The Jamie Lloyd Company has hit back after its production of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” has been the subject of what they call a “barrage of deplorable racial abuse” aimed at an unnamed cast member.
The play, directed by Jamie Lloyd (“Sunset Boulevard”), stars “Spider-Man: No Way Home” star Tom Holland as Romeo and Francesca Amewaduh-Rivers (“Sex Education”) as Juliet.
On Friday, the Jamie Lloyd Company issued a statement, saying: “Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
Following the announcement of our ‘Romeo & Juliet’ cast, there has been a barrage of deplorable racial abuse online directed towards a member of our company. This must stop.”
I’m guessing the racist jerks complaining about the casting would be really upset if they knew that Juliet was played by a dude named Robert Goffe in the very first performance of the play in 1597. source These bigots are so busy complaining about a replacement in race for the actor playing Juliet that they’re not even consistent asking for Juliet to be played the original gender of the actor in the first performance. Where is your consistency, bigots?
Thanks for the historical context - I knew most of it personally but not the name of the actor who played Juliet first.
It’s nice to know that kind of information has survived so far. History is weird like that.
Hey! Robby was white! That’s the most important part. Whatever, the right is fucking stupid.
Well done with the historical reference.
Should have cast a male to play Juliet like the original. Wonder what the response would have been then?
Honestly watching Shakespeare in the cross dressing way really made me like it. They teach you Shakespeare in school by reading it, that’s stupid. That’s like studying the godfather and only reading the script and never watching the film. I hated it. Then one day I saw the actual play, done in drag and it really made the humor pop and made me finally understand what the fuck they were talking about in that script
Plenty of people have read The Godfather to study it.
You’re never going to get the full authentic Shakespeare experience watching a play
a) inside
b) in the evening
c) while the audience is quiet
d) without people heckling
e) without bear baiting, gambling, and bawdy folk songs before and after
g) without people plying sex trade during the show
A woman’s role in theatre played by an actual woman!? What a load of woke agenda BS!
/S
“Sounds gay. I’m in!”
Or a 13 year old girl to play Juliet and a grown ass man to play Romeo
You keep repeating the claim that Romeo was not of similar age as Juliet yet there is no evidence for it.
Evidence? No, but given the time period the play is set in. It is more than feasible given their supposed social class.
The lineup for tickets would be around the block.
So are they saying that Romeo and Juliet can’t be together? Ironic.
This is one case where I feel like choosing to make them an interracial couple actually adds to the tension and makes it relatable. The feudal politics of who marries whom? I couldn’t be more disconnected. Petty folks getting upset about a white guy and a black lady getting hitched? Now I’m getting fired up.
Nice job Vanity Fair. There are some racists who are whining about interracial Romeo and Juliet. Fuck them for sure. But not only is this rag trying to turn it into a scandal that it’s not, they can’t even get Francesca’s acting credit right. Sex Education and Bad Education are incredibly different shows. There are black female actors in Sex Education but Vanity Fair sure can’t tell the difference between them and her.
Article written by AI and not edited? Thats my bingo guess
Honestly, we do see a lot of this casting in the 21st century. A familiar character becomes black, whether it’s Annie or The Little Mermaid, and it leaves me ambivalent. However, in the case of Romeo and Juliet, it actually makes sense to have a racial component injected into the story. They are from warring families, correct? Race could be another point of conflict for them.
(Besides, Shakespeare has been famously open to interpretation. Is Shylock a villain, comic relief, or a tragic victim of prejudice in his own time? That’s up to the director of the play, or the film.)
You are thinking way too hard about this. The character isn’t becoming black. The characters the same, she’s just played by a black actress. That doesn’t change the character. That’s why we call it acting. She’s just playing a role. Tom Holland isn’t Italian, but I noticed you didn’t bring up him changing the character.
Honestly, I think the play would gain if they added racism as additional reason for the enmity between the 2 families. I’d be astonished if this hasn’t happened before.
That’s just West Side Story.
I’d be astonished if this hasn’t happened before.
I’d be even more astonished if that was the only piece inspired by Romeo & Juliet.
Also I would be totally floored if the story of Romeo & Juliet was inspired by an older predecessor or predecessors going back at least to Ancient Greece.
Do you feel equally uneasy when you watch old movies in which white actors portray non-white characters?
Or what about fiction, like “The Hunger Games,” in which Katniss is described as “olive-skninned” in the book, but was played by Jennifer Lawrence?
Have you ever expressed your discomfort at the portrayals of Jesus as a white dude with blue eyes all over the place?
I’m not addressing you personally. But those who are vocal about stuff like this are sheer hypocrites.
I see your point, but it is also a little weird when a previously established black character is made white, or at least less black, in the casting. Apparently during TMNT’s grimdark period, before the cartoon, their April O’Neil was bi-racial. Baxter Stockman was black, but when the TMNT cartoon came out in 1987, both were white.
