Race and the screenwriter
Craig Mazin and Alex Epstein both recently tackled a topic that was on my to-blog list. Yes, I keep a list of things I intend to blog. And yes, I tend to just write whatever strikes me at the moment anyway. But since Alex and Craig got to it first, I might as well say what I was going to say.
At issue is whether it’s a good idea for the screenwriter to specify ethnicities for various characters. Alex believes in doing the “diversity pass” to keep his script from being lily-white. Craig feels this is absurd and racist.
Craig is wrong.
But not for the reasons you’d expect. While Craig and I tend to be on different wavelengths politically, he tends to come down on the side of common sense. And I think there’s a very practical matter that’s being overlooked.
Unless it’s important for understanding a story point, I rarely specify a race for a character. But that’s not to say I won’t give some strong hints. I will often make the lieutenant GONZALEZ rather than GOODMAN. The internist is more likely to end up DR. CHO than DR. CHASE. The schoolteacher will be PATEL rather than PETERS.
Is it liberal guilt? No. It’s readability.
Screenplays are read quickly. Unlike a novel, you don’t linger for a few paragraphs getting to know minor characters, setting up their memorable quirks. Rather, you meet them on page 20, then see them again on page 64. As a screenwriter, you want the reader to instantly recall that they’ve encountered a certain character before.
A reader is much more likely to remember an international banker named Abebayehu Tegene than Abe Thompson.
You can debate why this is. Maybe it’s just that the name is more interesting. But in most cases, I think it’s because we’re hard-wired to match race to surnames. We see Abebayehu Tegene and we think, “This character is black. Not only that, he’s probably African.” We form a mental picture of “African banker,” then move on.
With Abe Thompson, the reader has nothing to latch onto. Abe Thompson is just a name.
Note that giving a character an African surname doesn’t remove the burden of actually making this character interesting. If he says more than a few lines, there better be something notable about him independent of race. Both Tegene and Thompson might be condescending snobs who openly mock our hero.
But come page 64, you’ll still remember Tegene over Thompson.
In the real world, what are the implications of implying ethnicities for these characters? As I’ve noted earlier, when casting, the assumption tends to be “white unless otherwise specified.” But if you write “Judge Fujimoro” rather than “Judge Foster,” there’s a pretty good chance you’ll end up with a Japanese judge.
You might find that stereotypical, or an example of blatant tokenism, such as the “black lieutenant syndrome” which hit cop shows in the ’90’s. After all, shouldn’t the part go to the best actor, regardless of race?
Yes, in theory. In reality, for a small supporting role, it’s a binary decision. Either the actor is Good Enough or Not Good Enough. If you’re casting a judge in Los Angeles, there’s no question you’ll find plenty of Good Enoughs. It might take an extra 20 minutes to find Japanese Good Enough. To me, it’s time well spent.
Obviously, there’s a lot more that can be written about race and screenwriting. As I noted in an earlier post, the role of Ronna in Go was written as African-American. We ended up casting Sarah Polley, perhaps the whitest Canadian you could find. So was I right to write “Black” in the script? Was I wrong to take it out?
Just as it’s naive to think that making a minor-but-likable character Iraqi will better the world, it’s foolish to assume that leaving a character “race-less” lets the screenwriter off the hook. Readers, including directors, studio executives, and casting directors, will assume that European names belong with white people, and that surgeons are white men in the early 50’s, unless you tell them otherwise.
So I say, make the geophysicist Abdul Kalam. Don’t do it for diversity. Do it for your script.
Articles
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Uh, we have a problem.
I agree with everything you said above, and I don’t think it’s inconstent with what I’ve written.
I am still wrong?
January 3rd, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Craig,
Hooray! Like most people, I love to be agreed with. But here’s where I think we differ:
(from your post)
I’m saying go ahead and make the Hmong police officer, just because. True, I’m really saying to give him a Hmong name so that it’s more memorable, but the net result is you’ve made the character Asian when it’s not at all necessary. There’s no must, and likely no real acknowledgement within the movie that the guy is Asian. He just is, because you said so.
Could a bad screenwriter make this painful and cloying? Absolutely. But a bad screenwriter can make anything awful. Done right, the reader shouldn’t feel that there’s any PC pandering.
January 3rd, 2006 at 5:31 pm
If it’s a practical matter and we all followed your advice, then wouldn’t Goodman, Chase and Peters soon stand out as hip names to gain a reader’s interest?
January 3rd, 2006 at 5:41 pm
It seems like this issue is shaking the “scribosphere” around.
