The Handmaid's Tale's race problem | Television & radio
Letâs never forget that this is the country in which The Black and White Minstrel Show, featuring white performers in blackface make-up, was aired in a primetime BBC1 slot right up until 1978. Things have changed since then, of course.
The major broadcasters have all affirmed their commitment to increasing employee diversity, while shows such as Netflixâs Orange Is the New Black demonstrate diversityâs appeal onscreen. Yes, TV has come a long way since racism equalled ratings, though if recent controversies about colour-blind casting are anything to go by, some would say perhaps too far.
The Handmaidâs Tale, a bracingly up-to-date screen adaptation of Margaret Atwoodâs 1985 novel, has been praised for its cinematic visuals and compelling central performance from Elisabeth Moss as handmaid Offred, but one element remains controversial: the inclusion of race without the depiction of racism. Itâs this that New York Magazine has described as the showâs âgreatest failingâ.
Atwoodâs original novel passingly references the âresettlement of the Children of Hamâ, but black characters are otherwise absent. In the TV series, however, Moira, Offredâs friend from âthe time beforeâ is played by black American actor Samira Wiley and Offredâs husband is played in flashbacks by OT Fagbenle, the British son of a Nigerian father and a white English mother. Post-revolution Gilead is also a fully integrated society, with black and Asian actors playing handmaids, commanders, wives and domestic workers.
âI think Bruce and the producers have done a great job at making the cast diverse,â says Fagbenle â" and this hasnât always been his experience. âThere are certain directors who just donât cast diversely in prominent roles. Ever. Often itâs just because they donât have a diverse social circle, so they donât think of black or brown people as husbands, best friends, bosses.â
Showrunner Bruce Miller has explained in several interviews that casting decisions on The Handmaidâs Tale were made with the viewer in mind. âThat was a very big discussion with Margaret [Atwood] about what the difference was between reading the words âThere are no people of colour in this worldâ and seeing an all-white world on your television,â he told Time magazine. âWhatâs the difference between making a TV show about racists and making a racist TV show where you donât hire any actors of colour? So that was part of it.â
But it wasnât just that Miller and his team didnât want to make a racist TV show; it was also that they didnât want to make a TV show about race. âIt just felt like in a world where birth rates have fallen so precipitously, fertility would trump everything,â he said.
In effect, casting television is as much about creating a neutral background that doesnât distract from the storytelling as it is about finding the best actor for the role. One of the purest examples of colour-blind casting in the US is Greyâs Anatomy. Casting director Linda Lowy has recalled how showrunner Shonda Rhimes presented the scripts with no character surnames. âShe just said, âLinda, I want you to cast it the way you see the world.ââ The result was a hospital staff that accurately reflects the communities of big-city North America, yet race rarely comes up. According to comments Rhimes made back when the first season aired in 2005, this was true to her own experience: âWeâre post-civil rights, post-feminist babies, and we take it for granted we live in a diverse world.â
Bruce Miller is probably right to assume that these same 21st-century viewers would have found an all-white cast in The Handmaidâs Tale jarring. What he seems not to have anticipated is that they might also find his post-racial vision jarring in a different way. In Gilead, handmaids such as Offred are forcibly separated from their families, regularly raped by their âcommandersâ, traded as if they were cattle, banned from reading and punished with maiming and public lynchings. None of these details are the inventions of Atwoodâs imagination or embellishments from Millerâs writerâs room; this is what actually happened during 245 years of slavery in the US â" albeit to black women rather than white ones. Isnât it odd, then, to neither openly acknowledge this history, nor grapple with its legacy on screen?
Fagbenle feels the criticism is unfair. âHandmaidâs is the most profound television Iâve had the privilege to be a part of. Is there an opportunity to explore other social issues including race in a second season? Yes! Would I like to see that? Absolutely! But rather than focus my energy on other peopleâs writing and casting, Iâm putting my heart into telling my stories myself.â
Maxxx, the three-part comedy blap that Fagbenle wrote, directed and stars in, will be streaming on Channel 4âs All4 website at the end of the month. âIâm interested in colour-blind hiring of directors, producers and writers,â he says. âGo to the source. Then we wonât need to have conversations about colour-blind casting.â
In the meantime, though, this matter of historical accuracy is usually where colour-blind casting comes a cropper, especially in period drama-enamoured Britain. In 2012, in response to criticisms of Downton Abbeyâs all-white cast, creator Julian Fellowes said, âYou have to work it in in a way that is historically believable, but I am sure we could do that.â Jazz singer Jack Ross (played by Gary Carr) was then introduced as a âblack and very handsomeâ love interest for Lady Rose and gone four episodes later, when the two realised their affair would never be accepted by polite society.
With Downton Abbeyâs diversity box duly ticked, actor Gary Carr followed in the footsteps of so many under-served black British actors before him and hightailed it to the US, where heâll soon be appearing in the latest series from The Wire creator David Simon. Itâs not just Downton that has stumbled either. Star Wars actor John Boyega recently called out Game of Thrones for its presentation of a quasi-medieval world in which dragons exist but black people do not.
Last month, Doctor Who writer Mark Gatiss revealed heâd been so discomforted by the casting of a black actor, Bayo Gbadamosi, as a Victorian soldier in series 10 episode The Empress of Mars that he felt compelled to write a âvery difficultâ email to his colleagues explaining his stance: âThese are soldiers from the South African war, theyâve just been fighting the Zulus. There werenât any black soldiers in Victoriaâs army.â
Speaking to a gathering at Oxford University, Gatiss acknowledged the showâs fantasy setting and also its tradition of diverse casting, but said heâd still had his doubts. âI thought, Is this a specific example of where itâs slightly ⦠I didnât know what the answer was.â The matter was resolved when Gatiss undertook his own research and uncovered the true story of Jimmy Durham, a black soldier who served with the British army during the late 19th century.
Andy Pryor, casting director on Doctor Who since the 2005 reboot and the man jointly responsible for introducing the first female Doctor, Jodie Whittaker, says he was surprised by the controversy. âSince there have been BAME people in the UK for centuries, it didnât seem implausible that there would have been a black soldier in the Victorian army ⦠Itâs all about finding the right stories to tell.â He was pleased when Gatissâs research confirmed this instinct: âIt does go to show that the impression we may have of history is not necessarily as it really was. Also, letâs face it, it wasnât a documentary anyway!â
Yet it isnât only in documentaries that casting is constrained by notions of whatâs realistic. In sci-fi and fantasy shows TV-makers arenât aiming for realism exactly, but something that feels plausible to their increasingly vocal fanbase as well as a wider potential audience. Deciding who these viewers are, and which disbeliefs theyâll willingly suspend, entails some telling assumptions.
âThe reality of Britain is vibrant multiculturalism, but the myth we export is an all-white world of lords and ladies,â wrote actor and rapper Riz Ahmed in the Guardian last year. âConversely, American society is pretty segregated, but the myth it exports is of a racial melting-pot, everyone solving crimes and fighting aliens side by side.â This too is starting to change, however. Ahmedâs character in The Night Of was originally white and played by Ben Whishaw in the British series on which it was based. The Night Of improves on its template by adding post-9/11 Islamaphobia to the showâs list of themes and nuances.
Colour-blind casting may be too blunt an instrument for todayâs sophisticated TV dramas, but in combination with a kind of colour-conscious storytelling, it can both reflect and influence. In another episode from the last series of Doctor Who, the Doctor and Bill disembark the Tardis in London, 1814. âInteresting,â says Bill, as she surveys the scene. âRegency England is a bit more black than they show in the movies.â
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