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HBO's new prequel to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, reached the largest series premier numbers in HBO's history. The ambitious and well executed return of George R.R. Martin's Westeros to the small screen was showered with praise by both critics and fans, 10 million of whom tuned in, per HBO. House of the Dragon follows the story of the Targaryen dynasty, a fair skinned, white haired race of incestuous aristocrats whose dragons, superior technology, and fiercely guarded noble bloodlines give them the power to rule the Seven Kingdoms with an iron fist.

The history of the Targaryen dynasty, it bears repeating, is fraught with violence, the subjugation of "lesser" people, and an obsession with pure bloodlines that ends up being their undoing. So it was puzzling at best that the showrunners decided to populate the Targaryen family with a racially diverse cast, including Steve Toussaint, the Black British-Caribbean actor, who plays Lord Corlys Velaryon.

"The world is very different now than it was 10 years ago when [ Game of Thrones] all started," showrunner Ryan Condal . "It's different than 20 years ago when Peter Jackson made The Lord of the Rings. These types of stories need to be more inclusive than they traditionally have been. It was very important for [us] to create a show that was not another bunch of white people on the screen, just to put it very bluntly."

He's right, of course: The time has passed when you could get away with an all white cast-something I'm personally grateful for, as someone who grew up with all too few characters who look like me in the fantasy and sci-fi genres I love.

And yet, portraying the Targaryen dynasty as a rainbow coalition of racially-mixed characters undermines key aspects of the plot, like the severity of their hubris and their long history of despotism, colonization, and subjugation of "lesser people."

It's an object lesson in how not to do diversity casting, which has to be done right. If not, it's just as insulting as no diversity at all-perhaps more so. Forced and haphazard casting that changes character nuances and motivations as well as entire plot lines beyond recognition undermines both actor and viewer.

Doing diversity casting right means using it to enhance a work of fiction, rather than weaken its entire premise. Failing to do this right reduces Black actors to their skin color, rather than allowing them to inhabit a character that makes sense in its entirety.

But all too often, Black actors are cast in established franchises in a lazy way that tokenizes them for their race with no respect or credence paid to the subtext and historical and symbolic dimensions of the story.

Take for example the 2021 British TV drama Anne Boleyn, which received tremendous backlash for the purely "diversity"-driven choice to cast a Black actress, Jodie Turner-Smith, in the role of one of Europe's most famous monarchs. As in the case of House of the Dragon, the decision was defended on the merits of "identity-conscious casting." According to the showrunner, identity-conscious casting "makes space for and embraces how actors and artists can bring their whole identities or even parts of their identities to a character."

But the truth is the exact opposite: When you're undermining a piece of history by casting a Black actor, you're making their race an inaccessible part of their character and their acting. After all, how free can a Black actor be when they are slotted into a role that was not intended for them? How much of the historical weight of a story is impacted by this "race-conscious" approach to storytelling, which ends up obfuscating the connotations and impact of race and power?

It's unnecessary at best. There exists a host of available stories that showcase Black lives through history and mythology, from Shakespeare's Othello to the story of England's first Black aristocrat, Dido Elizabeth Bell, to the slave rebellion leader Toussaint L'Ouverture. And yet, instead of creating great TV around these incredible stories, we get a lazy and desperate push to haphazardly insert people of color into traditionally European roles while dismissing those who take issue with these diversity casting choices as racist.

Haphazard diversity casting ends up objectifying Black actors, exposing them to needless backlash and hostility from confused and frustrated fans and disconnecting their race from their acting and characters.

But the clumsiness of bad diversity casting also exposes something dark about the audiences for these prestige TV dramas. In the cast of House of the Dragon, the message is clear: Your average woke, Hollywood liberal can still root for a ruling class portrayed as malignant despots, so long as they aren't all white.

It's a key feature of pop-wokeness: making it seem counter-cultural to side with the elite. Shonda Rhimes' hit Netflix show Bridgerton is another famous and recent example that features a diverse, rainbow cast of fawning aristocrats, despite being set in the Georgian period, the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. These desperate attempts to foster diversity blur the lines between aspirational fantasy and historical anachronism, which makes it hard to decipher how much of the impact of a story is lost when modern preoccupations with diversity and inclusion collide with unpleasant historical, mythological and symbolic truths.