My point is that there is almost always a reason to a characters ethnicity. As I wrote before in one of my posts: “Because, I believe there’s always a reason behind choosing where a character is from. For instance, if I want to write about a guy that’s really good with martial arts, I will pick an Asian. If I want a police officer, I probably choose an American with FBI style. If I want a quick mouth fellow, I will prefer an African American. And so on.”
Now, there is nothing racist about that. If you go out and make a study of how people from different ethnic backgrounds react, you will see that the main personalities are exactly that way.
If you show an Asian in the beginning of a movie, the audience will expect either karate OR a computer geek. Why? Because Asians are famous for THAT. (Of course there are exceptions, but few and almost always on comedies.) So we wouldn’t want to let the audience down now, would we?
January 3rd, 2006 at 7:17 pm
I find it amusing that Craig Mazin feels he is such an authority on screenwriting when his credits are as limited as they are.
January 3rd, 2006 at 7:31 pm
Hey John, I agree with you - and perhaps for the same reasons? I just left this post at Craig’s site. I’m an (occasionally produced) screenwriter lo these past 15 years and have my own blog and blah blah blah. Love yours, thanks for the insights. I leave my thoughts on Craig’s post here: “I do the internationl pass as I write - specifically when I’m in a scene, and I need a doctor for example who will have five lines - I try to drop my “first mindâ€? thought (read: easy unconcious obvious choice) of a white guy (as that happens to be my knee-jerk pop up image in that profession) and blink it to something else I would expect less because it inevitably makes for more interesting chemistry/dynamic/dialoge. Ironically it probably helps break down racial prejudice as well if you expand your thinking out that far. I think that’s what Alex is doing. He finishes a story, and then goes back through it again to flag his “first mindâ€? choices and improve them. Does he tweak the dialogue after making the choice? Probably. Is it still writing? Of course it is.” Craig is revealing an interesting bias he has about process, and objecting to someone else’s process being different than his own. He is assuming the purity of his writing is being fouled by a mindful attack on what should be an inspired and deeply selfless art. But that is his gift to create that way. Alex’s is different. It doesn’t make his writing incorrect. His path is just different. Does Craig object to the way he lays out his idea as something others should do? Perhaps that’s it. We all get to ‘the end’ the best way we can, and if you have ten writers in a room, guaranteed it’s ten different ways. I think we serve each other better by sharing it all and letting inspiration fall where it may. Best, Phil.
January 3rd, 2006 at 8:02 pm
I think John’s best argument is the readability factor. One more screenwriting tidbit for me to know. Thanks.
January 3rd, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Wasn’t the original argument over double checking to make sure you didn’t write your minority characters as sterotypical? i.e. the black guy dumb and a criminal, the asian super smart and hard working, the germans always listenting to David Hasselhoff etc etc.
I will say that having written lots of coverage..the “whitey” scripts tend to stick out and besides being dull to read…they are mainly the work of novices.
January 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm
Funny you mention Ronna in “Go.” Cuz I also never thought James Duvall looked like a “Singh.”
January 3rd, 2006 at 11:00 pm
John:
Ah. Okay, then yeah, I think we disagree. Or rather, I’d agree if I were writing a certain kind of script. Say, a movie that was intended to be a bit fantastic or pushed in its reality. Other movies…I’d avoid going for the Hmong cop on a just cuz basis.
Those things tend to stop me cold in movies with tones that aren’t as whimsical as the casting choices.
Hey, how great is it to write the word Hmong? When else do we get to type h followed by m by ong?
Fishmonger, I guess.
Anyway, I do agree with the part about the names. I try and cue the reader through the names.
January 4th, 2006 at 4:48 am
I once saw a film set in a small rural town (of perhaps 1000 - 2000 people) and it so happened that all the individuals that form the “upper crust� of such communities featured in the story (as minor characters): the bank manager, the reverend, the doctor, the chairman of the town council and the school headmaster. They were all played by middle-aged men.
I went to the premiere and interestingly none of the guys in the audience appeared to notice this but ALL the women did. And that’s because they are aware of the fact that nowadays aforementioned jobs and posts are much more likely to be held by women than by men (in very small communities).
One can always say that reality is one thing and films another and it just so happens that in this storyworld all the authority figures are middle-aged men. Fair enough. But was this a conscious decision on the part of the writer/director? Or was it automatic, a kind of reflex?
I basically disagree with Craig’s idea that a writer has to have a concrete story-reason to include non-Caucasins or “people of ethnicity�. Hard and fast rules like this merely free the writer from having to do any thinking at all.
