Hollywood or bust for Black British actors?

[Archdemos]

Interesting article from Channel 4 News.

 

Young black actors should head for America if they want to make it, according to acclaimed National Theatre star David Harewood - who says opportunities here are thin on the ground.

 

Head for Hollywood if you've got ambition, is David Harewood's advice, as he warned that young Black actors would struggle to find roles in Britain to match their talent. And he should know: he's finally won a breakthrough role on the acclaimed US drama Homeland, about the war on terror, which President Obama has already dubbed his favourite series on television.

 

America the bountiful

 

He's not the only one. Stars like Adrian Lester, Chiwetel Ejifor and Marianne Jean-Baptiste have won prominent roles in the United States after experiencing plenty of frustration back here. Last night, Harewood criticised the "lack of authoritative, strong black characters" on British television - but across the Altantic, there's a far wider range of roles, beyond the old stereotyped images of gangland violence, or grinding poverty.

 

Take Idris Elba, who just won a Golden Globe for best television actor for the lead role in BBC One's Luther: a part he won after making his name across the Atlantic in The Wire. Adrian Lester, who's just starred in another BBC series, Hustle, and has already enjoyed some Hollywood success alongside John Travolta in Primary Colours, is heading back to the States in search of wider opportunities. He told the Radio Times "At the moment, a lot of dramas with non-white actors in them feel as though they have to justify that presence."

 

Institutional racism?

 

The accusations of racism in the British film industry are nothing new. Back in 1996, Marianne Jean Baptiste became the first black actor to be nominated for an Oscar, for her role in Mike Leigh's Secrets and Lies. Yet she was left out of the group of young British stars who were invited to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Cannes film festival a year later. Furious, she castigated the "old men" in charge of Britain's film business - declaring "They've got to come to terms with the fact that Britain is no longer a totally white place where people ride horses, wear long frocks and drink tea." She's now a fully established star in the States, with a recurring role in the missing persons drama Without a Trace, and several film credits to her name.

 

It's not just actors who are embracing everything America has to offer. The writer and director Kwame Kwei Armah has just moved to Baltimore to become artistic director at Centerstage. "As an artist of colour, as an artist who loves theatre, I can use all of me here, and there are very few other theatres anywhere in the world that can boast that." he told a city magazine.

 

Creating new roles

 

But if the right roles don't already exist, there are already moves to create them. An all-black production of Waiting for Godot opens this week at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds: an idea dreamt up by Patricia Cumper, artistic director of the black-led Tawala theatre company. She told Channel 4 News "Every time we cast a Tawala show, I am reminded how many brilliantly trained and multi-talented Black and Asian actors there are in Britain. Yet they do not find the number or range of roles they want, or in my opinion, deserve." That mismatch, she said, made it perfectly natural - if sad - for them to turn to the United States to move their careers forward. "These are British actors who've had some of the best training in the world. Doesn't Idris Elba's Golden Globe show the way forward?" she said.

 

America may well have a richly diverse culture, and a far more established black middle class. But the bright lights of Hollywood remain the ultimate prize for all actors, not just those from ethnic minorities. Back to Adrian Lester again: "It's not possible to sustain a film career just by working in Britain. Black or white, whoever you are." And of course Hollywood is as prone to racial prejudice as everwhere else: take the recent experience of the film director George Lucas. He told the Daily Show he'd had trouble getting funding for his new film, Red Tails, about a group of black US Air Force pilots who fought against segregation during the second world war, because there were no white actors in leading roles. "We don't know how to market a movie like this", he was told.

 

But the film did get made - and has already attracted a host of plaudits, not to mention six million dollars at the box office on its opening night last month. Commercial and critical success? For an all black cast? Now that's something that Hollywood really will respect. And a little risk-taking this side of the Atlantic might not go amiss.

 

Source: http://www.channel4.com/news/hollywood-hails-for-black-british-actors

[BOB]

Idris Elba is my favourite British actor period and I'm happy for his success as he's paid his dues and thoroughly deserved his break plus he's a Gooner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peace, Love & Unity.

[5]

Steve McQueen doesn't seem to quite agree.... http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/steve-mcqueen-shares-his-thoughts-on-hollywood-directors-not-hiring-black-actors#

[Garnaqsi]

Goodness me, this is one of the worst articles I've read in a while. To say actors like Adrian Lester have won prominent Hollywood roles after having suffered set backs in here is completely inaccurate. Adrian Lester took roles that most British actors only dream of and the only Hollywood he had that I remember was one that was actually 'stereotypical' and was largely about the issue of racism.

