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Ganoncrotch said:
VAMatt said:
As far as I'm concerned, creators should do whatever they want, within the confines of any contracts they may have with creators of source material. Hire white chicks to play black, male superheros. Cast anyone for anything. I really DGAF about any of that. I just like to see good movies and shows. To that end, I want the people making those movies and show to have the freedom to make good stuff. They're a lot better at it than I am, so I ain't gonna tell them what to do. I certainly don't think this calls for a "consistent set of rules".

The thing is though even if it would make sense for a certain group of people in a comedy scenario to be all of one ethnicity that is seen as a scenario being white washed even though the reality of it is that not every group of black friends has a white and Asian mate and the same way every group of white people do not have token ethnicity's scattered in to tick boxes Sitcoms from the 90s for example had a group of 6 friends... the entire cast was.... yup monochromatic with one slight dash of Italian in there

6 people, 1.5 ethnicity's

201x sitcom cast shot

6 people, 4 ethnicity's

Just a random example but hopefully you get what I mean, I would think a casting director would now be weighing in an addition pro/con as they go through auditions simply on a basis of "we already have one of your colour / gender" it's a shame really when positive discrimination is used to make racism sound like anything other than what it is, discrimination, it's never positive, Ever.

 

 

Edit - The Good Place (The picture which isn't Friends) is probably one of the best dark comedies I've seen in years, if you've not seen it, I can't recommend it enough but do not read up about it just check out the first episode or two on netflix, all 3 seasons are on there and yeah.... fantastic! but don't google it, spoilers galore since it's going into Season 4!

What examples are there where it only makes sense to have white people in a sitcom? And i'm not talking about ones where some random city has a 1:230 minority population, I mean one's where it makes sense thematically? There's not a lot that's exactly unique to that experience and that's been done a thousand times before. Notice too that you start off your argument talking purely about comedies that make sense with having one ethnicity, which is a very general sentiment that can be shared among all groups, yet quickly change to talking about whites specifically. Is that because sitcoms that predominantly feature one ethnicity in there cast are actually pretty popular right now? With Blacked and Straight Off The Boat? 

What you are describing here is not really "discrimination", it's artistic freedom. And this is why the idea of giving an inch and taking a mile works both for sides. You simultaneously highlight how shows which are freshly created are somehow considered "whitewash" just for featuring an all white cast, but then mention how it's "positive discrimination" or "racism" if a production team makes a show and envisions specific races in each role. Those two statements contradict each other, because both highlight the  artistic values at play (having an all white-cast and having a multi-racial cast) that can easily be discredited as racist or white-washing in some way. You can try to justify it as the white cast being "more realistic", but that doesn't really change the ends. And no, just because a decision is made by a casting director, does not mean the decision should be discredited. I doubt you'd be saying the same thing if a writer of a book created characters with specific ethnicity, because to do so would be to put into question artistic expression as a whole. Well ... in a TV production, or movie production, or game production ... multiple individuals make the decisions, because it's not realistic for one persons vision to carry the creation of an entire show.