Gone in 46 seconds: in Hollywood that’s all non-white actors can hope for
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Version 0 of 1. “No matter how successful I am, and no matter how many things I have under my belt, it just feels like nothing is enough” – those are the words of the writer and performer Dylan Marron, talking about his own difficulty in finding work and being cast in Hollywood. We know that Marron isn’t alone. There’s a dearth of non-white actors getting roles in Hollywood. We know because of the statistics, the lack of award nominations and the steps that have been taken to counteract it. But there’s still something shocking about seeing a “supercut” – a montage – of all the lines spoken by a person of colour in a major motion picture and the whole thing clocking in at a mere 10 seconds, or maybe as much as 46 seconds. That’s what Marron’s everysinglewordspoken.tumblr.com shows us. It candidly highlights how little room there is for non-white voices on screen in contemporary cinema. To watch actors deliver the few lines they have while playing such expansive roles as bus driver, put-upon cleaner or – perhaps at best – exotic love interest is sobering. The projects he has highlighted aren’t niche films made by some director no one has ever heard of but releases from respected auteurs. Enough Said, Her, Into The Woods, American Hustle – they run the gamut from Oscar-winning crowd-pleasers to arthouse chin-strokers. Nearly all are critically lauded – and nearly all have the same dearth of non-white acting talent. And Marron goes further even than the Bechdel test, which works as a simple, two-step guide to whether a film uses its female characters as wafer-thin, love-interest appendices: everysinglewordspoken breaks things down even further and simply lets the script and casting choices speak for themselves. It leaves those who made the choices to be hoisted by their own monocultural petard. There are some groups that don’t feature at all. Consider Native Americans, whose history on celluloid was explored by Rich Hall and Dallas Goldtooth; their brilliant 2012 documentary Inventing the Indian exposed Hollywood’s ignorant, devil-may-care attitude to the big-screen representation of Navajo and Sioux alike. It’s still going on: just ask Adam Sandler. There are outlets for non-white actors and directors beyond bit-part, one-dimensional supporting roles. Television is changing (to the alarm of some), with shows such as Orange Is the New Black, Black-ish, How to Get Away with Murder and – most notably – Empire, ushering a new era of programmes where non-white actors talk about a lot more than cleaning schedules and their boyfriends. Creatives such as Justin Simien, Ryan Coogler, Rick Famuyiwa and Ava DuVernay have all had major releases in the past 12 months, which tell stories that place non-white protagonists front and centre. The issue is that those films are still seen by the industry as “black cinema”: for them, by them. It’s a niche concern, a nice-to-have-but-not-essential trend. It’s still an attitude that says: mainstream audiences don’t want to watch films with non-white actors in lead roles (unless it’s Will Smith – though he better not be sexually attractive to a white woman). Until that changes, and casting directors and agents see non-white actors as capable of more than being a big part in a “black” or “Latino” film or a bit part in a mainstream production, 46 seconds will continue to be an embarrassing reminder of how just how much time Hollywood has for non-white actors. |