Diversity casting in deeply hierarchical narratives reveals how comfortable we are with hierarchy, aristocracy, and even incestuous Aryan-like racists-so long as it's white servants waiting on Black queens and nobles, and so long as the eugenicist Aryans aren't all white.

It's a shame that showrunners aren't challenging these classist assumptions but catering to them with their own racialized decisions, which undermine Black actors and acting as well as viewers. And it's especially dispiriting because diversity that makes sense is not hard to find and can add incredible texture and richness to a story.

The previous incarnation of HBO's Game of Thrones was one such example. It managed to stay true to the source material during the earlier seasons while still showcasing stellar portrayals of Black characters who hail from the places in George R. R. Martin's universe where dark-skinned people exist. Fan favorites like the foul mouthed pirate Salador San, played by Black British-Tanzanian actor Lucian Msamati, and the confidante of Queen Daenerys, Missandei, played by British-Dominican Actress Nathalie Emmanuel, were both beloved characters in the original series, and their presence on the show didn't feel forced or out of place.

The challenges with diversity casting reflect the systemic problems and glaring lack of ambition and imagination in Hollywood. It's much easier for the highly-profit driven industry to slot token Black actors into already existing franchises that are guaranteed success, and much harder to take risks and tell new stories that feature prominent Black characters and myths and that showcase the full scope of the imagination and talent of people of color.

It is possible and important to do diversity properly. But it's also fine sometimes not to do it at all, especially when the occasion does not call for diversity casting and when the choice to do so impacts the subtext and symbolic dimension of a narrative.

Diversity casting out of some warped sense of moral obligation diminishes the impact of a project and also diminishes the dignity of the actors who are being slotted into shoes that were not tailored for them.
Angie Speaks is the co-host of the Low Society Podcast. The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.

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When diversity casting hurts the plot, it hurts Black actors-and viewers | Opinion

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HBO's new prequel to Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, reached the largest series premier numbers in HBO's history. The ambitious and well executed return of George R.R. Martin's Westeros to the small screen was showered with praise by both critics and fans, 10 million of whom tuned in, per HBO.

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STEP 1: go through the documents and choose a guiding question

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STEP 1: go through the documents and choose a guiding question

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From Text to text/ picture / podcast / video

■How are the texts similar ? ( source / point of views / topic / examples / target audience / chronology / tone…)

■How are the texts different ? (source / point of views / topic / examples / target audience / chronology/ tone…)

■Do they make you react the same way? Why ? Why not?

From Document to Self :

■Can you relate to the issue ?

■Does anything in the text remind you of your own personal experience?

■Does the text make you see things from a different perspective?

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STEP 2: create a mind map with your partners to organize arguments, counter-arguments, examples

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STEP 2: create a mind map with your partners to organize arguments, counter-arguments, examples

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STEP 3: Draw a personal conclusion and post it on the padlet

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STEP 3: Draw a personal conclusion and post it on the padlet

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I agree with the first exhibit that we need to have a double standard in terms of diversity, since for many decades our media and history has been whitewashed.
In the second exhibit, in Lord of the Rings, diversity is an essential part of the plot and the themes of the story, since Tolkien wrote it as a critique of fascism.
But, I acknoledge, in the last two exhibits that a black Targaryen can be Tokenism, since it only hinders the plot and is quite problematic, considering the themes and subtext of the Targaryen family.
Personaly, I think that the medieval fantasy genre is suffering from whitewashing, a false conception of the medieval era and eurocentricism. We think of that era as a sort of backward and savage time of our history with only white people, which is very far from the truth and completly excludes other parts of the world. And the only time we ever see these other cultures on screen, it suffers from exoticism and whitewashing.
The genre isn't really hitting it's full potential, and could benefit in my opinion, in inspirering itself from other cultures and litteratures

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In medieval series or films, some directors put black characters so as not to be criticized, but on the poster the character is small and in the background you can hardly see him, the poster is the first thing people see before watching the series so it's sad to hide some characters, if we put them on the poster it's so that we can see them all, then the medieval period is before slavery and colonization so the fact of putting characters black, white, Asian.etc… will not bring any criticism, and it is completely normal

