Heavens! The pearl clutching over diversity in a fictional saga based in London, circa early 1800s by popular American author Julia Quinn. But do indulge me gentle reader, before I delve into the scandal over Bridgerton by some faint-hearted viewers of the Netflix hit.
Shall we take a trip down memory lane, where moviegoers were treated to thespians inhabiting “the other” thus so:
Or this:
And this:
And on television, American viewers were treated to this:
So gentle reader, excuse me if I don’t get too worked up over seeing actress Adjoa Andoh like this:
I mean, how dare Shonda Rhimes stoke the fires of scrutiny by placing people of color in positions traditionally and historically reserved for whites! Why, its almost as bad as Kathryn Stockett having know nothing Skeeter lead a motley crew of older black maids during the height of the civil rights movement to write a book. A book! Everyone knows a book is better than actually marching for Freedom. Skeeter had to push them, as one reviewer stated “To their full potential.” Yes, that’s an actual quote. I’ll link to it shortly. Gentle Reader, I’ve circled back to the point of this entire blog, which is my critique of The Help, a book that ignored real history in favor of antebellum myths and black caricatures, and was lauded as well as loved for it. So excuse me if I don’t get all weepy eyed about Queen Charlotte being portrayed by a black woman, especially since some historians believe she was of Portugese and African descent.
So when a novelist named Alexandre Dumas, whose dad was this man:
Ends up being played by French actor Gerard Depardieu, or Angelina Jolie can portray bi-racial Mariane Pearl, just because, well, she’s ANGELINA JOLIE duh. Why can’t one just enjoy (or not) the fictional tale of Bridgerton with a fictional black Duke and an assortment of other POC as aristocrats?
Read more here:
https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/tv-movies/a35083112/bridgerton-race-historical-accuracy/
Bridgerton Official Teaser Trailer by Netflix Nov 2, 2020:
Is Bridgerton Based On A True Story? The Origin Explained | Netflix
And for all those who say, “Well what about The Wayan Brothers in White Girls, Idris Elba as Heimdall in Thor, Anna Diop as Starfire in TITANS, Candice Patton as Iris West in The Flash, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm in The Fantastic Four. . . This PC crap has got to stop!”
I could do an entire post on black characters who were changed to white (Kevin Spacey’s character in Pay it Forward is but one example), but what about the white actors and actresses who got to play and still get first dibs on portraying other races, for DECADES?
For Example:
Anthony Hopkins in The Human Stain, where he portrayed Coleman Silk, a black man passing for white. Wentworth Miller, who had to show his birth certificate to prove he was biracial, portrayed the younger version of Coleman.
Warner Oland as Chinese Detective Charlie Chan in the Charlie Chan series
Paul Muni and Luise Rainer as Chinese farmers in The Good Earth 1937
Earthsea (2004) while the novel by Ursula Le Guin featured characters of color, the TV version made most of them white, to Le Guin’s very vocal dismay. This brings me to the Publishing Industry, which still has an issue putting POC on book covers. See these posts for more:
A Whitewashed EARTHSEA: How the Sci Fi Channel wrecked my books by Ursula Le Guin
https://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2010/06/21/a-tale-of-two-covers/
Anyway, back to white people can play anyone:
Jeanne Crain as a light skinned black woman in Pinky 1949.
Christopher Walken as Feng in Balls of Fury 2007
Tony Randall in The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao – 1964
Mel Ferrer in 1949’s Lost Boundaries, portraying a black man (real person Dr. Albert C. Johnston) passing for white. For more on the real Albert C. Johnson, see this article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1989/07/25/the-doctor-his-secret-a-lost-movie/76cf3b29-5dc2-44f9-bbfd-a566ce853f9d/
Ava Gardner in Showboat 1951, when Lena Horne lobbied for the role but casting her was considered too controversial.
2012’s Cloud Atlas
Othello was also portrayed by Orson Welles in blackface
The Teahouse of the August Moon, 1956 – Marlon Brando portrays a Japanese man named Sakini
Shirley MacLaine as a Japanese Geisha in the 1962 film My Geisha
John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror 1956
Prince of Persia 2010 featuring Jake Gyllenhaal
Tony Curtis highly bronzed as Native American war hero Ira Hayes (real person) in The Outsider 1961
Burt Lancaster as Native American Jim Thorpe (real person) and also an Apache in the 1954 film Apache
Alex Guinness (Middle Eastern roles) and Peter Sellers (Asian)
Richard Burton as a half caste doctor in the film The Rains of Ranchipur
Audrey Hepburn as a Native American from the Kiowa tribe in The Unforgiven
Christopher Lee as Fu Manchu 1965
Robby Benson as a Chicano gang member in 1979s Walk Proud
Max von Sydow in Flash Gordon 1980 as Ming the Merciless
Peter Ustinov as Charlie Chan in the 1981 film Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen
Linda Hunt won an Oscar portraying a mixed race Chinese man named Billy Kwan in the film The Year of Living Dangerously 1982
Justin Chatwin as Goku – Dragon Ball Z 2009
The Last Airbender – only one of the young leads was Asian (Dev Patel)
Johnny Depp in The Lone Ranger 2013
Aloha 2015 Emma Stone was supposed to be a half Chinese, Native Hawaiian, Swedish character
2015 Pan Mara Rooney as Tiger Lily, a Native American Princess
2017 Ghost in a Shell Scarlett Johansson and Michael Pitt portray cyber enhanced Japanese droids.
Tilda Swinton, as the Tibetan Ancient One in the film Dr. Strange
Robert Downey Jr portrayed an Australian actor playing a black soldier in the comedy Tropic Thunder
Singer Julie London portrayed a black woman passing as white, in the film Night of the Quarter Moon. Natalie Wood played a biracial black woman in the film Kings Go Forth and Puerto Rican in West Side Story.
Debra Paget and Jeff Chandler portrayed Native Americans in Broken Arrow, 1950. Paget played Native American women in White Feather and The Last Hunt.
Not to mention the ones in blackface for comedic purposes, like Shirley Temple, Mickey Rooney, Al Jolson, Dan Duryea, Billy Crystal. And Judy Garland in the film Babes in Arms
Amos ‘n Andy were created by two white men
Shirley Temple in The Little Colonel
The Three Stooges
Fred Astaire in Blackface (the film Swingtime), Bing Crosby, Doris Day wore blackface. Dan Akroyd in Trading Places, Gene Wilder in Stir Crazy, Ted Danson, Betty Grable for a musical number in The Dolly Sisters, Julia Hough as Crazy Eyes from Orange is The New Black
Jimmy Fallon as Chris Rock . . .
I’ll be at this all day if I listed each and every white actor who portrayed a caricature of a POC simply because they could.
Making fun of other cultures was and still is so pervasive that regular folks continue to get in on the act. Megyn Kelly, formerly of Fox News actually had the nerve to ask what all the fuss was about on her now defunct NBC show:
“The final straw for Kelly on the NBC show came on Tuesday when, during a round-table discussion, she seemingly defended “blackface” and “white face” for Halloween because it was “OK when I was a kid as long as you were dressing like a character.”
For an earlier post on this issue featuring teachers and others who believed in blackening or browning their faces for fun, see this post:
https://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2013/10/28/we-are-a-culture-not-a-costume/
For actual examples of Blacks in Britain during the 1800s, see this post:
https://acriticalreviewofthehelp.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/black-people-in-england-during-the-1800s/
A Critical Review of the novel The Help 
Posted on December 31, 2020
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