I wasn’t familiar with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles until the very kid-friendly cartoon, so it didn’t bother me. I mean, this was my first introduction to these characters, right? I had no idea. But fast forward to now, when it’s very strongly canon that Baxter Stockman is black, and the 1987 Baxter Stockman, who’s a hybrid of Dr. Brown from Back to the Future and Jeff Goldblum’s bug in The Fly, does seem a little… off.
I hear you, man. In the end, works of fiction are just that. Something somebody came up with. Imagine a five year old telling you a story, something completely made up. Would you pay too much attention to that? What’s the difference between a kid and an adult coming up with something they pulled out of their imagination?
Not too different, really. And yes, I know the adult has studied and have way more experience. But ultimately, he or she wrote down something they made up.
So what does it matter if a character is black, red or white?
In the Earthsea miniseries almost every character is played by a white actor while all but one in the book are black.
The one white character, Tenar, is played by a half-chinese actress.
Do you feel equally uneasy when you watch old movies in which white actors portray non-white characters?
I am not aware of anyone close to my age bracket that watches old movies like that, and I am not young. I would imagine a good chunk of us would avoid them all together, considering that we know that the movies were racist. I know I do, at least.
Like, I don’t care if anyone says Othello is worth watching, I would simply refuse to give it a chance.
They should at least have used a pretty person though, that would make it more realistic.
The little mermaid one didn’t make sense to me, they’re under water probably 95% of their lives getting no sun. They all were definitely pale.
The “underwater therefore white” doesn’t hold much water, in my opinion.
What about all those dark-colored creatures? Tuna, whales, squids?
Fish colors have nothing to do with melanin which determines human skin tone.
Why do mermaids have to follow human skin tone rules instead of other aquatic mammals? Even if they’re humans who evolved a fish tail, they’ve been underwater long enough for melanin to not be the deciding color…
So what?
Bro, we’re talking about a fictional creature.
Plus “fish color” is just one attribute. I also mentioned whales and squids.
And we don’t even know how humans would evolve to live underwater.
They weren’t “definitely” anything. They’re fictional creatures.
they’re under water probably 95% of their lives getting no sun. They all were definitely pale.
You’re applying scientific principles to human skin and UV exposure response with regards to evolution and calling into question the scientific accuracy of the portrayal in the mermaid, and that leads you to disagreeing with the skin color of the actor.
With your scientific explanation you missed a couple key points if your goal is accuracy to the biological world:
- Why does she have a full head of hair? Scientifically, hair’s purpose is thermal regulation. There would be no need for hair when the entire mermaid body is immersed in water all the time.
- How the hell is Ariel breathing underwater? Fish do this by having gills for the gas exchange in the water. Whales and dolphins are air breathers, but have to go to the surface to get a breath. We don’t see Ariel going to the surface to do this.
You didn’t call either of these out as scientifically inaccurate.
Can I ask why your scientific explanation of the mermaid was only skin color?
Do black people lose their pigmentation completely if they stay indoors?
I mean given enough time and generations, yes.
Lol didn’t they even try casting James Bond as a black woman
No? You’re thinking of No Time To Die where they replace Bond with someone else (who happens to be a black woman) in the movie. She’s not Bond, but she’s the new 007.
Or you could be thinking of when they were considering recasting the role with Idris Elba?
Either way you’re wrong.
I was thinking of this https://www.harpersbazaar.com/uk/culture/culture-news/a34517814/lashana-lynch-black-female-007-interview/
But I’ve never seen a 007 movie so I’m probably wrong
That’s the actress who plays the replacement 007 in NTtD. I’d highly recommend watching the Daniel Craig series.
Romeo+Juliet is the perfect story for a mixed-race couple, given that the story is about the original is about how their relationship isn’t accepted by their families. Also for any other kind of relationship dipshit assclowns hate.
“Unnamed cast member”? Is it that they think we’re really stupid, or that it’s actually not people complaining about the black Juliet, and they want to make it look like it is?
How bizarre…
Spoiler alert, Tom Holland is actually playing Juliet.
tbf he’s pretty cute
“towards a member of our company”
This is the actual quote, not from Variety.
I know, the “they” in my comment is the Jamie Lloyd Company. Super weird to be willing to say the nature/motivation of the abuse is racism, but then be unwilling to name which cast member it is, if it is in fact Amewaduh-Rivers.
Something is not adding up.
No, this is how you properly show solidarity.
An attack against a single cast member is an attack against the entire company.
They are saying “it doesn’t matter who they attacked. Racism against our cast member is racism against us all because we are a family that stands with a single purpose, speaks with a single voice.”
And if it only redirects 1% of the aggression away from the intended target and towards the white cast members instead, then it is worth it.
