Ethnicity: Do You Think JMS Keeps Count?

[Mondo Londo]

Come to think of it, what about Guy Williams -- star of Zorro and Lost in Space? I'm pretty sure...

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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

[This message has been edited by Mondo Londo (edited July 27, 2001).]

 

[Bab5nutz]

Dekion - thanks for the name - that was it. I just couldn't quite remember the name of the actor. Funny, I remember reading an article about Smits years ago - I think this was whenLA LAW was still on. He was apparently active in the Latino community, and wanted more visibility for Latino actors.
This would have been at least eight-ten years ago. I guess things haven't moved on much since then.
Talking of actors/actresses, there is also actress Rosie Perez - definitely a Latino/Spanish/Hispanic name. But what is the correct anme for someone of Latino/Spanish/Hispanic descent? I'll go with Latino for the time being. There's very few here in my country - infact, I can honestly say that I've never met one. Although the ethnic make-up of my country is changing rapidly. When I was growing-up, almost everyone in my classes were European, with a few Maoris and Polynesians thrown in. One or two Asians, and that was it.
Now, I think that maybe a third of the rolls in some schools are Asian. Black/African people, once an exotic sight are now commonplace - mostly refugess from Somalia.
There is an Afghani woman who reguarly comes into the shop where I work - her family had to flee because of the Taliban.
I should quickly add that I AM NOT A RACIST!!! New immigrants can only add richness and variety to my country's culture.
Unfortunately, I am ashamed to say that many of my compatriots are racist - often unwittngly. I try to be - not tolerant - as someone once said, who wants to be tolerated? But I try to understand, and remind myself that my world must be as strange and exotic to others, as I sometimes find theirs.

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[Quagmire]

Actually I think you originally meant Benjamin Bratt who was on Law and Order.

Unless it's vital to the character I don't care who plays it although a mix is more realistic.

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Bus

"How am I supposed to hallucinate with all these swirling colors distracting me?"-Lisa

 

[Mystico T]

I think it has been pretty well established by the postings above that JMS and sci-fi in general are very aware and proactive with representing many ethnic groups on the B5 and other shows. And since the show was initially developed for a largely amercian audience (here me out) the generally lazy casting directors have done a mediocore job of representing the actual ethnic melting pot of the U.S. If however, the intent is to represent the Earth Alliance there is a very poor representation of ethnicity - I have been racking my brains on this one but I can not think of a single french character. Am I wrong here? No long running Canadian T.V. show would dare to (or be aloud by our strict cultural and broadcasting guidelines) to continue without representing the french speaking Quebecois portion of our cultural mosaic so it did sort of stick out at me that there were no French characters. And then I started thinking about European cultural representation, german, swiss, norwegian, english,scottish, polish, greek, irish, portugese etc, etc,....
Yes I know lots of descendents and 'grandpa immigrated from ireland in 1870' but....
Not blaming JMS here (or anyone) I think it all just comes back to lazy casting directors. I will always support the 'best actor for the job' casting but if these groups are not represented by casting directors (and lets face it nobody is getting discovered working at the drugstore anymore) they never get to audition and nobody sees the great Danish/Congolese orphan who grew up in Tibet and became a doctor on Bab 5.
But let me know if I'm wrong on the French thing.
Canadian Eh?

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Oh those Russians!

 

[Kribu]

Well, according to Marcus, the Sigma 957 aliens (also known as the Zog aliens) were French...

As for Europeans: both Marcus & Byron were if not British then definitely of British descent. Garibaldi's ancestry was probably Italian. Sinclair was from Mars... And at least EarthGov itself was in Geneva, not in America.

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"It's animal magnetism. What can I say?"
- G'Kar, A Tragedy of Telepaths

 

[Mondo Londo]

One of my favorite parts of B5 was in season 1, when it's Sinclair's turn to host a celebration of Earth spirituality. I'm afraid I don't recall the name of the episode. However, Sinclair winds up presenting a representative of every Earth religion he could find -- the line went beyond the camera's scope. I really enjoyed that.

Someone mentioned above that prevalence of one minority group over others may be due to the effectiveness of one group's lobbying ability vis a vis others. That's probably true. It's also true that white ethnics (i.e., non-WASPS -- central, eastern, southern Europeans) usually fare poorly on American television.



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"What's up, Drakh?"

Michael Garibaldi

 

[GKarsEye]

Alright Joe, mentioning my old hood, Brighton Beach, whoo!

Look folks, you can't expect a TV show to accurately portray every minority. That is simply impossible.

From a story point of view, there will be some countries who contribute more to the Earth Alliance. It is no mystery why we see no one from Bolivia on B5.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

 

[bakana]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>
JMS Speaks:

The ethnic mix has nothing to do with any changes in the series. We ended up keeping the mix intact. Lost was one Caucasian woman, one black male, one asian female. What we're adding is one Caucasian woman (Lt. Commander Ivanova), one black male (Dr. Stephen Franklin), and one asian woman (Catherine Sakai). In addition, we're introducing a Hispanic doctor who will. we hope be a recurring character from time to time (look for her in "Believers" to start with). And we will be doing more of this, not just in small parts, but larger ones as well. We have been very careful to keep a mix of actors that reflects what our thesis is: that if we go to the stars, we're ALL going to the stars.

