Episode seven of the new Fox musical comedy, Glee, was the first time we saw an in-text acknowledgment of the number of minority kids in the cast. The cheerleading coach-cum-co-director, Sue Sylvester, separates out the marginalized students for a special performance number, tersely calling them out, “Santana. Wheels. Gay kid. Asian. Other Asian. Aretha. Shaft.”

Despite the awkward stereotyping that, to be fair, is completely in-character for Sue, this moment inspired cheers from many progressives. We’re not used to seeing such diversity on a major network program, and I, at least, have come to expect that these kinds of roll-calls will be limited to racial minorities and maybe queers. For Glee, then, I was thrilled the producers included Artie, a white straight male character, because of his disability identity around his use of a wheelchair.

Unfortunately, this didn’t mean Artie was a fully fleshed out character. At that time, we knew virtually nothing about him. It wasn’t until last week that viewers finally got an episode focusing closely on Artie’s story and, to many fans’ squealing delight, his romantic entanglements. The only problem that emerged, then, was that as the character came further into focus, so did the fact that Kevin McHale, his actor, does not actually have any mobility-related disabilities. This brings up the question, if a show is going to feature a diverse set of characters, is it also obligated to employ a diverse set of actors?

Although I’m frequently met with resistance on this point, my answer is generally a resounding yes. Of course, acting is all about getting inside someone else’s head and I would never say that minorities are so different that it is impossible for others to come to identity with their experience and channel that into their work. Rather, I am more concerned about the actors out there who, in this case, do have disabilities and the challenges they must face in finding roles. I can only imagine that even the most talented actors who use wheelchairs face the constant problem of casting directors who say that a role wasn’t written for a person with a disability. Similarly, though I think more in-roads may have been made over the years, I think we can all imagine actresses receiving the comment that a character wasn’t written to be butch or Black or Arab-American. For minorities in Hollywood, then, being repeatedly forced into identity boxes should at least mean that they get dropped into the few roles that really are written to be them.

Beyond the issue of allowing disability-identified actors to pursue their dreams, I also do think that actors who have experienced minoritization have a special insight into these characters and may be able to better embody their experience in subtle ways that others don’t see. I wonder what the reaction of the gay community would be, for example, if Kurt Hummel were portrayed by someone known to be straight. It would probably not be cause for too much alarm (Eric McCormack from Will and Grace was never the one causing controversy in that show), but would his performance lose something, something even vaguely affective we can’t quite put our fingers on? Incidentally, I do not profess to know Chris Colfer’s sexuality, but I do know that I take deep pleasure in his gender performance and feel connected to him through his femininity where I often feel, instead, concerned about being ocked. And although this is operating on a strange and emotional level, it is none the less true that this prompts my belief that he is acting from his own experience of queerness.

For Glee, the racial and ethnic minority kids are all played by actors of color, and it’s great to see a Latina, two Asian-Americans of either gender, and two black characters, even though Matt has yet to get a line. Outside of Glee, though, the unfortunate reality is that even appropriate racial casting, which one might take for granted is not always so. Recently, the live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender has caused controversy because the clearly Asian and Inuit-inspired civilizations of the animated show were replaced largely by white actors and actresses. The recent Dragon Ball film did the same as have innumerable other geek-oriented moving image texts – King of Fighters, Chun Li , The Weapon. The forthcoming video game-based Prince of Persia will reportedly feature no actual Persian actors or actresses, and this week’s big release, New Moon, the second installment of The Twilight Saga, will see Taylor Lautner’s reprisal of the role of Jacob Black, a non-American Indian playing a Quileute boy.

The level of offensiveness is variable. When producers cast Zhang Ziyi, a Chinese actress, in the lead role of the American film adaptation of Memoirs of a Geisha, a Japanese story, many read their decision as a clear indication that they thought all Asians looked and sounded alike and were therefore interchangeable. On the other hand, in a case like Artie’s, it may be easier to see it as a missed opportunity. Having written the character, the Glee creators had an excellent chance to highlight a young actor’s talents that may have been over looked, but they didn’t. They may or may not have aided in the creation of a fierce community advocate on the level of Chris Burke (Life Goes On, Touched by an Angel), but either way they have done a small disservice to the disability community and to all of us as fans and viewers, which is really a shame set against all the great work being done with this show.

Actresses and actors from left to right, top to bottom: Naya Rivera, Kevin McHale, Chris Colfer, Jenna Ushkowitz, Harry Shum, Amber Riley, and Dijon Talton

Published Date: 11/18/2009
SECTION: Entertainment | REGION: New York City, NY
SOURCE: The New Gay

Category: Gay Geekery, Gay GeekeryTelevision, Televisiondisability, disabilitygeekery, geekeryglee, gleeminorities, minoritiesqueerness, queernessRace, Racetwilight, twilight

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