Dance Ten, Looks Three, Skin Light

The Chairman of the Democratic Party of New Mexico has issued a statement:

The message Governor Martinez is sending here is not just that she doesn’t want Hispanics to visit the state – although that alone would be bad enough. It’s that she doesn’t believe the state should be proud of our incredible Hispanic cultural heritage. It’s that our Hispanic culture isn’t worthy of being put front and center.

That’s sad, and it’s inexplicable coming from anyone purporting to represent the people of New Mexico. But it’s even stranger coming from the first Hispanic woman ever elected Governor in New Mexico. Today she does not speak for me, and she does not speak for the vast majority of Hispanics in New Mexico. I’m appalled, and Gov. Martinez should be embarrassed. She should apologize, retract this insulting casting call, and open up any advertising that she uses taxpayer dollars for to actors that truly represent the full spectrum of incredible diversity we have in New Mexico.”

http://networkedblogs.com/vfRZJ?a=share

Sigh. It makes me angry yet also laugh because of the stupidity of it all.

Darker skinned Hispanics are the new untouchables?

You people never seen a casting breakdown before? You’re so cute living in your socialist bubble.

Say you’re casting Brigadoon (a nonsensical musical with a pretty grand score). It’s about scottish people. They are all blonde. We send out a casting call to invite men who can sing/dance and wimmins similar. at the chorus call the first thing that happens is the type out. The choreographer, or his assistant, plus director, ditto, go through the hundreds of applicants for each slot by typing them out for being too tall, too ugly, too black, too white, too attitude, too white bread, too whatever, too this and plus.

Y’all need to go on an audition and meet the real world. You have no idea what it’s like.

Our dear noje is quoting A Chorus Line. The song makes its point.

@Benedick: Yes, dear sir, but the New Mexicans I see walking around Santa Fe daily include more than just light-skinned Hispanics and Caucasians. Basically, the Tourism Department was trying to present a non-threatening version of New Mexico to potential tourists that also fits in with the anti-Mexican tenor of our times.

Anyway, the Washington Post is on it already so I expect that the ad in its original conception will never be seen.

@Benedick:
Hey now. I can reproduce a passable Scottish accent (Edinburgh) and if I could sing and dance well, I’d just go to the next audition of Brigadoon to disprove that.

Kidding aside, I see your point, but as RML posted above… it’s not the fact they want Hispanics but only the “white” looking ones that is the problem.

@redmanlaw: I’ll have to pay attention to the faces in the California ad the next time. Although Betty White is too obvious.

@nojo: The Gulf Coast/BP tourism ad is not afraid to show black people.

A well-placed journalist of my acquaintance says the L.A. Times story will be moving soon. I believe I shall get her a beer tonight.

@redmanlaw: I got cast as Justin Bateman’s father because I have a beard, he has a beard, the director has a beard. You can’t bring logic or decency to bear. Casting projects our fantasies of how the world should be, good and bad, onto your TV. Only believe that it is much much better than it was 20 years ago.

Here’s a puzzlement: You are the casting director for a musical set on a South Pacific island during WWII. You have to call in male dancers for the ensemble. Do you include black or asian men? Knowing that the armed forces were segregated? Are you true to the period or to now?

And why has no one done a movie based on Hamlet set among the American Nations? Or any kind of serious view of their culture? If there is such a thing please enlighten me. What do we even call America before the devastation of the original people? What was that expanse named as? There is a wonderful history of South Africa called Frontiers. Massive and, I would guess, a commercial failure. It’s a beautiful book which climaxes in the destruction of the Xhosa people. A story of terror and agony which parallels, it seems to me, what happened to the Nations as Yankees devoured their land.

@redmanlaw: I think you miss the point. The light skinned hispanic or caucasian family will represent the tourists not the residents of New Mexico.

The New Mexico tourist board is putting out the touristy welcome mat for only white folk from Houston and Dallas, (San Antonio and El Paso,yeeh not so much) and light-skinned hispanics like all your celeburty hispanics you see on tv.

See coloreds don’t ski and dark hispanics only come from Mexico in the middle of the night, right. If these groups get the idea they are welcomed they might want to buy real estate and stay.

Same message only in reverse.

And plus: When the show was in preview that number was called Tits and Ass. It got a very lukewarm reception. So they changed the title.

Quiz: Where was it first produced? (no google)

Who said that it saved Broadway?

If you have a dance belt up your butt does it make you gay?

@Benedick: You mean I can’t reach for my album if I don’t remember it?

Hmmm…

Not Seattle or Sandy Eggo. DC?

@Benedick:
Hmmm Mary Martin from Weatherford, tx.
Casa Manana Ft. Worth?
No that’s Ruta Lee’s domain.

