A Strange Aspect To Performing That Should Be Cause For Protest, But Isn’t

Hey there, it’s Stephen H Lawrence the 17th. And today I want to talk to you about something. That’s really really.
weird
About our business as performers.
this has been to say the least a
Rocky tumultuous overwhelming
strange and sometimes confusing
It’s the age of me too. And it’s the age of X up and it’s the age of accountability and it’s the age of
diversity and equality and
and yet
as performers
We live with something every single day that defies all that it defies it.
On a regular basis and it’s not something that we even consider.
To be bad because it isn’t it just is what it is.
In any other business what we live with what we recognize as common and standard.
Would never be tolerated.
what I’m talking about
is
job discrimination
total
complete
Job discrimination in what other business?
Could you post a job?
that specifies
an age range
There are federal laws against that.
Right, you couldn’t say a we need someone who is 25 years old to play 18 and under?
Wait a minute. What about all the 26 27 50 45 70 year old that are available to to play the role. What why are they have
it because we need a 25 year old need someone who can
Drink liquor or smoke a cigarette and play a teenager. So that’s what we do.
age discrimination
and every single category of discrimination
Just like wide-open gender race.
Age looks disability sexual orientation.
It’s all based on the part and we live with it.
We don’t sit there and go why how dare you you tell me that? I’m too short.
that’s
take discrimination or how dare you tell me that I’m not pretty enough to do this or I’m
b2prity to do this or I’m too fat or too thin or too ugly or too black or too white where could we possibly
Ask for someone to addition to to apply for a job cuz that’s what we do when we audition right?
apply for a job
and
Be able to speak.
Adele don’t make it all kinds of Flowery words, you know, but street lingo.
For Appalachian ethnicity, you know hillbilly.
You know a stick up the but you know genteel.
What about people who are?
Are hearing actors the play deaf people.
You know, what about wheelchair-bound people that aren’t really wheelchair-bound are only wheelchair-bound in the story,
you know.
I need a black person. Sorry. We went with a black purse when we that Hispanic first. We went with an ethnically ambiguous
person.
We need a white guy. We need a white guy. Our villain is a big fat old.
loud white guy
That’s what we’re looking for.
That’s what the story calls for. That’s what the writer wrote We are so at ease with this.
Where is it in any other business? We’d be like tearing our hair out if that was one of the one of the requirements to get
a job.
Because we understand we’ve spoken we’ve been told it’s not you. It’s the story. It’s the writer. It’s the story.
Writers are charged with being diverse.
and being inclusive
You know of people are getting you know of a level stars are getting Riders put in their contract where you know directors
have to be diverse and inclusive in.
the the
the parts that people come up with
Have to be multi.
Inclusive like we’ll take a Pacific Islander.
Or we’ll take a Hispanic person or will take a white person. We want one of those. We just really want a villain.
We want a creepy evil villain, right?
Sleep under it.
We talked about it.
And then we just move on we don’t sit there. I mean, yes, there have been certain times in our history.
when
Other abled people. I think that’s the current phrase for it. I just want to be clear.
I mean disabled, but I’m also thinking of you know other Lee abled people.
who have
I’ve been very upset when
Portico nominal or normal actors
affect
A disability and do a part. They pretend to be blind. They pretend to be deaf or they pretend to have some sort of disease
that
Makes it hard for them to walk or confined to a wheelchair.
and then there were times when we hire people like RJ on Breaking Bad who has
You know cerebral palsy I believe is what he suffers for cerebral palsy.
Because the character is CP.
But it’s not something that in any other business would be a federal offense.
jailable
companies would pay a steep and heavy fine for
We live with discrimination.
We live with the idea that if we don’t match.
the expectations of the casting and the director and the writer
How can I get the job? I mean, yes, according to Michael kostroff it according to me because I follow what he says. We’re
not getting the job anyway.
But isn’t it weird?
That we have achieved a level of understanding.
and parody
about this
like no other aspect of society
and
It means somebody’s not going to get the job.
and somebody is
So there’s this massive discrimination only one person can get the job.
And we talked about it. We ponder it we
We Pander to the demands.
of
The story in the Creator nothing else. We don’t Pander to a specific.
Rights group that says we must have this you must do this you must hire you must cast
No, we we must we don’t we don’t have to we don’t have to.
And we live with it.
And I wonder how this happens.
I wonder why.
Sure, I bet it’s frustrating for actors who don’t get the gig.
But it’s pretty nice for actors. Who do
Right doesn’t try to go across everything.
I wonder how we ended. How do you think about these things?
When you go in for something and you sit in the area outside the the audition space and you see 50 different age sex cells
and ranges.
ethnic rages ranges and looks and
Genders and how does that make you feel tell me in the comments below? What do you think?
when you know
that
They could be utterly capricious and say yep. We went in a different direction.
You know we went for this.
I just find this whole thing fascinating. I wonder what you think about it. Leave me a comment below this video if your on
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I’m David H Lawrence xvii. I thank you so much for watching and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.