medievalpoc:teenybuffalo:handful-ofdust:diversehighfantasy:medievalpoc:diversehighfantasy:angryfangi

medievalpoc:teenybuffalo:handful-ofdust:diversehighfantasy:medievalpoc:diversehighfantasy:angryfangirlsdobadthings:mycroft-holmes-lestrade:medievalpoc:Sophie Okonedo in The Hollow Crown[images via]Apparently I should be checking out this miniseries adaptation of Shakespeare’s history plays, immediate-style.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! A black woman playing a white English queen? And I’m not even talking about the armour nonsense. What’s next a native american roman emperor wearing a grass skirt? A white Ghandi wearing ripped jeans and psychedelic shirts?  If you throw reality and historical accuracy out of the window for being PC you’re movie isn’t worth watching because it can have no real message. Oh quit bullshitting like this isn’t about your racism. Anthony Hopkins did Titus Andronicus as a half-dream half art piece with Saturnius and Bassanius using podiums and 1950′s style microphones to argue which one of them should be king. Kenneth Branagh did Hamlet in the Victorian Era. David Tennant did Hamlet in a fucking t-shirt. “Sons of Anarchy” was based on the story of Hamlet and it was about a motorcycle club running guns to the IRA. Don’t give me any shit about fucking ‘historical accuracy’ you fucking ponce, it’s SHAKESPEARE- it’s literally been done by a dog dressed in little hats and jackets (Wishbone, I never forgot you) and Wednesday and Pugsley Adams. If you have a problem with this you are not only a racist asshat, but you are so damn ignorant of Shakespeare I don’t even fucking know why you bothered to have an opinion except to let people KNOW you are a racist asshat. And I mean, all good Shakespeare companies blind cast. Shakespeare companies pretty much invented that. An African-American actor was playing King Lear in the 1820s in London, yet yt people still get bent out of shape over actors of color in Shakespeare in the 2010s. It’s a long tradition, unlike the movie and TV tradition of casting people of color mostly in small roles and only “when there’s a reason for it.”I love you for bringing up Ira Aldridge because now I have an excuse to post portraits of him starring in Shakespeare plays in London:[Ira Aldridge as Othello; portrait by William Mulready c. 1840][Taras Shevchenko. (Ira Aldridge, as himself) 1858]And 30k notes later, people are acting as if Black actors in Shakespeare plays are brand new. Nice to see we’ve progressed since the frigging 1800s….oh, wait. :|Many people may also be surprised that Black actors were performing Shakespeare professionally in New York in the early 1800s, half a century before American slavery was abolished. From Aldridge’s bio on BlackPast.org:Ira Frederick Aldridge was born in New York City, New York on July 24, 1807 to free blacks Reverend Daniel and Lurona Aldridge.  Although his parents encouraged him to become a pastor, he studied classical education at the African Free School in New York where he was first exposed to the performance arts.  While there he became impressed with acting and by age 15 was associating with professional black actors in the city. They encouraged Aldridge to join the prestigious African Grove Theatre, an all-black theatre troupe founded by William Henry Brown and James Hewlett in 1821. He apprenticed under Hewlett, the first African American Shakespearean actor. Though Aldridge was gainfully employed as an actor in the 1820s, he felt that the United States was not a hospitable place for theatrical performers.Why was it not hospitable?Many whites resented the claim to cultural equality that they saw in black performances of Shakespeare and other white-authored texts. In other words, people complaining about actors of color in Shakespeare (or fantasy, or historical drama, or anything) sound exactly like slave-era whites.Julie Taymor was the person who made those choices re Titus Andronicus, but otherwise, I agree completely.I was going to reblog from the source and evade the racist comment, but since it led to fine takedowns and portraits of Ira Aldridge, I’m going for this one. I have never seen a portrait of Aldridge before and I have little hearts in my eyes now. Since you’ve never seen a portrait of Aldridge before, I want to share my very favorite painting that he ever modeled for. It was a collaborative abolitionist project between Aldridge and John Phillip Simpson, in which Aldridge posed as an enslaved man, entitled The Captive Slave. It was first displayed in 1827 at the Royal Academy of Arts Along with this poem:But Ah! what wish can prosper, or what prayerFor merchants rich in cargoes of despair-Cowper, 1782And then, this masterpiece somehow ended up sitting in a basement for over 180 years, before it was rediscovered in 2009.Aldridge’s acting skill is breathtaking here, as is Simpson’s skill at showing it off. I think everyone should look at this painting and think about it as often as possible, to make up for nearly two centuries of neglect. -- source link

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