The Aesthetics of Actor-Character Race Matching in Film Fictions
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Philosophers’ volume 12, no. 3 arguerite Clark as Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1918). Ru- january 2012 dolph Valentino as Sheik Ahmed Ben Hassan in The Sheik Imprint M (1921). Peter Lorre as Mr. Moto in Think Fast, Mr. Moto (1937). Katherine Hepburn as Jade in Dragon Seed (1942). Charlton Heston as Ramon Miguel Vargas in Touch of Evil (1958). Chuck Connors as Geron- imo in Geronimo (1962). Telly Savalas as Pancho Villa in Pancho Villa The Aesthetics of (1972). Fisher Stevens as Ben Jabituya in Short Circuit (1986). Mizuo Peck as Sacagawea in Night at the Museum (2006). All of the proceed- ing are films in which the racial background of a principal character does not match the racial background of the actor or actress portraying Actor-Character Race that character.1 Call this actor-character race mismatching.2 Rather than address the obvious moral dimension of race matching in film fictions, I instead want to explore whether a coherent account can be given of race matching in terms of purely aesthetic considerations, Matching in Film Fictions i. e., an account that even without moral considerations can neverthe- less coherently and productively answer the following questions: Can race mismatching ever be an aesthetic defect of a film, and if so, under what conditions, if any could race mismatching constitute a pro tanto aesthetic defect? I claim that once we have in place a precise account of the nature of race matching, it becomes clear that films for which race mismatching appears to constitute an aesthetic defect are actually films properly en- Christy Mag Uidhir gaging with which requires audiences to satisfy inconsistent epistemic University of Houston 1. Other notable examples are Marlon Brando as Emiliano Zapata Salazar in Viva Zapata! (1952) and as Sakini in The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), Yul Bryn- ner as the King of Siam in The King and I (1956) and as Chief Black Eagle in Kings of the Sun (1963), Ricardo Montalban as Ironshirt in Across the Wide Mis- souri (1951) and as Little Wolf in Cheyenne Autumn (1964). Some contemporary examples are Eddie Murphy as Mr. Wong in Norbit (2007), Lynn Collins as Silver Fox in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009), Elijah De Jesus as Pearl Carter Scott in Pearl (2009), and Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan, Gemma Arterton as Princess Tamina, and Alfred Molina as Sheik Amar in Prince of Persia (2010). 2. Although this paper concerns actor-character matching and mismatching with respect to racial backgrounds, I assume that my analysis can also be © 2012 Christy Mag Uidhir employed in discussions of matching and mismatching with respect to ethnic <www.philosophersimprint.org/012003/> backgrounds, nationalities, gender, and so forth. christy mag uidhir The Aesthetics of Actor-Character Race Matching in Film Fictions conditions, thereby interfering with or outright precluding audience fiction that [p iff ¬q]). In the third section, I suggest that perhaps race reception of the film’s prescribed uptake. In such cases, I claim, race mis- mismatching may best be viewed as a species of miscasting. That is, matching constitutes at least a pro tanto aesthetic defect because — in films that mismatch the race of the actor with the race of the character virtue of the inconsistency underwritten by the race mismatching — the portrayed ceteris paribus are films that miscast that actor as that charac- film undermines audience reception of the very uptake it prescribes. ter, and films that miscast are ceteris paribus to that extent aesthetically However, I also claim that the connection between the race mis- defective. I then pose a few challenges to the miscasting view of race matching and the relevant inconsistency not only fails to be an in mismatching, which I take ultimately to show that race mismatching principle connection but also fails to be even a ceteris paribus connec- as an aesthetic defect cannot be plausibly defended. tion. I argue that what’s defective about race mismatching aesthetically In the end, I argue that there is nothing in principle wrong aestheti- is predicated on something being defective about race mismatching cally with race mismatching per se, and as such (and for many, perhaps epistemically, so that, if there is in principle nothing ceteris paribus de- most surprisingly) we ought to conclude that there is nothing in prin- fective about race mismatching epistemically, then so too for race ciple wrong morally with race mismatching per se. If nothing is wrong mismatching aesthetically (and perhaps so too for race mismatching with race mismatching per se, then any normative analysis of its use morally). More precisely, if there is nothing defective about race mis- in film fictions ought to shift the focus toward that to which race mis- matching all epistemic things considered, then there is nothing defective matching