The American actor Samuel L Jackson this week expressed an interest in whether or not the role played in a recent film by a British actor would have been somehow different (better?) had the role been filled by an American actor.  The film is one in which the two central characters are a young black American dating a young white American.  His argument indicated that interracial dating has been accepted in Britain for a lot longer than in the US and that to have an actor from America embody this role would have brought something different, stating “I tend to wonder what would that movie have been, with an American brother who really understands that…” going on to say that he is sure that the British actor received some help from the director.

But why would the selection of an American actor address this issue differently?  If you are looking for direct experience of racial segregation perhaps a South African actor would be even better placed to bring in direct experience?  Perhaps the American actor you choose was raised in a multi-cultural environment and has no direct experience of racial hatred, they may have one black parent and one white parent…

On a superficial level, the job to which he refers is called acting and involves one person pretending to be someone that they are not, or pretending to be in a situation which they are not.  It would follow that if we are to use only those actors who have a direct and personal experience of something for a role then we will have to drastically change our methods; which taken to the stupid extreme would mean that any person shot in a film must have been or must be shot in real life in order for them to truly inhabit the character of someone being shot!!!  Imagine, blind people could only be played by people who have suffered blindness, superheroes could only be played by real superheroes and who on Earth would we find to play the role of an alien?

On another level, these comments can be seen to be representative of the type of generalisation and stereotyping of people which can lead to discrimination on all levels.  To consider that an actor from one country can bring something which is culturally different to something brought by an actor from another country is to prejudge the experiences of people from both groupings – and to do so not based on a personal and direct experience, but rather on an arbitrary convention which is nationality.  In so doing, we risk attributing values to the cultural differences that we have identified and this is undoubtedly unfair to both the individual and the group (assuming such exists) into which we have placed them – or perhaps into which they placed themselves.  In categorising people we increase the possibility of limiting the options for them due to discrimination; for example, if we consider that only an American actor can play the role of an American character then we automatically place all American actors in the category of ‘American’ and at the same time remove them from all contrary categories; such as ‘Japanese’ or ‘Dutch’.  In certain circumstances (such as the example here of acting) we can also then find ourselves assigning a priority to each of these categories by considering only someone who is Spanish for the role of a Spanish character in a film.

Likewise the act of self-categorisation leaves us open to the pre-judgements of others, since in declaring our auto-categorisation we risk being labelled without our knowledge, and in being labelled, we risk being treated differently due to the generalisations which have been made by the person to whom we are speaking at the time.

Categorisation then is key to the act of discriminating against people, whether that categorisation be voluntary or imposed.  Surely then one clear approach to reducing or avoiding discrimination is to cease to categorise ourselves, something which entails (or results in the fact) that we consider each and every person as equal.  There can be no “women and children first”, there can be no “I need a man for this job”… With perhaps the notable exception of bearing children we must cease to consider that certain roles can only be fulfilled by certain people or types of people, and accept that the role itself needs to be filled – no more, no less.