Colourblind Casting One: The Streetcar and I

As someone who is not a part of a visible minority, I'm pretty sure I'm not qualified to talk about this, but lately this has been bothering me a lot, because there have been a lot of cases where colourblind casting (or hell, even colour-conscious casting) has been received with a mindset that is less than modern and far less than enlightened. Though the US and Canada that generally pride themselves on being open on issues of diversity, there are still embarrassing and primitive fails.

(I'm not talking about the Hunger Games issues. I am so late to the party on that one it isn't funny. The twitter shitstorm that followed the release of that movie was a problem that stems from idiots reading a book but blocking out what they don't want to here. Rue is clearly black in the books, and while it isn't a huge part of her character, it was definitely the right choice to cast a black actress in the movie, especially if that actress was someone of such screen presence as Amandla Stenberg. Case closed. Idiots are idiots, and should have their rights to the Internet restricted if not outright revoked.)

What I'm talking about is the treatment of actors and actresses of colour in theatre, not film and television. Tentatively this subject will be covered in more than one post.