Consider the film Amalie. It’s been a while since I saw it but I don’t think there is a black face in it. Or Arabic or Asian. It’s a film that’s peopled entirely by WWII-era-like French. It presents a very quaint and nostalgic view of Paris for sure. The decision to leave out “coloured people� is most certainly a conscious decision on the part of the filmmakers. Perhaps they simply figured that the colour scheme called for a uniform skin tone throughout. Who knows. I’m sure the filmmakers didn’t mean any harm and definitely don’t consider themselves racist. After all, the story doesn’t really call for non-white people. But regardless of what they think, or how their reasoning goes, the resulting film is a powerful statement and an unsettling one for a lot of people.
January 4th, 2006 at 9:38 am
Let’s face it, you never get exactly what you ask for when you lay detail into a script, but it makes sense to push your interpreters to raise their game. You may not get the tattooed Iranian you specified but at least you’ve jolted everyone into thinking about the character.
January 4th, 2006 at 10:42 am
Who was behind the casting in Love Actually? All the diversity felt forced.
January 4th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
John, I agree with you. Every script doesn’t need to give us the Benetton nation, but all the characters, even the minor ones, should be interesting and memorable. As soon as you name a character Yoko Imanishi instead of Anna Ramsey… or Seamus O’Dooley instead of Jack Cole… you are going to write your dialogue more interestingly too, I would posit.
January 4th, 2006 at 2:50 pm
Taz commented: “.. if I want to write about a guy that’s really good with martial arts, I will pick an Asian. If I want a police officer, I probably choose an American with FBI style. If I want a quick mouth fellow, I will prefer an African American. … Now, there is nothing racist about that. “
Maybe not, but there is something very bland about that.
Mac. (PS: The only time I have ever visited a Hmong village, I met a Hmong kid who had red hair. So even the audience may not know that he is Hmong !)
January 4th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Yes, maybe it seem that way. Maybe it’s sad. But that’s the way the audience is used to it.
Anyway, my point was the REASON part. There is always a reason. Not accidental ethnicity.
January 4th, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Uhm… just a quickie to add… has anyone else considered that a good time to make a character a particular race is when it’s relevant to his/her character? I’m from New York, a theater geek, and strongly Jewish, but marrying a half-Mexican, ex-Evangelical Christian. If we were characters in a script, you’d have to mention the ethnicities to get a clearer picture of who we are and how this might color our relationship (even if the movie had NOTHING to do with that). Along with everything else we’re writing for, and despite trying our best to conserve words for the sake of readability, I hope part of the reason we do this is to create great characters. Isn’t race often part of that equation?
January 5th, 2006 at 12:43 pm
Craig:
Yes, Hmong is a fun word. My mom was an ESL teacher, and most of her students were Hmong. No, really. There’s a community of them in Boulder, for whatever reason. So I never missed an opportunity to say “Hmong” growing up.
January 6th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
Georgie says:
“I find it amusing that Craig Mazin feels he is such an authority on screenwriting when his credits are as limited as they are.”
If Geogie knew anything s/he would realize that much of the scriptwriters work goes uncredited because of such business as script doctoring. Also… does Georgie have any credits, at all, to compare?
If not, s/he must realize then, that getting even one legitimate credit is a feat unto itself. That to write a script, any script, that a producer actually wants to risk his/her reputation and millions of dollars makes that writer a success. At least, more of a success than people who critisize produced writers with having “credits (that are) limited.”
January 12th, 2006 at 12:51 am
Before I begin my rant, let me say I dig your blog, your work and your general attitude, so I know this is gonna sound harsh, but the above post was a bit like Marie Antoinette offering cake to the masses at the gates. All this talk about “diversity passes” and giving characters “ethnic” names because it’s “more interesting”, is a bunch of blah blah blah. In the social sciences they call it ethnocentrism or cultural imperialism — in terms of this discussion my point is that white culture is so high on its own supply that it has become a charitable act to include nonwhite male characters in lead or major supporting roles. When the Hollywood filmmaking community gets off its segregated ass and MINGLES with the rest of the world, Diversity in your writing won’t be such a big issue. Folks with friends, family and acquaintances of every stripe know what I’m talking about already.
