Quote:
Originally posted by Achilles.
By this logic, able-bodied actors shouldn't portray characters with physical or mental disabilities, rich actors shouldn't portray poor characters, Christian actors shouldn't portray Jewish characters, and so forth...
I feel like race and gender are the only two qualities that it's absolutely necessary an actor share with the character they're performing. Everything else is part of acting.
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There's more than just the acting to think about. An actual non-able bodied person would find it much harder to get ready behind the scenes, filming would definitely take a lot longer and would be far more limiting. A mentally ill person (depending on the illness/severity) would struggle to remember lines and "act". There'd be a logical reason to employ non-disabled people to play these roles.
This is not the case with homosexual/heterosexual actors. Physically they can do the same things as one another. There's no need to get a straight actor to pretend to be gay for a role + get all the praise and acclaim and spotlight for doing so, essentially appropriating gay culture for personal and financial gain.
I don't see it as any different to how a white actress played Tigerlily in the recent Peter Pan remake and
everyone was upset, or a male Asian actor was
denied a role in the American adaption of Death Note and they picked a white lead instead.
Neither race nor sexuality is something that should be "acted". Cis hetero white male privilege needs to stop.