The Jamie Lloyd Company has hit back after its production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” has been the subject of what they call a “barrage of deplorable racial abuse” aimed at an unnamed cast member.
The play, directed by Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Boulevard”), stars “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star Tom Holland as Romeo and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers (“Sex Education”) as Juliet.
On Friday, the Jamie Lloyd Company issued a statement, saying: “Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
Unless a characters race or gender or ethnicity or (dis)ability is a key component of either their arc or the story as whole (e.g. the plot depends on it), who the fuck cares who’s playing who? I saw the same thing happen when the Dune movie had the Liet-Kynes character portrayed by a black woman. It makes absolutely zero difference to the story what gender or race Liet-Kynes was and she was really good anyway.
I only dislike it when historical shows or movies race swap, cause it kinda ignores the racism of that community at that point in time. Like a black woman playing queen Elizabeth wouldn’t make sense. Or Cleopatra for that matter
I’ve been watching white guys play samurai and pharaohs and Jesus my whole life. It’s not that hard to get used to someone with historically inaccurate pigment playing a role. But for some strange reason, it’s only a political choice when the actor with the “wrong” skin color is dark.
wait a minute. are you saying everyone accepts white washing? just because you do doesn’t mean we should all just get used to it. people are tired of their classic ethnic stories being played by a bunch of white dudes or changed to a full white cast for the sake of palpability for the west. nobody aside from white people want that shit…