivist black identity in relation to the black British community.
The films also show racial victimization of blacks in Britain as a large part of the racial discourse of the British society. The movies also show the evolution of a new generation blacks who were gearing up to challenge the whole basis of race relations and multiculturalism in Britain in the early 1980s.
Apart from the above two mentioned films the other two black films that have gained some prominence in Britain are Ahmed Jamal’s Majdhar (1984) and Horace Ove’s Playing Away (1986). These again dealt with cultural identity of immigrants (Black as and Asians) in Britain. But there are very few Black mainstream movies that have come of the British film industry.
Is there no Recruitment for Black Actors?
This reason may be seen as a cause of lack of demand for black actors in British films. Further for black filmmakers in Britain television is a primary provider of program space as well as finance. Further due to deeper and wider reach of the television into the British society it is also a preferred choice to spread the new discourse to the audience. Through the 1980s Channel 4 became the primary sponsor for minority Black films.
Channel 4 presented the platform for showcasing black talent in media and presenting the black viewpoint. The channel also recognised the history of racial imagery and the fact that such a history present racist past is accepted and broadcasted through the channel. The channel was the first of its kind in British television which instituted policies specifically for the black media presentations in the mainstream (Korte & Sternberg, 2004). But the channel has undergone criticism for not promoting and telecasting enough multi-cultural films for which and spent less money on the production of such films. This setback for black films in the present day enumerates the reason behind fewer roles for Black actors and their meagre success in Britain.
The television employment sector presents a serious case for endeavours to mainstream black actors in British films and dramas. As has been argued by Korte and Sternberg during the 1970s and 1980s there has been a gross under-representation of Blacks in British films and television, but the employment sector for the black actors and writers in British television had improved in the 1990s:
The older generation of BBC managers were very much products of empire. Managers now are mid thirties, post-empire and can imagine a world where all kinds of different people co-exist.” (Korte & Sternberg, 2004, p.19)
Policies of the television in the 1990s were reformed to encourage recruitment of talents from ethnic minorities which implied scrutinizing the existing structures and implementation of various changes for better access to the mass. For this ethnic minority broadcasting units were established to facilitate the featuring of Black programs, experiences, and viewpoint through television.
Further with the recognition of Blacks as a statistically significant and relevant audience group, their demands as cinema audience has also become an important to be analysed.
Thus we see from the institutional point of view there have been various initiatives which have been taken but there are still problems that exist in terms of maintaining a distinct identity. The question of a homogeneous British society or ethnic minority infused heterogeneous society is a question that has made black films a cultural question. Whether these black movies have ‘universal appeal’ or a diversity caste will fetch more audience is still uncertain. This leads to the hindrance that black actors face even today while seeking suitable roles.
Conclusion
Racial discrimination and racial discourse in the British society contribute to the dilapidated condition of Black actors in Britain. Black actors fail to attain roles which match their acting abilities or roles that truly exploits their talents. They are underexposed and unused lot who still fight for stereotypical, minor roles, which are insignificant to the storyline. This has been the historical past of the British entertainment business and is still the case in modern day.
Even though over the years the racialism and colonial imperialism of the British society has diminished still there exists a prejudice against casting black actors in lead roles which is considered to be risky by directors and writers alike. To quote Malcolm Frederick, an actor who is also artistic director of the Black Theater Cooperative regarding the existence of colour-blind casting in British theatre, he states:
Olivier played Othello, Elizabeth Taylor played Cleopatra, Peter Sellers played Fu Manchu. It becomes an issue here when black people are involved. Many young talented black people go to college and learn to be King Lear and come out to be employed to play Delroy, the local mugger, or other stereotypes created out of television. The large theater establishments employ one or two actors with black skin, which is something different from being a black actor, and then try to mold them into being colorless actors so they bring to the stage only their complexion and leave behind their history and culture. It’s a major fight in England and we are at war. (Rule, 8 September 1990)
Thus there exists colour-blindness in casting when there is an Othello or King Lear to be played by a White actor but vice versa is not widely accepted. This shows that the real problem lies in the British society, racial politics, and the British desire to erase the Black mark from their history. There are notions of black artists playing only stereotypical roles or recently roles which make them appear good and in perfect coherence with the white community. But it fails to reflect the real black British culture.
Due to the lack of societal support and interest to watch blacks in leading roles, British televisions like BBC, Channel 4 or ITV fail to present the real history of the blacks. Further, increased commercialization has led to the development of the further neglect of British actors as there is low popularity of all-black dramas or racially intermingled cast gain more controversy than popularity. Another reason that seems evident for the lack of black roles in British dramas is the lack of black British writers and directors who can create and caste imaginative and challenging roles for British actors. This has led to the talent drain of British actors to the US where these black actors gain greater access to fame and popularity.
Thus we see that black actors in Britain are deprived of the good roles and employment opportunity in British entertainment industry. This shows that there should be more roles and dramas made which can accommodate these black actors. There is a need for developing a truly colour-blind casting system in Britain which would help in forming the image of diversity in British entertainment industry.
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Footnotes
- As quoted in Bourne’s article from the biography of Paul Robson by Bauml Duberman, 1989, p. 204.
- Quoted in Malik from Walmsey 1992, p. xvii.