- \n
- Diversity, Reality, Everyday Life <\/a><\/li>\n
- New Faces <\/a><\/li>\n
- Gender (Script) and Appearance (Casting) <\/a><\/li>\n
- It\u2018s All in The Mind <\/a><\/li>\n
- THE SPLIT: Equality and Ethnic Diversity<\/a><\/li>\n
- Catching up with Reality – Three Acters<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Diversity, Reality, Everyday Life<\/span><\/h2>\n
Many years ago a casting director put me forward for the role of a nurse, but I was rejected on grounds that that was not what a nurse looked like. Really? If I had become a nurse instead of an actress, then at least one nurse in Germany would have looked like me. “No, but not on television<\/em>\u201c. Recently I was rejected for the role of a social worker, because of “too old\u201c. Seriously? Do they stop working when they reach fourty?<\/span><\/p>\n
Not fitting in the picture<\/strong> is something that many acting colleagues, born and raised in Germany like me but with a visible migration background, experience as well, probably more often. “Without an explanation I can\u2018t just cast you as [role ABC]<\/em>\u201c. Without explaining what? The perfect Bavarian dialect? A certain profession? The normality?<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
New Faces<\/span><\/h2>\n
It is imperative to create gender equality onscreen in order to reflect the world in which we live and to inspire us all. It won’t do any more to tell societal, political, social, private, futuristics stories from a male perspective with eternally male biased onscreen ensembles.<\/strong> Actually, this was never alright, but common practice.<\/span><\/p>\n
Variety not only includes (more than two) genders but also various appearances and differing living realities of people. And they should not only be visible when they are at the centre of a narrative \u2013 a blind teacher (PEAS AT 5:30), an accountant of Pakistani heritage (AE FOND KISS), a pregnant woman (ROSEMARY\u2018S BABY), a deaf young woman (CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD), an overweight bride (BACHELORETTE) or a struggling unemployed (I, DANIEL BLAKE). They should also appear as supports or even extras \u2013 as far as it fits the story. To use the example of a fictionalization of the cardinal convention to elect a pope: there will be younger and (mainly) older men, white or any other colour, fat and slim, wearing glasses or using walkers. But no women. And no openly gays.<\/span><\/p>\n
However the standard for scripts and especially for casting<\/strong> \u2013 not only in Germany \u2013 seems to be oriented towards white, young, more or less good-looking, slim, heterosexual women and white, young and old, good-looking to ugly, slim to very fat heterosexual men.<\/span><\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Gender (Script) and Appearance (Casting)<\/span><\/h2>\n
I invented the method NEROPA Neutral Roles Parity<\/strong> to raise the share of female roles in scripts by that simple, non-invasive way of identifying the<\/span> neutral roles<\/span><\/strong> whose \u2013 mostly male \u2013 gender is not essential for the story. (as a side note: I am not calling for a <\/span>50 %<\/span> <\/strong>female quota or target for every film, but am suggesting a method<\/strong> that can be applied by every production right away and that help \u2013 e.g. alongside commissioning new ideas and formats and applying<\/strong> NEROPA during Script Development<\/a> \u2013 shortening the road to gender parity onscreen<\/strong>.)<\/span><\/p>\n
To further diversify the onscreen characters I suggest as a second step using the NEROPA Finetuning<\/strong>, which is a task for the competent hands or minds of casting directors. Actively, i.e. with an announcement (\u201eDo this!\u201c), and with the necessary freedom of action, trusting that they can propose great, varied and exciting casts and ensembles. Because they know all the actresses and actors, not only the broadcasters\u2018 shortlist of TV faces and a handful of \u201eleading roles suitably\u201c names.<\/span><\/p>\n
The next images demonstrate the effects NEROPA can have: Image 1 shows the original male biased situation, image 2 with more female roles as a result of NEROPA (see NEROPA Method<\/a>), image 3 the roles after casting of actresses and actors (see <\/span>NEROPA Finetuning<\/a>).<\/p>\n
- New Faces <\/a><\/li>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/neropa_fig-1.png\" "\\"neropa_fig-1\\"")
<\/a><\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/neropa_fig-2.png\" "\\"neropa_fig-2\\"")
<\/a><\/div><\/div>![\"\"](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/neropa_fig-4.png\")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/schspin_the-split_cast2-en.jpg\" "\\"schspin_the-split_cast2-en\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/schspin_the-split_cast-en.jpg\" "\\"schspin_the-split_cast-en\\"")
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/schspin_the-split_cast-perc_en.jpg\" "\\"schspin_the-split_cast-perc_en\\"")
![\"Ethnische](\"https:\/\/schspin.stieve.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/neropa_fig-3-600x360.png\")