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In medieval series or films, some directors put black characters so as not to be criticized, but on the poster the character is small and in the background you can hardly see him, the poster is the first thing people see before watching the series so it's sad to hide some characters, if we put them on the poster it's so that we can see them all, then the medieval period is before slavery and colonization so the fact of putting characters black, white, Asian.etc… will not bring any criticism, and it is completely normal

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We Can Say that film industry don't try to use the ethnic mix argument for selle more and interested more pepole because some viwers prefer to see white caracter in film or series. So the film will lose one part of its community against another. More than that, on social media like twitter, serie or film like Lord of the rings encourages pepole of their community to Make representation of the film caracter however they whant. For example, a fan art of an elf withe a dark skin or a représentation of Gandalf by an asian man.

ELEORE
Treyssens
TG1

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I consent to the exhibits before, it seems like most movies / TV series made the choice to have a color-blind cast to give a good and open-minded / progressive image of them. One proof is that on the poster of the movie House Of Dragons the only black character / actor on the poster is tiny and there is a sort of lack of light that isn't in his favor, compared to the white characters. This makes part of the big lack of solidarity that a lot of black people witness in many movies. Fortunately, some movies like The Lord Of Rings want, contrary, to encourage people to be more solidary and to fight racism, harassment and abuse against black people, like they did with their tweet.

Mariam

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There has been a lot of debate on color-blind casting recently with the tv series LOTR and HOD.for example, putting different ethnicities in the cast  in LOTR with the "hobbits" or the "elves" has not been welcome by a part of the viewers, but the fact that middle-earth is a multicultural place makes the colorblind casting a smart move, (tokenism)
The bad highlighting of black actors has also been a problem. We can see it in the poster of HOD with the black actor in the background even if he is as important as the other actors wich are one the poster.
(Not really good but not a 0/5)

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The fact that producer are including people of color and Asian actors in their movies or series is a quite good progress especially in medieval fantasies. People that are watching these kind of programs expects to only see white actor. They probably assume that at this time in history and in the Scandinavian lands, residents were only white which is actually understandable. We only know the story told by white people. And yet by reacting the way they are, they’re only maintaining white washing process. Showcasing color blind casting is a thing but it should be done in order to develop movie industry and not only to please fans particularly are not white. The poster of House of the dragon showing the black character in the background is actually tokenism. Why would the white actors be better represented than the black one?     

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The fact that producer are including people of color and Asian actors in their movies or series is a quite good progress especially in medieval fantasies. People that are watching these kind of programs expects to only see white actor. They probably assume that at this time in history and in the Scandinavian lands, residents were only white which is actually understandable. We only know the story told by white people. And yet by reacting the way they are, they’re only maintaining white washing process. Showcasing color blind casting is a thing but it should be done in order to develop movie industry and not only to please fans particularly are not white. The poster of House of the dragon showing the black character in the background is actually tokenism. Why would the white actors be better represented than the black one?     

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Times are changing and ethnical diversity is becoming more and more important in the film industry today. However, in The Ring of Power I believe they got cultural diversity wrong. Every single culture in this series is either  given a token black person or a person of ethnic diversity.  There is no indication of  where they came from, no relevance as to why they are there. It almost feels like the directors have cast actors of different ethnicities, using them as a facade to avoid criticism for not representing the diversity of our planet.                                                                         In the House of Dragons, I feel they got cultural diversity right. Lord Corlys fully developed character is integral to the series. He is one of the most powerful men in the kingdom and one of my favourite character so far. Velaryon's story makes more sense in terms of worldbuilding. The House of Valaryon's had fleets of ships and travelled all over the world encountering many different cultures. It is perfectly feasible that Corlys mother was black and that he inherited genetic traits from both parents.                                I believe there should be more cultural diversity in film, but we need to get it right. Producers and directors need to stop using token characters as smoke screens to lure audiences belonging to ethnic communities. Maybe 10 years from now it will be normal to have ethnic diversity in film. I look forward to that day and to them getting it right.                                                                                          Pandora                         

