You mean well, and thank you for the input! But the issues goes deeper than just finding someone, the right one, or the right stunt person.
Inej Ghafa is a brown character from the books meant to be played by a brown woman. She’s an acrobat, and given the circumstance that she is in during the course of the books and the show, being an acrobat is very culturally and ethnically very significant to her.
They chose a white woman take her place instead of training Amita Suman herself (and she has gone through vigorous training for various scenes), and the stunts on the show, as other viewers (esp. acrobats themselves) have pointed out that the stunts could have been done by Amita herself with adequate training, since they’re not the most complex. All without brining in another person from a different race and skin colour.
But the problem isn’t even that. The fact that the show runners and the production team sought to paint a white woman brown with mesh tops and etc. and take the place specifically reserved for a brown woman, and very integral to her character, even for stunts, is very, very wrong.
The production was wrapped up in February 2020, long before the pandemic was raging. There were ample spaces for the team to look for someone who would take the space rightfully and show Inej Ghafa in the best possible way. You may be right—perhaps the team did look for someone and not find them; but that may be ridiculous in itself because the cinema industry in South Asia is large. Very vibrant and very large, with many stunts, many of which completely defy the gravity itself.
By not choosing a stunt woman of colour, or a person of colour, or even someone who could have helped Amita learn the stunts, or do it themselves to the best of their ability, to what could be rightfully theirs to portray—the showrunners lack the faith to stay true to the characters’ integrity.
And for Amita Suman, a woman so profoundly impacted by Inej, be seen so easily replaceable by a white woman in a space where roles for brown women are so scarce, I can’t even imagine how hurtful that must have been.
If the show runners can’t be bothered to stay as true as possible to the characters and the story, I can’t imagine why they should be show runners in the first place.
2087
germansingergirl
izzy806
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