In fact, we just recently -- when we found out it was going on -- instructed our casting people not to put any ethnic background information into the breakdown sheets that go out to actor's agents. (In other words, usually you need a white male actor 30-40, with a mustache, that kind of specificity is commonplace in breakdowns.) We have instituted open casting ... anyone, of any ethnic background, is eligible for any role at any time.

We hope that this will *further* help us to broaden out the tapestry of our series.

This is a very committed show, on a lot of different levels, with the idea of trying to live out what we're preaching. We have an almost equal breakdown of males to females in our crew and every aspect of our production. (I say almost equal because I'm *fairly* sure there are actually more women on the show, many in non-conventional jobs, than there are men.) Our casting is open.

We've got women in the writer and director categories, and two of our three editors (a very dominantly male business) are women.

I don't like the way Hollywood works either.

That's why we're not DOING it that way.

We've had no problem getting the word out, or getting people to understand our casting preferences. The usual reaction is pleased astonishment....
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

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Yes, I like cats too.
Shall we exchange Recipes?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I have been racking my brains on this one but I can not think of a single french character.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

There were certainly a number of characters with French last names, even if they didn't sport French accents. So maybe Francophones in the 23rd century have just developed a better ear for other languages?

English is the "common language" used for trade and international communication in the time of B5, and it seems that the American accented version predominates, so that is the one most people for whom English is a second language would learn. Native English speakers on colonies originally settled primarily by people from the U.K. would retain their own accents.

In real-world terms, the number of actors in Los Angeles with strong French accents is probably limited, given that this would severely restrict their ability to get work. (Something that is presumably not a problem in Canada.) And adding a French accent for no other reason than to have some variety could be distracting, because people would be looking for some plot-related reason for an accent that stands out so much. (British accents, especially the ones typical of trained stage actors, don't sound as "alien" to American ears, and therefore pass largely unnoticed. Even the most prominent Frenchman in television SF speaks with a British accent.

)

Also people who speak French as their first language are statistically almost non-existent in this country. Most, like the Italians, Germans, Greeks, etc. who came here, probably assimilate fairly quickly and within a generation are indistinguishable from their neighbors in terms of accent. It is only in the largely self-segregating communties of the late twentieth century that you find large numbers of second- and third-generation immigrants still speaking only, or primarily, their parents' language, and therefore speaking English with a non-native accent. (These include the various big city Asian communities, Spanish-speaking enclaves in Florida, Texas, California and New York, the large Russian emigre community in Brighton Beach, NY, etc.)

So it simply not the kind of issue on American television that it would be on Candadian TV.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

 

[G'Quon]

Accents seemed to fluctuate in the show, based on the actors. Londo and Refa stood out from the rest of the Centauri for example. There was a Minbari captain at the end of season one with a really weak accent that wasn't quite 'England,' but it wasn't North America either, and that made it at least a bit different from what the Humans. It was different from Mira Furlan's accent.

Any large city is an indicator of how accents form within a single language, i can only imagine the array of accents and dialects that would evolve in a language that spans a galactic nation.

The show didn't focus on linguistics. That would be a massive issue on a diplomatic space station, but for earth-TV you just want a story that flows. So language became an issue when it was convenient. That's ok.

But i wonder why the Humans were the only race with different skin colours. All the Minbari, Centauri, Brakiri, Llort, Hyach, etc were of the same respective complexions. Perhaps if there were blue-skinned and white-skinned Minbari, for instance, they would have been confused for separate races. Maybe that just made smoother tv.

And really, why would so many of the aliens be just Humans with bones, or reptile skin, or pointy ears? It's just easier.

 

[Jan]

I seem to recall that some of the Drazi had different colorations going from grey to almost black to sort of purple-ish.

Jan

 

[Truth_Seeker]

And really, why would so many of the aliens be just Humans with bones, or reptile skin, or pointy ears? It's just easier.

I've also wondered why most of the aliens in the show had a humanoid appearance.The forms of life in the Universe could look so different from us and they may not have legs, arms or hair.I mean if a new viewer starts watching the show from Season 4 on, how could he/she tell the difference between Emperor Cartagia and the regular human?His hair is short and the six tenticles are hidden so he looks exactly like a human.

I think I've read a statement, made by JMS that "if you want a real performance, you need an actor" and he's probably right.It would be much harder for the viewers to accept Londo as a puppet for example, even if it is very realistic and professionally made like Rygel from "Farscape".I think that this is the main reason why aliens are humanoid in most of the Sci-Fi shows.

 

[maneth]

That, and it's also cheaper. It's a shame that the insectoid N'Grath disappeared after the 1st season. B5 did feature both Shadows and Vorlons prominently. I think the reason for the encounter suit was mainly that a person could stand in it.

Star Trek at least postulated a reasonable reason for why most sentient races are bipedal humanoids.

Seems to me that B5 has quite a diverse cast for an American made show.

 

[KoshFan]

Extremely diverse when you remember that the VIP who came in the S3 opener was from Africa. That never happens.