StarGate casting biased by race

[Prometheus]

I have enjoyed many of the shows and believe that there is a touching cameraderie among the actors involved which transcends the parts they play. I think they are doing a fine job in difficult circumstances because it seems evident to me that StarGate casting is biased so that non white ethnic origin actors tend to play the parts of those infected by the enemy Go'Auld or the dominated. White actors tend to play the parts of the uninfected and this is exemplified by SG1 etc where the only black actor is carrying a parasite and the heroic uninfected are all white. There are exceptions like Osiris and a very few others (Kowalski etc) but they prove the general rule that ethnicity is used to villainise the less completely portrayed characters eg the council of system lords. The case of the Tokra (sp?) is worth discussing since they are infected but by Tokra not Go'Auld and so are heros and consequently (you guessed it) are mostly white.

The transformation of the Nordic Myth into the good guys in the form of the Asgard "greys" might appear incidental were it not for the fact that it lends further weight to my suspicion that the initial conceptions for the series scripting reflected a crypto-white-supremacist (for Nordic read Aryan) theme and either unconsciously or ruthlessly plays to this dynamic in an attempt to gain dramatic weight. I find the fact that this obvious unenlightened and distasteful bias has gone unremarked very worrying for the future of our societies.

 

[Rowan]

curious

Interesting perspective. If one takes a look at the casting for any of the Sci-Fi programs currently available, one may also see a predominately caucasian casting. Probably becasue most actors are caucasian.

But then, there's Farscape, where several of the actors are Maori, so generalities may not be valid.

Rowan

 

[padders]

While this does happen in some shows I think there are so many counter examples to it in Stargate that it dosen't apply. You gave examples yourself of both good black guys and bad white guys and there are many others that you did not mention. I really don't think there is any evidence to suggest the casting is racist.

 

[Hatshepsut]

Besides, as enywon kno, to be a real villain, you just gotta be *British*!

S.G. - 0.75 already has:

1 white male
1 black male
1 female

so for a more demographically balanced team, Quinn ought to be gay

Best wishes,
Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[CynVision]

I've thought the X-Files was the same way. I never had the energy to check the demographics of the FBI. Or the Air Force. I'm recalling a news piece that the ROTC in big cities is drawing a lot from minorities. A good number of them gravitate to entering the Army and Air Force for the training and pay. So the armed services is experiencing a shift where whites becoming minority. So what we see on shows produced "up north" isn't reflective of real life. I assumed it reflected casting and demographics in Vancouver Canada more than anything else. I know this sounds like "blame Canada," but in a way the producers of the X-files used the Asian area of Vancouver in a few episodes. SG's third episode in first season was Asian culture based. And when I went to the city, I never got the idea they had as large a black society as I know Chicago has. But between Van and Richmond, a huge Asian one. The number of blacks we see on any Vancouver show I'm sure hoping just reflects a lack in the area not some casting person's prejudice.

Is it really true that most actors in North America are white? It's a sweeping statement I'm no longer in a good position to research, but there's entire companies of actors in Chicago that are African-American. I assume there would be in other cities. And it means there are more people of color out in California waiting tables... waiting on a break... than you'd first think.

What I see in film is that Americans get films which feature a small number of educated, celebrated actors of race. They get a lot of screentime and press. The more they show up in a good role, the more good roles we see them in. Then we've got the group of actors cast as comedic foils for the whites and this goes back to traditional skits of Vaudeville, silent movies and early comedic TV shows. We're a victim of our history in the latter case.

I've read a few posts lamenting CJ "standing in the background" of the show. Maybe we should be grateful CJ is cast as a silent character than a Wil Smith of the SGC?

 

[skydiver]

i think it may really be because of the pool of actors that they have to draw from. I seem to recall the tour guide saying that vancouver has the second largest asian population on the west coast(?)...second largest i recall, in relation to what i can't.

 

[CynVision]

But I guess we're straying from one of the original points. That the "bad folks" are non-Caucasian. I think it's at attempt to make most of the off-world cultures exotic. Going along with this casting choice I think is the more glaring problem with the show is the religious angle being highly Western. The show is written by white boys who went to church. (Sorry if there are non- Caucasian writers on the show, I sure don't know it having seen the select men who came to Gatecon. So please forgive me if I'm painting with too wide a brush.)

 

[Hatshepsut]

Originally posted by CynVision
But I guess we're straying from one of the original points. That the "bad folks" are non-Caucasian.

Um, like Chronos ( :wave: Anni ), Seth, Osiris, Tanith (British!), Terok the torturer, Linea - Destroyer of worlds, Alar, Aris Boch, Col. Simmons, Senator/President Kinsey, Colonel Maybourne, Colonel Makepeace, and (dare I say? ) Jonas Quinn...

