[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Why is the casting of a Black actor in a television show or film automatically due to some quota or broader political decision in your eyes, and not because that actor was good at what they do?

I think in practice it ends up being both. The actor is perfectly competent, or sometimes great, but the decision to cast them is made at least partly for ideological reasons. Sometimes someone involved in the production will say so explicitly, I.e. we wanted a diverse cast, and others it's not but seems obvious.

And just as importantly, if the position that writing or production was somehow negatively impacted by casting a Black person over a white person is extremely weak (and it is), isn't that just the same as "don't cast Black people"? Like, if you're reason for not wanting them in the show (which is ridiculous) isn't even a remotely valid reason, how is it anything else?

I don't know that it is weak in all cases, but leaving that aside, saying "don't cast black people" is definitely different than saying, "don't make skin colour a primary consideration when casting".

And yeah, I think it seemed pretty obvious that there was a deliberate choice about wanting a black little mermaid. I think that's actually great if the point was to have girls who look like that actress see themselves as a Disney princess. Couldn't care less. I think it was actually a lot about press and money, though, obviously. Meh. Whatever. Who cares.

Originally Posted by b1crunch

Okay, but to some degree it feels like people see one example of something (say coopted political ideology) and then they go looking for it everywhere.

That's actually built into the thing complained of. The mission of a lot of social justice focused people is to have these issues addressed in literally every facet of every day life. That's sort of the whole idea of intersectionality - everything is connected to social justice issues. As a result, you get people earnestly discussing how climate change is a race issue, because it disproportionately affects non white people. Just in my profession, there was that whole thing about lawyers having to take an oath about working for social justice in Ontario, and it's now a requirement in Alberta for us to do indigenous reconciliation training even though it has literally nothing to do with my job. It kind of IS everywhere. And the answer to anyone who doesn't want to play that game or participate in those politics is simply, "well, that's your privilege talking". Of course that's going to generate a negative reaction.

As well, why is being progressive around equal representation in film a bad thing? Why can't the Little Mermaid be black? (I literally know nothing about this film, and your reference to it was the first time I heard of it).

I don't think it is. I don't care. I suspect you could get some arguments about how it's a further indication of ideogy seeping in everywhere in society and how it's one more step down the road or whatever, but... meh. It's the little mermaid. Whatever.

I'm struggling to see why a company using their property in the way they see fit as a bad thing.

Well, fine, but by that logic of "they can do whatever they want with their property", casting white actors to play minority characters is also okay, which I suspect lots of people would disagree with. It cuts both ways if you're going to approach it from that angle.

Anyway, I didn't want to get into this in this much detail. Not going to convince anyone.