{"id":46236,"date":"2012-04-19T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-19T18:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=46236"},"modified":"2017-09-17T14:29:33","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T19:29:33","slug":"casting-call-requests-african-american-actor-who-isnt-too-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2012\/04\/19\/casting-call-requests-african-american-actor-who-isnt-too-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"Casting Call Requests African American Actor Who Isn&#8217;t &#8220;Too Dark&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last fall I posted about the <a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/10\/24\/race-sex-and-casting-hollywood-films\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">continued use of race\/ethnicity as a basis for decisions about hiring when casting roles in Hollywood<\/a>. Though using race or color as a qualification for a job is illegal in the U.S., it is still widely, and openly, practiced when choosing actors for movies and TV.<\/p>\n<p>Dolores R. sent in an example of a casting call for an Acura commercial that shows how race and skin color requirements are explicitly stated. The role is for an African American car dealer; however, the description calls for someone who is &#8220;not too dark&#8221;:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/04\/acura-casting.jpg\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-46238\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2012\/04\/acura-casting.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"484\" height=\"642\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The casting document was posted by <a href=\"http:\/\/ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com\/68300553.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Oh No They Didn&#8217;t!<\/a> after an African-American actor who didn&#8217;t fit the profile passed it on to them. Someone at the casting agency claimed that the reason they didn&#8217;t want an actor who was &#8220;too dark&#8221; was that it would make lighting and special effects more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Seriously.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/davidvinjamuri\/2012\/04\/19\/acura-apologizes-for-seinfeld-spot-casting-directions-is-it-enough\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Acura has apologized<\/a>, though as Forbes points out, they probably had little to do with the actual casting process; the casting call was mostly likely written within the casting agency.<\/p>\n<p>As I pointed out in my earlier post, within the industry roles are generally understood to be for non-Hispanic Whites unless specifically stated otherwise. However, as this casting call shows, even when a role is open to racial\/ethnic minorities, additional restrictions related to skin color or other features may still severely limit the pool of actors who have a legitimate chance at winning the role.<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\"><em>Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last fall I posted about the continued use of race\/ethnicity as a basis for decisions about hiring when casting roles in Hollywood. Though using race or color as a qualification for a job is illegal in the U.S., it is still widely, and openly, practiced when choosing actors for movies and TV. Dolores R. sent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[129,23703,343,285,1760],"class_list":["post-46236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-media","tag-marketing","tag-tvmovies","tag-raceethnicity","tag-raceethnicity-blacksafricans"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46236"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71504,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46236\/revisions\/71504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}