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Times are changing and ethnical diversity is becoming more and more important in the film industry today. However, in The Ring of Power I believe they got cultural diversity wrong. Every single culture in this series is either  given a token black person or a person of ethnic diversity.  There is no indication of  where they came from, no relevance as to why they are there. It almost feels like the directors have cast actors of different ethnicities, using them as a facade to avoid criticism for not representing the diversity of our planet.                                                                         In the House of Dragons, I feel they got cultural diversity right. Lord Corlys fully developed character is integral to the series. He is one of the most powerful men in the kingdom and one of my favourite character so far. Velaryon's story makes more sense in terms of worldbuilding. The House of Valaryon's had fleets of ships and travelled all over the world encountering many different cultures. It is perfectly feasible that Corlys mother was black and that he inherited genetic traits from both parents.                                I believe there should be more cultural diversity in film, but we need to get it right. Producers and directors need to stop using token characters as smoke screens to lure audiences belonging to ethnic communities. Maybe 10 years from now it will be normal to have ethnic diversity in film. I look forward to that day and to them getting it right.                                                                                          Pandora                         

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The debate about color blind casting in fantasy series like LOTR and GOM is really interesting. Indeed, some people still debate about the skin color of the characters even if it's a fantasy universe, but what if we looked at the series?  Personally I suspect that some series/films use a color blind casting to give a good image to the public. The color blind casting is more and more present which is a very good point and it is what should be done naturally. But the series advocates the fact of putting forward actors of different ethnicities perhaps to show that they do not make any difference of skin color, in the only goal to have the support of all the public

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MEDIEVAL FANTASY : (Ella)            I don’t understand how this show and the idea of black-casting relate. Of course, we can’t denie that they’re trying to include black-actors. But as a balck girl I felt angry for certain things. First of all , because of the poster: It is supposed to promote the show and the multi-cultural’s aspect but the black actor is in the background. And then in the trailor I don’t see any diversities.

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MEDIEVAL FANTASY : (Ella)            I don’t understand how this show and the idea of black-casting relate. Of course, we can’t denie that they’re trying to include black-actors. But as a balck girl I felt angry for certain things. First of all , because of the poster: It is supposed to promote the show and the multi-cultural’s aspect but the black actor is in the background. And then in the trailor I don’t see any diversities.

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As we all agree, we can notice a progress within the industry especially in television regarding diversity.
I think it's a very positive phenomenon, but I noticed that color conscious casting is being used with the wrong intentions.
Let me explain, it's great that minorities are having a diverse range of choice regarding roles that they can play such as creatures like elves, dwarves in the tv series named The Lord of the Rings.

However, at this point , this type of casting feels weird to us viewers, we can notice that it's extremely forced giving actors stereotypical roles. They should create more natural roles to represent minorities  instead of modifying stories that already exist and never meant to include them in the first place in order to avoid huge historical mistakes and contradictions.

Plus, because of color blind casting actors are facing unnecessary backlash, harassment and racism. At this point the directors of these shows are aware of what they are doing ,they just want to stir up drama in order to create hype and boost ratings for their shows. Their choice of color- blind casting is just not genuine at all and puts in danger the actors that are playing these roles. They should turn them down for their safety.
To conclude I agree with Ella that this situation irks me and is just disgusting because nobody deserves this type of treatment and exploitation. I hope one day actors will act freely in brand new originals medieval fantasy shows and movies made especially for minorities.

C.B.L.

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In LOTR or HOD, we mostly expect to see white actors due to the historical periods in which the shows take place, so it's good to surprise the spectators because there is no reason not to let an actor who is not not white because it's not "realistic" while these series are totally fantastic, so I think it's something normal. Matthias

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I agree it’s an Good idea for include black people even if ah  this period they are not lot of black people but if they wanted to put black people they can trying put 2-3 actors. But also put them forward because in the poster the only black person is in the background perhaps so as not to shock the spectators But they could have made the effort to highlight it more

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I agree it’s an Good idea for include black people even if ah  this period they are not lot of black people but if they wanted to put black people they can trying put 2-3 actors. But also put them forward because in the poster the only black person is in the background perhaps so as not to shock the spectators But they could have made the effort to highlight it more

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Fatoumata