Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2020 July 1

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July 1

"Race reversed" casting started in 1997?

According to Race-reversed casting, having actors play characters of a different color was invented in 1997. How is what Patric Steward did in 1997 different from other non-traditional color casting such as in The Wiz (which has the traditional white characters played by black actors)? RudolfRed (talk) 00:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Although the original books had Dorothy and the other humans as white, there's nothing inherently racial in the story, so any casting can work. And casting of that type certainly was not "invented" in 1997. For example, Ed Ames, a Jew, played an Indian named Mingo in one of Fess Parker's TV series in the 1960s. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:24, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

And blackface acts go back almost 200 years. --76.71.5.208 (talk) 01:55, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Boxing as a spectator sport goes back to the Stone Age, but like all history, only the 20th century matters. There once lived a mighty black king named Jack who terrified the general American so much, they joined hands, burned crosses and prayed for a Great White Hope. After much convolution, all was well enough by 1936, till suddenly a mean old Aryan baron named Max appeared to threaten the Jewish audience somewhat. And who did America bet the collective farm on but Joe Louis, who was miscast as "The Brown Bomber" before being popularly flipcast as the "Great Black Hope" 60 years later, one year before '97, by an obscure scribe called Bak (and earlier, cover date October/November 1978, in a magazine called American Heritage). InedibleHulk (talk) 03:22, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Patrick Stewart's innovation was to have all the characters in a work with an explicit racial theme played by actors of the "opposite" colour to that which was originally intended for that work. While it's possible that someone, somewhere had done this before, it presumably hadn't been done in any milieux that had been noticed by the general tradition of what one might call mainstream theatre. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.20 (talk) 06:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies, everyone. RudolfRed (talk) 02:09, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Just so you know, there is major disruption happening on this page right now. It may need to be page-protected or monitored by an admin at the very least. Thanks. Maineartists (talk) 13:19, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Name of this radio background music

Does anyone know the name or source of the radio news background music that plays in this video from around 0:04 to 0:25? It wasn't made specifically for GTA San Andreas as I've heard this very song (not sure if the exact same version or a different one) played in a local news AM station before, which suggests it might be a famous or at least widely-used one. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like some generic music used on a news programme while the headlines are read out. Lugnuts ^{Fire Walk with Me} 19:43, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Yup it sounds like a typical musical sting for any news program - still it was composed by somebody. I wonder if there as a website out there that has a library of that stuff. In days of yore a program like The Huntley–Brinkley Report would use a bit from the third movement of Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) but generic music seems to be the way to go today. It is a far cry from the glorious intro used at wonderful WINO :-) MarnetteD|Talk 20:14, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

This site has stuff for days. InedibleHulk (talk) 10:14, 3 July 2020 (UTC)