Heading into the "real world" as a young adult is daunting, but none more daunting than for a young actor. With something like a 12% employment rate and the chance of stardom being about the same chance of winning the lottery, people wonder why anyone would possibly want to choose this profession. Now, try to imagine yourself as a young actor who also happens to be of color and a woman. You are ready to take on Hollywood, you want to be a leading lady, but you don't want to put in the same box as everyone else. All I can say is, good luck, kid.
Who am I to be spouting off about the treatment and identity of minority actors in the industry? First of all, it comes from personal experience. Unfortunately, that kid I said "good luck" to is me. I am a senior in college about to graduate with my Bachelor's in Theatre and enter the terrifying, shore-less ocean that is "the industry." I plan to focus on musical theatre, at least in the first goings of my career, as it is what currently gives me fulfillment. But as Broadway becomes more and more commercial, and the different mediums of theatrical art blur, many of the same "rules" that apply in the Hollywood world also apply for theatre actors.
I know I am not the first to breach this subject, but as films like 12 Years a Slave, The Help, and Bridesmaids get made and gain national attention, I thought it would be both a personal and topical issue to address. Those films I mentioned wouldn't have been made ten years ago. Even with a great cast of actors, the "suits" (i.e. the men and women who have no ties to the project other than financial reasons) would have certainly said something along the lines of: "Nobody wants to see that," or "A comedy based solely around women that's not a romantic comedy? It will never work." It seems silly to hear those types of things. How could you possibly say that women would not come to see a "bad-behavior" comedy like Bridesmaids? How could you say that an actor of color could not carry an entire movie? Unfortunately, these assumptions are made off of a bad mix of old stereotypes and, as with all things stereotypical, a hint of truth.
For me, all it can take is a reminder that Halle Berry was the first African American woman to win the Best Actress Oscar in 2002, and that there has not been an African American woman to win that category since then (and the only nominations being Gabourey Sidibe, Viola Davis, and Quvenzhane Wallis) for me to feel like a successful career is impossible. Why, in this age of supposed equality, are actors and actresses of color not featured more in movies? And why, when they are featured in movies, does that movie usually feature the race of that actor or actress?
Instead of sitting in my room in a pit of despair, I thought I would make better use of my time and talk about it. Obviously, this is a fairly broad subject, so I'd like to cover a lot of smaller subtopics as I go. Minorities are not exclusive to my personal traits of being a woman and being African-American. What is it like to be an actor with a disability? I also want to do enough digging to see how this conception of what is profitable and what is not profitable (in terms of actors to cast) came about. Where did these standards that minority actors are coerced into following come from? Finally, I want to see how much our culture as a nation has influenced the movies that get made. Is the fact that we still have a problem in 2014 a reflection of how unequal our society still is?
I don't expect to answer every question by the end of this blog, but I hope to at least gain a better understanding of an industry that I am about to spend the rest of my life in.
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