Diversity
Everyone in the Film Industry must be aware of the discussions going on currently about Diversity, or the lack of Diversity in films. Everyone has an opinion on what should be done, and even though many people agree that “more needs to be done”, there isn’t so much agreement about what that should be. I have seen lots of discussions or, to be honest arguments about whether an actor should only play their own sexuality, gender, whether certain races should only be played by those genuine races. It is a really tricky issue, with very strong feelings on all sides. I don’t want to take sides on that particular part of the Diversity argument, but I do want to explain how the issues of Diversity informed my decisions about my characters.
My ideal in the future, is that many more roles do not limit the choice of actor. For instance, in Star Trek: Discovery (2017) there are 2 particular characters, a doctor (Dr Culber) and an engineer (Lt. Stamets) who are in a romantic relationship.
We see the ups and downs of their relationship, the trauma when Dr Culber dies… then eventually comes back to life again. This is understandably traumatic for Lt. Stamets. On the other hand, Lt. Stamets has a central role in the way the new “spore drive” works, being hooked up to it to make it work, causing tension in the relationship. What I love about their relationship is that it is so well written that actually it could be played by any combination of actors. It so happens that these characters are portrayed as male and gay. But the plot would work equally well either of them being gay, straight, male, female, any gender, any sexuality, any race (they are in fact played by actors of different races, but that is immaterial to the plot), any religion, in fact given that it is Star Trek it could be any combination of Alien races. The main point is that the actors portray that they are in a loving relationship, with all the ups and downs that brings. It is that relationship that the audience should be directed by the director to care about. Their sexuality is not made a big deal of. It is their relationship that counts.
I know that in the past, Star Trek has got its share of criticism for sexism, for example placing many women in short dresses for example. But I think they are now headed in the right direction, and also have a diverse cast including casting Sonequa Martin-Green as the lead protagonist, Michael Burham.
That is how I think it should be in films, diversity as the norm. My aim is to eventually become a Fiction Film/TV director. If I do achieve this goal, then I will have a fair amount of power regarding diversity in the films I direct. And, as Peter Parker/Spiderman’s Uncle Ben says,
“With great power comes great responsibility”.
Directors are starting to think more about diversity. They have a great responsibility in the same way as Directors in the past have had a responsibility, and an opportunity, to change views of their audience. So do todays Directors. But I hope that we get to the point where it doesn’t need to be a “thing” anymore. We are not even nearly there yet.
For example, I remember when the Marvel film Black Panther (2018) came out. It came out in February 2018, when I was studying Superhero films for my Film Studies GCSE that summer. My Film Studies class had a big discussion about the implications of a Black Superhero as the main protagonist.
There were comments on social media about people being very emotional at feeling represented in this way on the screen. There seemed to be widespread agreement that it was a positive thing. I remember it was similar for Wonder Woman (2017) and Captain Marvel (2019) for having lead female superheroes. There had been other black and female superheroes, but due to these being MCU and DCEU films a lot people saw them.
Recently, the whole premise of the Marvel TV show The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (2021), a show that I enjoyed, was that at the start, Sam (The Falcon) did not think that America was ready for a black Captain America. In the season finale, after showing us that it is character that matters not the colour of your skin, Sam finally takes up the mantle of Captain America.
But I think that in an ideal world the idea that America wouldn’t accept a black Captain America shouldn’t even be a thing that you can base a plot around. Unfortunately, it still is. And unfortunately, there are still not as many diverse roles as there should be. Again, I feel we need to get to the point where diversity is just a given, it is about the skill of the actors in portraying a role that counts, as I have heard quoted, “The best actor for the role”. But until we get there, I think it is important to encourage a wider range of diversity into the Film Industry both in front of and behind the camera. Both are important to widen the pool of talent to chose from.
I really like the approach that Star Trek: Discovery (2017) takes, with Lt. Stamets and Dr Culber, making it that any 2 people could play the parts. I really hope we can get to that point. I feel really strongly about justice and equality and I am extremely against discrimination. I want everyone to see themselves represented on the screen, and no one discriminated against when roles are being cast. It should be about acting ability and suitability for the role.
It is a chicken and egg situation. We need to change the approach to writing and casting films, where we can, and educate, whilst still entertaining the audience. It is a fine balance but an important one. And I still feel strongly that entertaining people, and particularly making them smile, is important.
I don’t think you can ignore verisimilitude, because the relationship between the various characters needs to be believable, and age does still play a part in that. For example, you really can’t have a 50-year-old playing a 9-year-old child.
Over the Autumn half term, my 90%Bloopers Group wrote and filmed an adaptation of a scene out of the book Emma, where one character realises that another character is in love with the same person that they are. In the book, there are 2 females in love with a male. In our adaptation, “Herbert”, we didn’t have any female actresses available. This wasn’t a problem. We just made all the characters male and gay. It works just as well. Originally, we were going to have shots of the love interest too but ended up not doing this. So does that mean we could have made it 2 males in love with the same female after all? We could have, but we had already planed it this way and we saw no reason to change it. It works just as well either way.