That’s how you be a good ally
No, this is how you properly show solidarity.
An attack against a single cast member is an attack against the entire company.
This would hold water if they didn’t go out of their way to say it was race-motivated abuse.
They did, so it doesn’t.
if it only redirects 1% of the aggression away from the intended target and towards the white cast members instead, then it is worth it.
lmao, this sentiment is the exact opposite of solidarity, and invokes the fundamentally-racist ‘white savior’ trope, to boot.
white savior trope
I and other white allies literally stood in front of police with crowd control weapons when my black friends yelled ‘white shield’ during the BLM protests in Seattle but tell me more 🤣 I’m nobody’s savior but I do know how to use my privilege for the benefit of others
This would hold water if they didn’t go out of their way to say it was race-motivated abuse.
So the options are “don’t reference the racism at all” or “name the victim”? Fuck outta here with that shit.
I and other white allies literally stood in front of police with crowd control weapons when my black friends yelled ‘white shield’ during the BLM protests in Seattle but tell me more
Apparently, I do need to tell you more, since you clearly don’t understand that the fact that your black friends were literally verbally encouraging you, makes the above the literal opposite of “white savior”.
So the options are “don’t reference the racism at all” or “name the victim”?
No, the point is that those are effectively identical (since she is the only known black cast member), so why would you do one and not the other? Either do both, or neither. They also went out of their way to say there was exactly one victim. Why? Why do that, if their goal is not to clearly identify the one and only person who fits all of the criteria they put out?
That’s weird, bottom line. If you asked me what 2 + 2 is and I was willing to tell you it was “the number that’s half of 8”, but I refused to say “4”, wouldn’t you think that was weird of me?
Your mental gymnastics are astounding. Done with you. Waste of my time 👋
This would hold water if they didn’t go out of their way to say it was race-motivated abuse.
Why would they ignore what it is? I’m not sure what you’re getting at here.
It adds up to me. It doesn’t matter which cast member it is; it’s deplorable regardless.
It also doesn’t matter what kind of abuse it is, all abuse is deplorable regardless.
But they made a point of saying it was racial abuse. And they also made a point of not naming the one being abused, which is basically unheard of in an article like this.
Come on. It’s weird.
Naming abuse victims enables further abuse.
Not naming them was the correct thing to do, unless it is your goal to get them abused even more.
Naming abuse victims enables further abuse.
So…like…you think racists are reading this article chomping at the bit to find out who is black so they can attack them but since there is no name that has kept them safe? The people who WOULD have attacked based on this article don’t bother to just google the cast?
It’s to point the attention at the abuse rather than the abused. Much like in cases which go to court, victims aren’t often explicitly named to protect them unless they volunteer to make themselves public so that others will come forward.
The people who WOULD have attacked based on this article don’t bother to just google the cast?
Why bother? Every single article I’ve seen after some quick googling, 4 out of 4, has a huge pic of Holland and Amewaduh-Rivers front and center on the page.
Even the densest racist can glean the information, it’s being handed to them, lol.
I’m not talking about whether you should or shouldn’t, just noticing that every single other time there’s a situation like this, the victim IS named. This is definitely a pretty unique circumstance.
But the point stands–if indeed their aim was to keep attention off the abused, why even put out a public statement about it at all, given the fact that this cast has a headlining member that is very conspicuously of a different race than what the average schmoe would expect? Isn’t that antithetical to that goal, then?
‘We don’t want to bring any negative attention to this victim of racial abuse by naming them–this victim of racial abuse in this run of Romeo & Juliet where Juliet is played by a black woman.’
I mean, come on, lol.
So I get what you’re saying. It seems obvious who is receiving the abuse so why not just say it?
But it’s not about keeping a secret (IMO). It’s about not putting all of the attention on the one person over and over again by stating the victims name over and over again and singling them out. (If it was me, I would hate it and feel much more alone)
Instead here it’s a group being mentioned which should hopefully spread the hate out. Maybe it won’t work but nothing else really has either when this happens. And at least maybe the person will feel supported.
I’m not sure why you feel they shouldn’t have said anything though? The racism is very public so not saying something publicly would be wierd right?
Also I feel like people are forgetting that maybe the victim okayed all this and wants it to go this way?
Maybe not but I feel like you can find the reasoning behind these decisions if you try to see it from other angles.
Usage of language is important. As has been mentioned, it doesn’t repeatedly mention her name as it isn’t necessary.
Maybe someone is Scottish, and Scottish people are made at him for beign Scottish.
“You Scots sure are a contentious people.”
Why does she have to be highlighted when you already know who it is?
They already DID highlight her! That’s my point–they put a massive spotlight on her, by both going out of their way to specify the particular type of abuse, and also going out of their way to say that one and only one cast member was receiving the abuse. They’ve directly contradicted their own ridiculous pretense of ‘not naming names’ by doing literally everything they can to clearly identify her as the victim, and then bizarrely refusing to plainly say she’s the victim.
