But as Anita Singh argues in the Telegraph’s review of the miniseries, other adaptations of the Tudor period have taken comparable liberties without attracting the level of ire directed at Turner-Smith. Though some creators have taken steps to combat whitewashing, either through color-blind casting or the intentional casting of non-white actors (Broadway blockbuster Hamilton and Netflix drama “ Bridgerton” stand out as recent examples), the furor over “Anne Boleyn” underscores the polarizing nature of this approach. Instances of Hollywood whitewashing real-life historical figures abound, from John Wayne as Genghis Khan in The Conqueror (1956) to Elizabeth Taylor as the title character in Cleopatra (1963). Anne Boleyn was beautiful, witty, vibrant, intelligent and Jodie is all of those things.”Ī post shared by Channel 5 casting is part of a broader trend within the cultural sphere. Mark Stanley, a white actor who portrays Anne’s husband, the mercurial Henry VIII, tells that “t was all about this being the right person for the job, rather than what we as a society might perceive as the ‘right look’ for the job. Instead of practicing color-blind casting, the show’s creators adopted an “identity-conscious” approach to choosing its stars, reports Flora Carr for.
In addition to Turner-Smith, the show features Black actors Paapa Essiedu as Anne’s brother and Thalissa Teixeira as the queen’s cousin. The three-part production, which premiered earlier this week, revisits the final days of Anne’s life from her own perspective, framing the intrigues of Tudor court as a psychological thriller rather than a historically accurate period drama.
The racist overtones of this outcry weren’t lost on Turner-Smith, who tells Glamour’s Abigail Blackburn that she knew “it would be something that people felt very passionately about, either in a positive or a negative way, because Anne is a human in history who people feel very strongly about.” As the actress adds, she responded to the criticism by focusing on the story she and the series’ creators wanted to tell-a “human story” of Anne as a mother. When British broadcaster Channel 5 announced the cast of its “ Anne Boleyn” miniseries last October, the show’s eponymous star-Black actress Jodie Turner-Smith-faced immediate backlash from critics who objected to a woman of color portraying the white Tudor queen. “But you have to remember that it’s not a historical reconstruction: it’s a thriller it’s a drama it’s entertainment.” “We have these iconic figures from history and literature, who people feel possessive about in some way,” says scholar Miranda Kaufman, author of Black Tudors: The Untold Story.
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