Eye Candy's Blog Posts Tagged 'Representation' (2)

If there’s one role that every struggling black actress has had to rely on at some point in her career, it’s the Sassy Black Friend. You know the one. She’s the character who seems to perpetually exist outside of the plot, a sort of one woman Chorus whose main purpose is to cast her eyes to the heavens in the most exaggerated of eye rolls, click her tongue, and make smarmy comments about what’s going on – while never actually being allowed to take part in what’s going on. There…

From West Side Story to The Prince of Persia, there has been a long tradition in Hollywood of casting white actors in roles intended for people of color. In an industry where minorities don’t get enough good roles as it is, it’s always a little disconcerting for me to watch California-born Natalie Wood play a Puerto Rican immigrant, or peep Mickey Rooney with taped back eye-lids hamming it up in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It would be nice to think that…