Idris Elba on Imagination & Diversity
Tuesday, January 19, 2016 at 4:44PM 
You know you can carve out 32 minutes for Idris Elba. My favorite part of this speech he recently gave in the UK about the television industry, other than its wide grasp of diversity being about much more than skin color (the frequent references to how women are marginalized is most welcome), is the acknowledgement and gratitude to the people behind the scenes, especially casting directors, who've helped actors like himself break out of stereotypes and industry-prescribed boxes. The key, he wisely stresses, is imagination. [More...]
I mention this sense of gratitude that pervades the speech first because too often, especially in our reigning outrage culture, you see people latching on to the negative as if all things can be cleansed in the fire of communal anger.
Idris makes a fine beautiful point here, that what makes the most difference is what's in our heads. He gives good quote...
Diversity is more than a skin color: it's gender, age, disabiliity, sexual orientation, social background. And most importantly, in my opinion, it's diversity of thought.
If you have genuine diversity of thought among people that make television and film than you accidently won't shut out some of the groups I just mentioned just now.
[Aside: The only part of the speech I don't understand is the repeated references to leaving the UK for the US for his star-making role in Luther. I have readily acknowledged my lack of tv knowledge over the years -- so sometimes I am slow to catch on to rising TV stars... Idris among them a handful of years ago. But Luther is a British production. Perhaps Idris fans could clear up the confusion... or does what he's saying make perfect sense if you followed his early career?]
P.S. Here's a little something that's been needling away at me since this topic became all anyone would talk about post Oscar: I have yet to read in any argument about diversity in film where anyone mentions filmmakers of the past who tried to reflect actual American diversity like Jonathan Demme. I was thinking about Demme this past summer in regards to this very issue when Ricki and the Flash came out (mostly because our beloved musical giant Audra McDonald was squaring off with Meryl Streep in a key scene). I ended up abandoning the article, which was about casting specifically rather than diversity, but the kernel of it hasn't left my mind. I was horrified some years ago when Rachel Getting Married was getting raked over the coals in the media and online for its "unrealistic" diversity, taking place as it did during the course of a multiethnic wedding. As someone who had attended a biracial wedding earlier that year that incorporated Mormons and Buddhists and Unitarians and a lot of gay people (even though the newly weds were a man and a woman) I thought ... what on earth is unrealistic about this movie aside from maybe how wealthy everyone is !?! Yet you never hear people praising filmmakers like Demme and team or other filmmakers who've always cast minorities in parts that would have gone to white actors as "default" with lesser filmmakers. You only very rarely hear people thanking people who've made a difference in contributing to the gradual dismantling of systemic biases. You only hear complaints. The world is poorer for this lack of a wider perspective about those that have and are currently trying to can make a difference, or as Idris puts it here, those with imagination. If systemic problems come from people, so does the solution.
Reader Comments (9)
And John Sayles and SPIKE LEE (whose films are also pretty diverse in their casting), while we're at it.
Nathaniel - Elba got Luther after his breakout in The Wire which of course is an American program.
Spike Jones, John Sayles immediately came to my mind as well. Sayle's "Passion Fish" introduced me to Alfre Woodard, and Angela Basset.
I would also give a tip of the hat to Robert Altman, for the wide range of women he always seemed to be able to cast. They were not in the majority however.
Sadly,I think the majority of filmmakers who came of age after the 70's were so enamoured with the idea of being the next Speilberg or Scorcese that they went for a lot of "Bro/Dude" films or Male blockbuster type of stuff. Neither Speilberg nor Scorcese have been interested in stories about women or gays. "The Color Purple" was the last time for Speilberg.
Let's face it Comic Book films routinely have 1 part for a female (love interest) and that's usually it.I don't wish to be unfair to filmmakers, but I think TV has really led the way.
It isn't the best movie and the leads are both white, but Tom Hanks' "Larry Crowne" had the following diverse actors in its supporting cast:
Taraji P. Henson
Cedric the Entertainer
Wilmer Valderrama
Pam Grier
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
George Takei
Rami Malek
Lady Edith -- you mean be on to something with that Spielberg/Scorsese thing. Both have only rarely been interested in women (and sex for that matter) and the cinema kind of took after both of them in that regard getting more asexual and more masculinity centric since.
now i'm going to spend the night wondering where the cinema would have gone if NASHVILLE and JAWS had reversed fortunes with the American public ;)
David Fincher would be the first white auteur on a list of white auteurs who make an effort to cast nonwhite actors whenever possible.
I'm aggravated by the conversation. Since many are unaware of the small things which contribute to the overall problem. Everyone says Hollywood cares about the dollar. But they will produce cheap nonwhite product to finance the generic white product which floods movie theaters and has everyone nostalgic for previous decades where variety was not a niche but standard practice for the industry.
I really want the way female led scripts are commissioned in Hollywood to change. They are ageist and racist. Never racially neutral and age fluid as the scripts written specifically for men.
Elba scored a nod at the big three (SAG, GG, BAFTA) and was widely tipped to repeat at the Oscar. He was probably ousted by Tom Hardy, buoyed by the sudden surge of luv for The Revenant.
But had Elba been nom, I'm sure that the netizens will still find a bone with something else. You just can't please everyone.
It important to never forget that Demme faught to cast Ron Vawter in Philadelphia after the studio's didn't think it was smart to hire an HIV + actor. Demme said the studio would be hypocritical in making a movie about AIDS descrimination and deny an actor a part for the same reason. He also cast many HIV + actors in other supporting roles. For this I have always had immense respect for Demme.
/3rtful: David Fincher, who cast an half-Italian/half East Asian actor to play an Indian person in The Social Network? (Not to mention Andrew Garfield as a Brazilian?) David Fincher, whose only non-Tyler Perry POC characters in Gone Girl were the extras in the dilapidated mall? Yes, he casts some black actors (Whitaker, Freeman, Henson, Rashida Jones), but it's basically one per movie. Not "whenever possible."