I had an idea for creating my characters and writing my plot in the way that I would love to see more plots and characters written. That is, I am writing the plot and characters so that the main protagonist, Sam, could be played by anyone, any gender, race, sexuality, religion, sexuality etc. Once Sam is cast then that limits a few of the choices, like for the Anna/Andy character as I explain below. I chose to cast my best actor as Sam, then to give him a boyfriend rather than a girlfriend. For the plot, all that matters is establishing that “Alex” is in a romantic relationship with “Sam”, which I do by using a couple of text messages between them with “xx” at the end of each. Then when Alex is mentioned later on, I have already shown Alex and Sam are in a relationship, so using the pronoun “he” for Alex should not be confusing. Alex could equally have the pronoun “she”. It really makes no difference to the plot. I explain more below.
I hope that in the future, films, and the whole world, can be celebrating Diversity and Variety. We need Diversity and Variety. I am dyslexic, as are quite a few directors, including the globally successful Steven Spielberg. Variety and Diversity are good. I have enjoyed thinking about my film in relation to Diversity.
Character descriptions
As I discuss in my Ideas section, I am using “Time Travel” as the basis for my story.
On one level, my characters who appear on screen are:
“Sam” – the main character, and 3 different versions of him, who time travel back to talk with him.
“Anna” – a friend of Sam’s who comes back from the version of the future in which Sam dies.
“A Stranger” – appears at the end, we don’t see their face, but it is clear they are involved in the time travel.
In the script, they appear as:
SAM P – Present day “Sam”. He is a “typical” teenager, around 18 years of age. We meet him when he is going for a walk in the woods (deciduous, lots of leaves on the ground) on a nice, pleasant day. He has a boyfriend Alex, who we see a text from, and which Sam P replies to, showing us their relationship so we have seen who Alex is when he is mentioned later. Sam P appears neither rich nor poor, just average really. He is also initially less concerned with money than Sam F1 and Sam F2, since he keeps attempting to find out why they are only concerned with money when there is so much good that they could do in the world with a time machine, and so many interesting places they could go.
SAM F1 – the first “Sam” to come back from a few months in the future. He gives SAM P the lottery numbers (on a white piece of paper) to get a £150 million pounds prize lottery win. SAM F1 is hoping that SAM P will use these lottery numbers to win a huge lottery prize, and change the future, in the same way that Older Biff in Back To The Future 2 (1989) did with Younger Biff. SAM F1 says that he wants lots of money. Clearly something has happened to make him less satisfied with his life than Sam P, but it is not important to the plot what that might be.
SAM F2 – the second “Sam” who travels back in time after the first “Sam” He appears richer than either of the other “Sam’s” who we have met so far. He is clearly a bit richer by his clothes, but since he explains that he lost all the money, he is not hugely richer than the other 2, describing himself as broke due to being robbed then sued of all his money. SAM F2 wants SAM P to use the new Lottery numbers (on the red Paper) to win a lower amount. SAM F2 has seen the problems of too much money and is a bit more realistic that SAM F1. He does still want money though.
ANNA – A friend of Sam, she is a similar age, about 18, and dressed casually in a similar manner to SAM P. The Anna that we see has travelled back from the future after “Sam” is killed in some way due to winning the lottery. She is clearly a caring person, initially finding it rather hard to tell Sam that he dies in this future, preferring to focus on the positive that he won the lottery and refusing to actually tell Sam how he died.
SAM F3 – the third “Sam” who travels back from the future. However, this Sam has come from only a very short way in the future, hinted at by his concern for a much more mundane event of Sam P getting a splinter if he picks up the stick which was put over the lottery numbers’ papers.
THE STRANGER – a smartly but slightly eccentrically dressed person, who could be any age. We don’t actually see their head, so we are left wondering. I play this character, so my voice might hint at my age, but the age is immaterial. They are mysterious, but their dialogue hints that time and time travel are important to them.
As I explained above, I deliberately chose to write this so that the main character could be played by any actor, any age, sex, sexuality, gender, race, religion etc.. It doesn’t change the plot. I chose a name for the main character to be “Sam” which could be short for Samuel or Samantha. Also, Alex could be Alexander or Alexandria. I chose later in the script to have Alex described as “he” as an extra nod towards Diversity, but it doesn’t need to be. I chose to have “Anna” rather than “Andy” here because the key point is that this friend who time travels back is visually obviously not another version of Sam. The key thing is to make Sam and Anna/Andy visually different in some way. For me as director, I cast Jack (Quest) Harper as Sam because he is the best actor in our group. The person who is visually the most different to Jack is Ellie Simpson who plays Anna.
This is all believable, and has verisimilitude, because of the generation of Sam, and because my target audience is 15-25, and so my audience is very familiar with the idea of diversity. If the Sam actor were much older, then it would be for the director to decide who their audience is and thus who the best actors are to choose for all the characters related to Sam.
I am pleased with how my idea of building Diversity into my film has gone.