And, John, the Hmong were distributed throughout the US based on non-profit charitable organizations (mostly christian protestant and catholic groups) after they played a pivotal role in our mostly secret, mostly illegal CIA-led operations in Laos and Cambodia (performed largely in defiance of congressional directives) during the latter half of the conflict in Southeast Asia. They provided military intelligence and guides through the back country as our government sent in military and CIA (and other, darker groups) sponsored opps to disrupt the communist influence from Centra Asia into Southeast Asia. We brought them here because the Khmer Rouge and other regimes were exterminating them for helping us. We didn’t give them lessons on living in an industrialised world, just basically dumped them from a tropical semi-nomadic existence into places like colorado, minnesota and the dakotas with very few social services. A number of them died after setting fires in their living rooms because they didn’t understand how to use central heat, stoves, ovens, etcs., a few pried open elevator doors (with resultant tragedies) trying to get out of their apartment buildings, but many went on to assimilate into American culture. My optometrist in NYC is from a family group that was resettled in Minnesota and she was shocked that I knew anything at all about her ethnic group — she was accustomed to being mistaken for Chinese, Vietnamese or Laotian. They have a beautiful language and script. Kudos to your mom for helping them. You should find out more about them. It might help with your diversity issues.
I’m glad to see you address these types of topics on your blogs, but, in my (vociferous) opinion, the latest battle in America is this ethnocentric attitude that pervades people of all backgrounds in the country. It just sucks that white men have been exploiting others for hundreds of years so your ethnocentrism causes more damage (for now, anyway, I’ve got my eyes peeled, though). I worked in the studio system, at a production company and in physical production for the last ten years or so, and, while it’s better than when I started, I’ve sat in on so many development and production meetings with people saying things like “black people don’t speak English” or “we need a white guy on the poster”. I always speak up, but frankly white men listen to other white men so it’s up to you and your white male friends to work this out. I’m counting on you. For more than just a few names in a script. Champion a young nonwhite male writer. Hell, mentor one. It’s not like there are that many opportunities for writers of color to get out of the black movie ghetto and work on mainstream films, and as you know, film is experiential — you learn by doing. I hope your blood isn’t boiling reading this. We are each a product of our cultures…. And I do dig the blog.
January 12th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Marie,
Glad you dig the blog.
What I find so arrogant about your post are the assumptions. So let me clear up a few.
When I say Hmong is an interesting word, that’s not cultural imperialism, or ethnocentrism. It’s an observation of the fact that words in English generally don’t start with “Hm.”
It’s dandy that you know about how the Hmong came to America. As you might guess, I knew a lot about it too. Many of the Scout projects in my troop involved helping out the Hmong community in Boulder. If charity work is patronizing or culturally destructive, I can’t fix that. I don’t think the Khmer Rouge or the CIA has a lot of bearing on the discussion of race and screenwriting, however.
You assume I’m not mentoring any young black writers. You’re wrong. And that was very sloppy guess-making on your part, because a little Googling would reveal I’m a frequent advisor to Sundance and other screenwriting labs, each of which has the goal of increasing the diversity of voices in film.
I don’t make a big fuss about how mutli-culturally enlightened I am, because that always feels like excuse-making. I am a white guy from an upper-middle-class background. That doesn’t make me a monster. And it pisses me off that you’d lump me in with The Man trying to keep the black guy off the one-sheet poster. I’m not an apologist for Hollywood, trust me, but there’s a dangerous tendency to mistake how hard it is for anyone to make it in the industry with racism.
I tend to underplay what a giant crazy liberal I am because I want any aspiring screenwriter to feel like this site is for him or her, regardless of political beliefs. If anything, I try to keep the blog the way I’d like to industry to be: open to all.
January 13th, 2006 at 1:55 am
OK, I hate those people who comment and run and don’t circle back around. First of all, I really do dig the blog. I think you do a great job staying focused on the job at hand — helping people realize their dreams of screenwriting. I digressed with the Hmong background, but I think they got a raw deal. Your “giant crazy liberal”-ness aside — I don’t mean to “lump” you in with The Man politically, merely ethnically. I’m not mistaking how hard it is to work in Hollywood with racism, I’d like to move the discussion more into imagining how much harder it is when you have to deal with people saying ignorant things that really don’t have a bearing on how a movie will perform — creatively or otherwise. Good for you for working with Sundance and, I’m sure, other non-profit groups that pluck people from obscurity and help them learn the craft of writing. I like the folks over there. I was actually talking about baby writers who get one or two jobs and just can’t figure out the game fast enough to stay in it. There’s nobody really helping them. I’ve been very fortunate in my career to have been mentored by a few very well-placed people, people who took the time to call me into their offices and ask me how I was doing, who heard through the grapevine that I was struggling and reached out to let me know everyone struggled, and who, occassionally ran interference for me when otherwise I would have been burnt up by a rampaging agent, writer or studio exec. Anyway, write on, I had an ignorant exchange on a blog I keep the other day, and that isht messed me up for days. Do your thing. It’s working.