Best wishes,
Hatshepsut :wave:
--

 

[lene morissette]

Yeah Padders, I agree with ur point that a lot of sci fi shows do have biased casting but I also agree that Stargate is not biased at all. Also another interesting POV could b that in a way it might be symbolic of how black Africans were sold as slaves during the late 19th and early 20th century. (We recently studied the topic in school.) My point is that if the Jaffa are predominantly black then it could be where the idea for the Jaffa came from. Personally I think it just goes to show that oppression of any kind is wrong and that at the end of the day, the people who are the oppressors ( i.e. the Goa'uld in this case) should b brought to justice.

On Stargate, the Jaffa are tortured, beaten and punished by their 'Gods' for failing them, 'stepping out of line' or for simply being there when they were in a bad mood. Meanwhile people of most, if not all, religions and races have been treated badly or used as slaves at some point in history. And as the Goa'uld use anyone and evry1 they come across who they consider to be 'inferior' 2 themselves ( i.e. not powerful or technologically advanced enough to defend themselves) as slaves and servants then I don't see exactly how they are bias.

However this is just my 2 cents worth and really this point could be argued to prove either point of view right or wrong, bias or not.

( I think I've been doing too many exams and spending too much time around my R.S. and History teachers!)

 

[Prometheus]

It may be an unfortunate side effect of trying to find a SciFi sympathy between the "Auld (Old) Regime" (BC era) and domination by parasitic aliens or "others" akin to aristocracy.

A majority of ancient cultures which reached relative heights were based around the Med and near equatorial regions of Asia and Americas due possibly to the clement conditions and natural productivity of these regions. So to write and cast for this sympathy, the actors who play the parasitic aristocracy are often of equatorial ethnicity also.

This theme plays well in the new republics of the "first" world Hatshepsut where, as you suggest (albeit somewhat obliquely), politicians still use the anachronistic polemical threat of domination from the Old World (ie Brits are comin') to manipulate their own electorate by inducing fear & paranoia. By extrapolation perhaps the SG writers suggest the evil is greater when dominated by an even older civilisation !?

Hatshepsut again, I suspected someone with a good eye for detail would bring up a list of all possible white baddies ! :rolly2: but I stand by my own impressions of the series. I am attempting to understand the real inspiration for the stories and I do believe there are some question marks over this. It is apparent that in later episodes white baddies began to appear but it is almost as though someone suddenly realised "hey all the baddies are black" and / or started to develope some XFilesesque white baddies.

A related point is that a show's success is not simply dependant on viewer numbers. Prior to this it has to get commissioned. All the shows available to watch attract their relative proportion of SciFi fans but that does not mean that better shows do not exist but simply dont get produced. What decides whether a show will get produced is the judgement of the commissioning editors or equivalent responsible for allocating production budgets or buying already produced series. If they are biased or in any way presumptious about what Joe Public will regard as an acceptable show, then the whole production process has to be skewed to comply with these commissioning editors' biases. (These buyers also make their judgement based on what sort of shows they think advertisers are likely to want to be associated with.)

There is a possibility that there is casting bias in Star Gate which makes the hero clique predominantly white and the parasitised a much greater proportion black due to the various expectations among commissioning and buying editors which may be tainted by prejudices linked to racism. Racism is still evident in most societies, notably USA's society, which is an important market for such productions and where these issues are today openly acknowledged and debated by many and regarded as a significant problem.

 

[CynVision]

Originally posted by Hatshepsut
Um, like Chronos ( :wave: Anni ), Seth, Osiris, Tanith (British!), Terok the torturer, Linea - Destroyer of worlds, Alar, Aris Boch, Col. Simmons, Senator/President Kinsey, Colonel Maybourne, Colonel Makepeace, and (dare I say? ) Jonas Quinn...

Don't forget Hathor and her crew. Okay, so the theorm is somewhat... wrong. But wasn't the original question wether those with Goa'uld in them tended to be cast visibly ethnic? But, bad guys as a whole start seeming to be fairly white when you start listing everyone who's gone up against the SGC.

Let me think of who stands out in my mind as non-Jaffa blacks... The first man in Broka Divide to go nuts was black. We had one AF general in Tangent that was a skeptical but neutral character. He wasn't in the whole ep either. oooo! the Leut. from First Commandment.

Prometheus, you point out a really valid thing. Once a TV series gets through it's first year and is resingned for another 22 eps, the writers do all sorts of creative things and the producers may choose to take a new direction.