All of the people in this chain saying “why does she have to be named”: why aren’t any of you asking “why does the fact that it’s exactly one victim need to be specified” or “why does the fact that the online abuse was racially motivated”? None of these three DON’T act to identify the victim. You clearly don’t mind if the victim is identified since you don’t have a problem with those other two. So why are people biting my head off simply for pointing out it’s weird that they did the latter two and not the former?
It’s like if someone asked how many of something you have, and your answer is “the amount is an odd integer between 4 and 6” instead of “5”. It’d be perfectly reasonable to ask in response “why the hell didn’t you just say 5?”
lol
You are focused on entirely the wrong point. Why are you attempting to distract from the issue?
If you read an article about a guy who murdered his wife that had a timeline, and it read ‘he woke up, took a shower, ate 23 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and then he shot his wife’–would it be “distracting from the issue” to comment about the obvious bizarre element there? To comment on that is not equivalent to trivializing the murder. Weird thing sticks out, someone who noticed points it out. That’s all, it ain’t that deep.
I’m not trying to distract from anything, holy shit. All I did was point out a strange element I identified in the article. The top level comment in this chain is mine, so you can’t even accuse me of derailing someone else’s, lol. If you don’t want to talk about this particular bit, post your own top-level comment and move on. Don’t whine at me here about it.
I’m the one whining after you wrote yet more paragraphs about everything but the issue? I said distracting, not derailing.
They’re trying to minimise the additional abuse she will get because of this story.
what is it their first day on the internet? Did their grandma write this article? Yeah no shit it must stop. So should the death threats for just existing as a woman and LBGTQ2+. have they tried reporting it to the mods? That’s essentially what the only recourse that has been suggested the past two decades for the rest of us.
Ok sure. But is it a lot of people, or is it some randoms on Twitter? And they use it as publicity.
Honestly. Who gives a fuck about a new Romeo and Juliet play anyways?
My bet is this is a publicity campaign to boost the interest for the film.
Boost interest for what film?
Ok w/e. Didn’t know if it was a film of the play or only a play. Doesn’t matter really.
I highly doubt many people have strong feelings about it. Maybe a couple of ass hats.
A story about a grown man loving a little girl? That’s fine. Make one of them have a different skin color than me and hoo boy do we have a problem (/s)
I thought Romeo was a teenager too? I mean, the difference in age should be around 3 years they are supposed to be 13 and 16, although the age of Romeo is really never specified, I wouldn’t say it’s that problematic.
I find Anakin and Padme, or Bella and Edward more problematic, and there’s not much outrage for those.
I took the time to google the claim and it’s bullshit.
One of the source materials of Shakespeare mentions his soft skin and lack of facial hair which would mean he’s younger than 15.
I would stick with the original play: Shakespeare died not mention his age but he is acting less mature than Juliet.
They’re both young. Aa for his acting, it is the one of a lovesick person, it doesn’t mean lack of maturity.
This thread is about the literary Romeo, not a specific actor.
By the way, I have seen this eternal love story portrayed ny gnomes (Gnomeo and Juliet or something like this - good movie BTW) so as far as the roles are respected, we could have this portrayed by ants.
Padme is 6 years older than Anakin, and only just. I suppose the image of Episode I stuck in people’s mind, but they only started dating when Anakin was in his late teens.
Sounds about right for conservatives.
Do you have any source whatsoever backing your claim Shakespeares Romeo was not of similar age as Juliet?
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The fuck?
Maybe, the cast member was unnamed
Italians tend to be darker than the English
I dont have a problem with this. Its a play. Its up to thw director and the actors to interpret the script in their owns ways. I do have a problem with the disney mermaid thing but only because those are movies. Movies are a one off thing. Stop remaking the same movies with race swapped characters and instead make new movies that are inclusive.
It was a book, interpreted by Disney. There’s no reason the characters had to be one race.
Well yes but at the same time the original little mermaid is Danish and from like the 15th century or something.
Ugh right?! Nothing at all like this Shakespeare guy from 16th century England!
So all the characters, including the fictional creatures, should be Danish? And speak Danish. And… Well, you get the idea.
Never said that. It jus tmakes no sense to call the new movie a remake if you change stuff around
Change what around? It was originally a book.
The new remake of their cartoon The Little Mermaid. I know it was originaly a book and the mermaid dies at the end.
If it was remade, it would have been a cartoon.
I hate to break it to you but mermaids aren’t actually humans and their Vitamin D biology is probably completely different.
The actual crimes committed in the live-action remake is the atrocious colour grading and the script.
And the cgi animals and the fact that the king probably sleeps around as each of his daughters is so different from the others.
