I wanted my first-year film students to understand what happens to a story when actual human beings inhabit your characters, and the way they can inspire storytelling. And I wanted to teach them how to look at headshots and what you might be able to tell from a headshot. So for the past few years Iâve done a small experiment with them.
Some troubling shit always occurs.
It works like this: I bring in my giant file of head shots, which include actors of all races, sizes, shapes, ages, and experience levels. Each student picks a head shot from the stack and gets a few minutes to sit with the personâs face and then make up a little story about them.Â
Namely, for white men, they have no trouble coming up with an entire history, job, role, genre, time, place, and costume. They will often identify him without prompting as âthe main character.â The only exception? âHe would play the gay guy.â For white women, they mostly do not come up with a job (even though it was specifically asked for), and they will identify her by her relationships. âShe would play the mom/wife/love interest/best friend.â Iâve heard âShe would play the slutâ or âShe would play the hot girl.â A lot more than once.
For nonwhite men, it can be equally depressing. âHeâs in a buddy cop movie, but heâs not the main guy, heâs the partner.â âHeâd play a terrorist.â âHeâd play a drug dealer.â âA thug.â âA hustler.â âHomeless guy.â One Asian actor was promoted to âvillain.â
For nonwhite women (grab onto something sturdy, like a big glass of strong liquor), sometimes they are âluckyâ enough to be classified as the girlfriend/love interest/mom, but I have also heard things like âWell, sheâd be in a romantic comedy, but as the friend, you know?â âMaid.â âProstitute.â âDrug addict.â
I should point out that the responses are similar whether the group is all or mostly-white or extremely racially mixed, and all the groups Iâve tried this with have been about equally balanced between men and women, though individual responses vary. Women do a little better with women, and people of color do a little better with people of color, but female students sometimes forget to come up with a job for female actors and black male students sometimes tell the class that their black male actor wouldnât be the main guy.
Once the students have made their pitches, we interrogate their opinions. âYou seem really sure that heâs not the main character â why? What made you automatically say that?â âYou said she was a mom. Was she born a mom, or did she maybe do something else with her life before her magic womb opened up and gave her an identity? Who is she as a person?â In the case of the âthugâ, it turns out that the student was just reading off his film resume. This brilliant African American actor who regularly brings houses down doing Shakespeare on the stage and more than once made me weep at the beauty and subtlety of his performances, had a list of film credits that just said âThug #4.â âGang member.â âMuscle.â Because thatâs the film work he can get. Because it puts food on his table.
So, the first time I did this exercise, I didnât know that it would turn into a lesson on racism, sexism, and every other kind of -ism. I thought it was just about casting. But now I know that casting is never just about casting, and this day is a real teachable opportunity. Because if we do this right, we get to the really awkward silence, where the (now mortified) students try to sink into their chairs. Because, hey, most of them are proud Obama voters! They have been raised by feminist moms! They donât want to be or see themselves as being racist or sexist. But their own racism and sexism is running amok in the room, and itâs awkward.
