That's not to say there aren't good non-white actors out there, (the rest of the cast shows that) but I expect it's a smaller pool, perhaps less experienced (because of wider racism in society making it harder to gain experience and get to the top - as with many careers) , and that may explain some of the casting bias, if nothing else.
Just to push back a little on this point: the idea that there's just not enough POC/non-white actors in the pool starts to ring hollow for me at this point. Maybe in terms of where they're casting (Vancouver), or the fact that they're casting for series television, which a lot of actors will turn down because of that kind of long term commitment but overall, there's a whole lot more actors out there who like doing sci-fi and would welcome the chance to get into it if they had the chance.
Recently "Nightline" ran a special about "Grey's Anatomy" and it spoke directly to the casting question. One of the actors, Isaiah Washington, talked about the fact that the show's creator, Shonda Rhimes, looked at the actors she was being given and said (heavily paraphrased) that you couldn't tell her that the only actors/actresses they could find to fill the major parts were white actors. She made them go back out and look at a larger pool which is how she got the cast she got.
I look at "Lost" and see one of the most racially diverse casts I've seen in years.
I think that when producers, directors, and casting people make a commitment to having a diverse cast there's more of an effort to make it happen. Because otherwise, we're stuck with the same thing: that the 35-40 year old (good-looking) white guy will always be the hero that we're expected to cheer for.
It's part of the reason why folks were really cheesed with Joss Wheadon when he made "Firefly." You had all this Chinese culture with no Chinese people anywhere you looked. One could make an argument for cultural absorption but it still was a little shaky. But I wasn't expecting much after seven years of "Buffy" and five years of "Angel" where Southern California was portrayed almost completely white in a way that was just weird. And make no mistake, I loved these shows but after a while, we started joking that the reason there were no POC in Sunnydayle was because they got the memo that bad things happened to people in Sunnydale and stayed away.
TV programmes do tend to mimic the society in which they function, not because 'white people want to watch white people' (although I suspect there are many TV execs who believe that) but because society creates a biased framework and context in which they can function
Alas, in publishing it's a little more naked. I actually had a friend who worked in the publishing industry come back and tell me (after I questioned why the cover of a book showed a white woman on the front when the heroine on the inside was clearly Black) that publishers believed that "Black people didn't read science fiction and that white people wouldn't buy books with Black people on the cover."
no subject
Just to push back a little on this point: the idea that there's just not enough POC/non-white actors in the pool starts to ring hollow for me at this point. Maybe in terms of where they're casting (Vancouver), or the fact that they're casting for series television, which a lot of actors will turn down because of that kind of long term commitment but overall, there's a whole lot more actors out there who like doing sci-fi and would welcome the chance to get into it if they had the chance.
Recently "Nightline" ran a special about "Grey's Anatomy" and it spoke directly to the casting question. One of the actors, Isaiah Washington, talked about the fact that the show's creator, Shonda Rhimes, looked at the actors she was being given and said (heavily paraphrased) that you couldn't tell her that the only actors/actresses they could find to fill the major parts were white actors. She made them go back out and look at a larger pool which is how she got the cast she got.
I look at "Lost" and see one of the most racially diverse casts I've seen in years.
I think that when producers, directors, and casting people make a commitment to having a diverse cast there's more of an effort to make it happen. Because otherwise, we're stuck with the same thing: that the 35-40 year old (good-looking) white guy will always be the hero that we're expected to cheer for.
It's part of the reason why folks were really cheesed with Joss Wheadon when he made "Firefly." You had all this Chinese culture with no Chinese people anywhere you looked. One could make an argument for cultural absorption but it still was a little shaky. But I wasn't expecting much after seven years of "Buffy" and five years of "Angel" where Southern California was portrayed almost completely white in a way that was just weird. And make no mistake, I loved these shows but after a while, we started joking that the reason there were no POC in Sunnydayle was because they got the memo that bad things happened to people in Sunnydale and stayed away.
TV programmes do tend to mimic the society in which they function, not because 'white people want to watch white people' (although I suspect there are many TV execs who believe that) but because society creates a biased framework and context in which they can function
Alas, in publishing it's a little more naked. I actually had a friend who worked in the publishing industry come back and tell me (after I questioned why the cover of a book showed a white woman on the front when the heroine on the inside was clearly Black) that publishers believed that "Black people didn't read science fiction and that white people wouldn't buy books with Black people on the cover."