[5]

Garnaqsi;800072 wrote:

Goodness me, this is one of the worst articles I've read in a while. To say actors like Adrian Lester have won prominent Hollywood roles after having suffered set backs in here is completely inaccurate. Adrian Lester took roles that most British actors only dream of and the only Hollywood he had that I remember was one that was actually 'stereotypical' and was largely about the issue of racism.

I agree. The whole article reads like it was written by an intern.

[Alpha Blondy]

britian is a predominately white society. This is a fact that cannot be disputed.uk films often cover themes relevant to British society. PC, multiculturalism and diversity have been exhausted and any attempt to increase blacks in uk cinema will run the risk of creating 'hatred' by right-wing groups or a create patronising ‘multicultist’, foggy tokenism. this is the cultural milieu that middle class Russell group educated film professionals work within, portraying the ‘black experience’ as a single entity, when the black experience is multi-faceted and diverse as the white experience.

 

isnt any wonder that whites outside of urban major cities think their 'country' been taking over by 'ethnics'. liberal media civilizing orgs like bbc have far too many black face fronting their programmes. i can think of a few black weathermen, although al jazeera's everton fox would top my list of oxymorons . even all the adverts like the famous 'friends' Heineken advert has a black fellow, who had uncomfortable look to his face as he had probably the bestest friends in the world. not to mention the carling advert showing the courage some friends would go for their friends, and there in the 'southpole' with his eskimo clad showing his courage and loyalty to ‘friend’, despite being a ‘minority ethnic’ or a 'magical negro.

 

black cinema has for far too long been championed by white apologists, whose chronic paternalism has not only completely alienated black cinema goers but neutered and emasculated black directors and actors. conscious cultural critics like myself value grass-roots, organically inspired cultural products, products that are grounded in real life experiences and not some pre-judged culturally distant stereotype informed by the overarching white cultural superstructure. this ‘white cultural superstructure’ not only hijacks black cultural figures (i.e. Muhammad Ali) for their own ends (for Muhammad ali a validation of how progressive society has become when blacks still live in conditions comparable to the 1960s) but more significantly constructs a condescending, cultural straight jacket. this dominant milieu or white superstructure is the dominant ideology that inhibits black screen writers, directors and actors. For Sidney Poiter read Denzel Washington.

 

what I’m proposing, in my capacity as a conscious cultural critic, here is a 'back to basics' approach, bringing alternative and seldom documented experiences into the cultural mainstream; with the intention of shining a light with the intention of uncovering, and authentically documenting, hard to reach cultures and sub-cultures that exist in the UK. these voices should be organically sourced from their own communities, given the tools (please note not the training) and the encouragement to make films based on their experiences and values rather than having a white ethno-centric culturally biased worldview forced upon them. the most important point is to realise that this ethno-centric culturally abusive milieu is the number 1 impedeint to black film makers. rather than portraying a single black experience as the norm, multiple, non-stereotypical black experiences than white audiences find innovative and informative will become de-rigueur.

 

thus, rather than working in a so called liberal industry that has in fact been infused by values that were complicit in the construction of colonialism such as the ‘scramble for Africa’, black film makers would be able to work in an industry, depicting their own individually unique experiences, which is more in tune with the 21st century of global values; values that find a corollary in the individually unique and organically inspired new online social media.

[Somalia]

BOB;800049 wrote:

Idris Elba is my favourite British actor period and I'm happy for his success as he's paid his dues and thoroughly deserved his break plus he's a Gooner.

 

Peace, Love & Unity.

Lol, I was thinking Idris Elba as well when I saw the thread.

 

 

[Chimera]

I'm kinda tired of these type of articles, completely irrelevant to us considering there is not a single major Somali actor or actress out there, so a big BOOHOO, and I blame the Somali people for that. They went from making films and documentaries that had the largest budgets in African Cinema, and annually hosted for decades two of the four largest film festivals in Africa to having a non-existent film culture. If the war hadn't happened we would have maintained our status as the film capital of the region easily, and could have expanded that into a cultural franchise akin to the Korean Wave.

 

You see; the Koreans really don't care about the American or British Film industries because they have their own industry, and its Hollywood that's copycatting their products through various remakes and not the other way around, maybe that's what we should strive for?

[Alpha Blondy]

^ interesting views but much like your opinions completely cuckoo and delusional.