 

[Prometheus]

Well I am glad folks are willing to think about it, thats a good thing. :alienooh:

I know not all the goodies are white and baddies black but I do feel that among all the goodies the proportion of black actors and actresses is much smaller than the proportion among baddies.

In other words, the exceptions prove the rule.

 

[Texane]

Originally posted by Hatshepsut
S.G. - 0.75 already has:

1 white male
1 black male
1 female

so for a more demographically balanced team, Quinn ought to be gay

I thought he was . . .

You might also want to consider this: if you look carefully at a resume for each actor over a long period of time, you will find they have all worked on one or two shows/movies together in the past (including the Tok'ra actors). It may very well just be the old adage: It's not what you know, but who you know.

 

[imported_TheDoc]

the first thing I've ever seen of "stargate sg-1" was "children of the gods". I only got to watch the show in the third season (I think).

what I remember was that, when seeing sha're getting stripped, I thought: "ah well, how typical. the white american female soldier is not shown naked, but the exotic woman is." this really ticked me off, not only because the scene was, from my point of view, completely useless and not necessary, but also racist. and did indeed keep me away from watching the show for quite a while.

the main cast *and* the recurring characters are mainly white/caucasian (I don't know what the political correct description is). there's chris judge, peter williams, and there's dion johnstone who's usually hidden under lotsa make-up. that's it, ok, the actor who plays teal'c son, but that's not *much* compared to the rest of the cast. and if you consider there are a lot of canadians who are of asian/chinese heritage - well, they could complain as well.

I don't think this is intentional racism, though. it's just the way movie business still works.

what I find more disturbing is the somewhat bent moral stargate sports lately. makepeace goes to the bunk for stealing alien technology to protect his planet from harm, jonas quinn gets a job on sg-1 for stealing alien technology to protect his planet from harm. the message that "bad deeds are good deeds as long as they come in handy for us" is not one I appreciate.

if I look at the ads promoting stargate as "fighting terrorism in space" or something I can't help but wonder how far the political climate influences tv shows.

the doc

 

[padders]

Originally posted by TheDoc

what I find more disturbing is the somewhat bent moral stargate sports lately. makepeace goes to the bunk for stealing alien technology to protect his planet from harm, jonas quinn gets a job on sg-1 for stealing alien technology to protect his planet from harm. the message that "bad deeds are good deeds as long as they come in handy for us" is not one I appreciate.

Don't you think that is a slightly two dimensional view of what Jonas did? or do you want to suggest stealing is always wrong? I would say there are plenty of circumstances where stealing is the right thing to do.

 

[imported_TheDoc]

well, if we stick to the bible, yes, stealing is *always* wrong. I'm an atheist, though ...

I don't think it's two-dimensional. and it's not really important, either, it's just one of those things that don't "work" for me, see what I mean? both jonas and makepeace had, from my understanding, the best for their people in mind. so why is one wrong and one not? that's really something I'd like to know.

the doc

 

[padders]

Well without going into a whole discussion on objectivity in ethics that is a good question but there is certainly no easy answer. The bible certainly does not say that stealing is always wrong, what happens if that commandment would come into conflict with another of the commandments? Would you steal the gun of a murderer to prevent them killing your parents? I think you would find it hard to say no to that.

On the difference between Makepeace and Jonas that is often the problem in these situations - there is no clear cut answer. if there was we would never have these sort of discussions

 

[Texane]

I agree that having Shaure stripped for Apophis to look at was . . . garbage. Amazing how nicely it worked out for O'Neil, who wasn't required to strip down for Hathor . . .

 

[Hatshepsut]

Yes, moving on to include sexism in the debate... What's sauce for the goose etc.

Note to self: must get round to watching 'The Full Monty'.

Best wishes,
Hatshepsut - who'se been skinny-dipping in public in the past, and helped the A.N.C. during the apartheid years, campaigning for racial equality - just for the record... :wave:
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[Suds]

It seems to me that the bulk of of system Lords are white while a high percentage of the Jaffa are black/coloured(don't know what I'm supposed to say to be politically correct here...)

In the case of the Jaffa from Chulak (ie most of Apophis' jaffa from the earlier seasons) it could be meant to be because of the hot dessert climate, which is what caused skin colour differences origionally when different races were evolving to suit their climates(wasn't it??)

But it's true, there's a few black sf's and stuff but no where near as many 'good' black characters as 'bad' and for whatever reason, it would be sad if it has anything to do with racism.

Amazing how nicely it worked out for O'Neil, who wasn't required to strip down for Hathor . . .

Indeed... ~sigh~ why is it so much more acceptable to have naked females all over the screen but not naked males???