@redmanlaw: Stunning.

Even more so for the anglo artists’ total acceptance of the conquistador POV. The people could almost be working class Glaswegians of my mother’s girlhood. I’m reminded of Icelanders – than which I have no greater compliment.

What’s the best history?

@Benedick: Dammit, Man! Speak English!

@texrednface: Not Mary Martin. But kisses and bolt the doors. If you need to reach Stinque Riotforce in a hurry to copter you out to Massachusetts call 800-666-BAMA. Meantime our thoughts are with you. (Those which aren’t taken up with Catt and has he taken to pole dancing again. Sometimes an ass just gets too big to split.)

@JNOVw00tah: Jetsons splort.

@Benedick: It’s called column dancing when I do it, darling. You’d be surprised how many chubby chasers are willing to shove a buck in a roll, so to speak.

@Benedick: “Who said that it saved Broadway?” You did.

@Tommmcatt Be Fat, And That Be That: Don’t let Jason Bateman’s Great-Grandfather give you a complex.

@Benedick: Are you borrowing Sir Sean Conery’s wig?

Also: I agree with Benedick- all casting notices are exclusionary and unfair. It helps keep the actors focused on the misery of the process, instead of the fact that there is an entire layer of the industry peopled by assholes who do almost nothing, aren’t laughed at for their choice in profession, and who are always on the right side of the table during an audition.

@redmanlaw: Tell her that the lefty from the other SF raises a glass to her. Job well done.

@Benedick: “What’s the best history?” The truth. But history is written by the victors, right?

I can’t remember the guy’s name, but I was listening to NPR about a year ago or more, and the guy had rerecorded Porgy and Bess. He was working on some other old musical (about black folks). The first lines of the song had been removed from the original production, and he put them back in.

An all-black chorus showed up at the studio, opened the score and saw the N word. They walked out.

Wait. The Spy Who Loved Me? Dude.

@JNOVw00tah: Bernie Jacobs said that. One of the Shuberts, and the scariest human I ever saw in person. Broadway is about real estate. The Shubert Org owns meant theatres. In the 70s most were empty when NYC slid into oblivion. Curtains went up at 7. Then came A Chorus Line. First produced by Joe Papp at The Public it became the thing you had to see before you died. It was a blockbuster hit that encouraged others to produce and started to relight the theatres.

Casting is never fair. Ever. The unions work very hard to level the playing field but even so, if you’re not pretty you are not going work in American movies or TV.

@JNOVw00tah: This is tragic but understandable. Gershwin spent months on one of the Carolina islands trying to capture the Gullah speech of the people. ‘Ol Man Ribber’ begins ‘Niggers all work long da Mississipi. Niggers all work while da white man play… ‘ etc. it’s hard to take nowadays but Gershwin wastryingtohonor

@Benedick: I can’t type on this piece of shit iPad. I’ll update when I can. Love you. What’s up with progeny? Or is it lurking?

@Benedick: why don’t you try the dictation feature. What? You don’t have the dictation feature?

@Tommmcatt Be Fat, And That Be That:
@Benedick: I don’t believe casting for theater or movie is the same as for an advertisement. Oh yes, it is a cattle call. Some of the models are actors or aspiring actors.
The specs are recommended by a branding firm or ad agency who is advising the New Mexico Tourist bureau The New Mexican Tourist bureau is signing off on their recommendations.
( Check out the link, New Mexico went with the lowest bidder.)

In my 28 years working with commercial photographers I have learned, where the ad agencies are concerned ,everything is done through a committee with everyone doing CYA. This is not driven by the creative whims or preferences of a bearded film producer or a bearded director.

On one shoot I worked , the photographer’s producer/stylist cast the models. This was for an ad for a MAJOR software ( the big one) company The specified call was for Asians, young professional Hispanics (you know what that means), Caucasians, and specifically no blacks.

The client, in our case, the New Mexico Tourist Bureau, knows exactly what is going on. They signed off on it.

Proposed new ad slogan: “New Mexico: Much Whiter Than Old Mexico”

@nojo: Well, la-ti-dah, smell you Susie-Q!

@matador1015: +1

@Tommmcatt Be Fat, And That Be That: cannot cuss if this thing, you fucking bastard? Yes. Yes, I can

let’s try that again. Can I cuss with this thing…

there. That’s setter

, Betscher.

dechard, you bastard,

better! Better better better!!

Scandal tainted NM Tourism secretary is pregnant, has two other kids. Will she resign “to spend more time with her family”? If so, when? Betting window closes 5 pm MDT Monday March 19.

http://www.koat.com/news/30704569/detail.html