Riverdale can rethink color-blind casting after Vanessa Morgan’s feedback

On the finish of Could, Riverdale actress Vanessa Morgan vented her issues relating to the collection’ storytelling, and the way she, the one Black actress amongst 12 present collection regulars, was the ensemble’s least-paid star. In a tweet, she added, “Bored with how Black persons are portrayed in media, uninterested in us being portrayed as thugs, harmful or indignant scary folks. Bored with us additionally getting used as [the] sidekick [and] non-dimensional characters to our white leads. Or solely used within the adverts for variety however not really within the present.” Creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa later apologized for the oversight.

In season 2 of Riverdale, Morgan’s character, Toni Topaz, was launched as a robust participant within the Southside Serpents gang, and depicted as one of many few high-ranking girls within the group. However as time went on, and the Serpents had been all however disbanded, the present misplaced give attention to Toni’s particular person path. Whereas characters like Reggie Mantle (Charles Melton) and Kevin Keller (Casey Cott) received storylines to discover their dwelling life and sexuality, Toni’s less-involved arc was outlined by a romance with Cheryl Blossom (Madelaine Petsch), fanning the hearth of one of many largest ships on the present.

Morgan’s statements mixed with Toni’s course on Riverdale deliver to gentle a difficulty of illustration that isn’t essentially nefarious, however is widespread. Over the past decade of youngster dramas, exhibits like Gossip Woman to The Vampire Diaries have diminished Black actors by means of a well-intentioned observe: color-blind casting.

“Colour-blind casting” refers back to the casting of actors with out assumptions over the race of a task. The casting philosophy is supposed to deliver variety to a collection and provides alternatives to Black actors. In observe, that may imply casting folks of coloration as characters invented entire fabric, both for an adaptation or a brand new challenge, or for characters who’ve been “racebent,” that means the present has modified the race of a personality whose background was a recognized a part of the supply materials. The time period racebending was first popularized amid the controversy surrounding M. Evening Shyamalan’s universally panned live-action movie adaptation of Avatar: The Final Airbender, which drew controversy for casting primarily white actors in an animated collection with the characters regarded as both Asian or Indigenous. Now racebending can work within the extra constructive course, when colorblind casting, in concept, is working.

From Zendaya as Mary Jane within the present Spider-Man franchise to Jeffrey Wright within the upcoming The Batman movie, color-blind casting is an more and more widespread observe. However there’s skepticism over whether or not it’s productive; in 1996, the famed Black playwright August Wilson slammed the idea. “Colour-blind casting is an aberrant concept that has by no means had any validity aside from as a device of Cultural Imperialists who view American tradition, rooted within the icons of European tradition, as past reproach in its perfection,” he mentioned.

With so many character lives to discover, and components of the heightened world to find, creators have naturally launched a brand new wave of non-white characters to the teenager drama style. However the reflection of the trendy teen expertise, even soapy ones like on The CW, make the exhibits extra vulnerable to the pitfalls of color-blind casting. Lots of the community’s exhibits are primarily based on established IP (just like the Riverdale franchise and The CW’s Nancy Drew and Roswell, New Mexico) with characters that had been principally white of their earlier incarnations. In flip, the exhibits racebend the characters to enchantment to numerous audiences and never appear out of contact. As depicted within the Archie Comics, Toni’s id will not be deeply explored in racial phrases.

Picture: The CW

Colour-blind casting in all types dangers the creation of Black characters who aren’t absolutely realized in regard to their very own id and tradition. Whereas a teen drama character could also be portrayed by a Black actor, usually the roles really feel color-blind, as in the event that they may very well be performed by a white particular person studying the identical script and nothing can be totally different. The colour-blindness leaves room for dangerous stereotypes to come back into play. With out acknowledgment of race and tradition, one thing that will not be problematic if a personality is one race could immediately develop into a difficulty when the character is portrayed by a Black actor.

Take Toni in Riverdale: Morgan, who’s a Canadian of Scottish and Tanzanian descent, is written as an summary particular person of coloration till an episode within the second season codes her as an Indegenious American with the introduction of her grandfather, performed by Canadian First Nations actor Graham Greene. Reflecting on her years on Riverdale, Morgan additionally known as Toni the present’s “token biracial bisexual,” noting the style’s penchant for casting principally biracial actresses in these “numerous” roles and the continued fetishization of Black women and men on tv.

The present got here beneath related hearth in earlier seasons with the introduction of Chuck Clayton (Jordan Calloway), one other character who was non-Black within the comics and racebent for the collection. The character was written into the collection as a villain and conceited jock who handled girls poorly, notably spreading a rumor that he did extra than simply kiss Veronica Lodge (Camila Mendes). To get again at him, Veronica and Betty Cooper (Lili Reinhart) drugged and handcuffed him in a burning-hot jacuzzi till he admitted to his misdeeds on video. Had this been a white Chuck Clayton, the scene would have performed otherwise. As a substitute we received the picture of Betty, a white girl, handcuffing and drugging a Black man, an eerie evocation of violent stereotypes. There’s no shaking that picture from, say, the Emmett Until case, when a Black boy was lynched for whistling at a white girl.

Riverdale will not be the one teen drama that leans into such irritating implications. The CW collection Legacies (the third entry in The Vampire Diaries franchise) perpetuated related, questionable imagery by making two out of the three predominant Black characters on the collection vampires in a faculty with witches/warlocks and werewolves. Having Black males lust after the blood of witches, primarily white, and biting their necks with out them figuring out, is an instance of both stereotypical complacency or unknowingness.

There’s extra to a Black character than having a Black actor within the function. Whereas casting could be blind to keep away from biases, the steps after securing an actor can’t be blind to the context of race. Teen dramas do have the power to do that, as we’ve seen in Freeform’s The Fosters spinoff, Good Hassle. The present gave its Latinx and Black characters company with their very own storylines, together with one wherein it was in a position to combine the present Black Lives Matter motion into a personality who’s a social justice activist. Netflix’s On My Block, a various coming-of-age dramedy with younger Black and Latinx leads, not solely acknowledges racism, but in addition colorism, classism and extra, all whereas recognizing the background of the characters.

Colour-blind casting doesn’t need to be a nasty factor. There must be extra alternatives fo Black actors and different underrepresented demographics. Nonetheless, if the writing of the character lacks nuance or is stuffed with stereotypes, or just treats the characters as if they’ve a lived expertise of a white particular person, then there’s no level in including variety, as a result of the characters aren’t really exemplifying this variety that we see in our on a regular basis life. With Morgan being one of many first actors to very vocally come ahead with the problems on their present, and within the lead as much as Riverdale season 5, the teenager drama house has hopefully obtained the jolt that it must do higher.