appears to be in service (e. g., morally problematic narrative/ about race mismatching all aesthetic thing -considered (and perhaps also thematic contents, fostering or perpetuating racial caricatures or ste- nothing defective about race mismatching all moral things considered). reotypes) and away from facts about race mismatching itself. Though this is consistent with further external considerations being such that race mismatching constitutes a prima facie defect (i. e., there 1. Motivations & Assumptions nevertheless might be a prima facie epistemic, aesthetic, or moral rea- While no doubt many have a prima facie suspicion of, if not outright son either for a film fiction to race-match or not to race-mismatch), negative attitude toward, the more extreme examples of race mis- we nevertheless ought to conclude that normative reasons (epistemic, matching film fictions (e. g., minstrel-show blackface), I am interested aesthetic, or moral) stemming merely from race matching/race mis- in locating sufficient support for the general intuition that something matching itself lack any force. is amiss with race mismatching itself — the intuition that something In the first section, I lay out the basic assumptions that I’ll be making just seems bad about race mismatching simpliciter. To help motivate so as to build the strongest possible case for thinking that, absent moral this (as well as to address the potential concern that my project cuts considerations, race mismatching is at least a pro tanto aesthetic defect. its import from whole cloth), consider the prima facie plausibility of In the second section, I claim films that race-mismatch seem to be ce- the following claims. teris paribus aesthetically defective because films that race-mismatch In the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1965), the intended come- ceteris paribus place inconsistent epistemic demands on their audiences, dic character of Mr. Yunioshi fails to be comedic in virtue so that properly engaging with a race-mismatching film fiction ceteris of being depicted according to an odious and virulently paribus requires audiences to satisfy a prima facie inconsistent set of racist stereotype of the Japanese and is to that extent a bad- conditions (e. g., believing that p is true in the fiction and believing making feature of the film. This is only further worsened that q is true in the fiction, but having it prima facie be the case in the philosophers’ imprint – 2 – vol. 12, no. 3 (january 2012) christy mag uidhir The Aesthetics of Actor-Character Race Matching in Film Fictions by the fact that the Japanese Mr. Yunoishi is played by the fictions shouldn’t race-mismatch. Given that my principal interest decidedly Caucasian actor Mickey Rooney. So the film is concerns the aesthetic implications of race matching absent from any ceteris paribus worse for having race-mismatched. of its moral implications (whatever those may be), my project then is to construct and attempt to defend a coherent and plausible account Dances with Wolves (1990), despite its earnest and admi- according to which race mismatching is at least a pro tanto aesthetic rable attempt to avoid the racist (and largely cinematic) defect; that is, though a race-mismatching film fiction might be overall stereotypes of American Indians (e. g., as savages either aesthetically meritorious, film fictions that race-mismatch are at least bloodthirsty or noble), winds up treating its American In- to that extent aesthetically defective film fictions. dian characters as little more than cardboard players in the A crucial preparatory step in constructing such an account is to decidedly Eurocentric sentimentalist fantasy of its white restrict the discussion to cases in which race matching is at least in protagonist. To the film’s credit, however, the American principle possible so as to exclude, as cases of mismatching, those Indian characters are portrayed by actual American Indian involving no-longer extant races or purely fictional races: e. g., James actors. So the film is ceteris paribus better for having race- Remar as the homo neanderthalensis Creb in Clan of the Cave Bear (1984), matched or at least would ceteris paribus have been worse Louis Gosset Jr. as , Jeriba Shigan, the extraterrestrial, reptilian- for race mismatching.3 looking Drac in Enemy Mine (1985), and Joe Morton as The Brother, an Presumably, the claims above (or at least the intuitions behind those extraterrestrial who just so happens to look like a terrestrial human claims) seem at least prima facie plausible. That is, while their truth — the of African descent in The Brother from Another Planet (1984). Clearly fact that those intuitions track some relevant truth — is by no means such films are nothing more than trivial, and therefore uninteresting, evident, it is at least prima facie plausible that they could be true — that cases of race mismatches and so not cases of the relevant sort under such intuitions could be tracking some relevant truth. This then sug- discussion.