Ethnicity a sore spot in cop show remake
A U.S. TV comedy cop show called Brooklyn Nine-Nine has been remade here in French as Escouade 99 (see trailer) and will be shown soon on Videotron. But a Latina actress who played a cop character on the original show is not happy that her character is being played by a white Québécoise.
The American actress should be aware that the ethnic mix here is not a carbon copy of New York City’s. Anyway, at least the roles played by Black actors in the U.S. version are played in Escouade 99 by Black actors from here.
Den of Geek writes about it here: “the often shamelessly weird and predominantly French‑speaking Canadian province will have its very own version of Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
Faiz imam 20:47 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
If you look up fumeros comments, she’s very much aware of the ethnic differences.
But she makes a really solid point:
“While I understand the Latina population is v small in Quebec (& how many of them are funny actors?) the Amy and Rosa roles could’ve gone to ANY BIPOC so it’s disappointing to see that missed opportunity.”
How many Arab actors are there in Quebec? How many black actors? How about indigenous ones?
The answer is that there are a TON. The show could have tapped into any one of those communities and used it to produce some very interesting plot lines.
I’m a huge fan of B99, I have watched the entire show 2-3 times. It does a fantastic job showing a culture of positive empathy, while also tackling serious issues.
This show looks like a pale imitation.
MarcG 21:02 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
If they wanted the show to reflect reality shouldn’t it be 9.5 white men and half a white woman? I find it strange when art misrepresents what actually is… but I understand that it’s important for people from different communities to get paid and represented on the screen… but isn’t instulting to black people to have this TV show display a black person as the head of the police department when that’s never really going to happen? I’m a middle class white guy so I can only say philisophically that I think that I would want actual equality and justice rather than a false mirror of it on the TV. Is this a chicken or the egg thing?
MarcG 21:04 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
Make that 9.5 white men, .25 white women, and .25 clowns, as per the shameless weirdness.
Kate 22:33 on 2020-08-22 Permalink
This is the thing. The show is set in a police station in Quebec City, not even in Montreal. The odds of a setup there where the station head and another cop in the station could be Black, and several of the other officers Latina, are not high.
Diversity is great, but for a situation comedy, the situation has to be at least plausible before the hijinks break out.
Dhomas 00:04 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
It’s a tv show; you’re supposed to suspend disbelief. If it were exactly like real life, it wouldn’t be funny and no one would watch it. The whole premise of the show is kinda “wouldn’t it be funny if…”. I’m pretty sure there have never been any gay black police captains in NYC, but it doesn’t make B99 any less funny of a show. As Faiz imam said, they could have thrown in an Arab actor. Or a First Nation one? An Irish one. An Italian one. Hell, even a French (from France) one. Any of these could have developed some interesting plot lines.
MarcG 09:33 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
Righto. I misunderstood the criticism.
As an aside, it’s interesting that there’s so much mass entertainment about cops. They must have a big propaganda budget. Where’s qatzelok when you need him?
Kate 10:23 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
qatzelok is still banned. He’s been banned and un-banned before – I do it whenever he gets exceptionally idée-fixy and persistent.
Do you really want him back?
MarcG 11:27 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
Nope, I was just kidding
JaneyB 11:37 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
“the often shamelessly weird and predominantly French-speaking Canadian province”. What?? That author should not be writing about Quebec, especially while attempting to talk about minorities and cultural representation.
Kate 13:18 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
JaneyB, I thought that was actually a fairly affectionate characterization.
jeather 13:33 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
I saw a tweet, which I have since lost track of, that says that the Hispanic population in Quebec is larger than we think. Even if it’s not, there is no need to default back to white. I don’t think that “well this couldn’t happen in the real world (or it’s unlikely), so let’s give roles mostly to white men” would be the winner in terms of not insulting Black people (or women, something B99 is not great on). It’s not as if people were given the choice “actual representation in the real world, or one sitcom, not both”.
Uatu 14:50 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
Actually write in the minority cops as mandated diversity hires and watch the hilarity ensue! Maybe it could get Sugar Sammy a guest spot too.
DeWolf 18:05 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
It’s understandable that someone outside the very particular context of US racial politics would look at Melissa Fumero and Stephanie Beatriz and see a couple of white women, and wouldn’t see a problem in replacing them with white Québécoise actors. But part of the spirit of the show is its diverse cast, which has given it plenty of opportunities to discuss various cultural and political issues.
In other words, Fumero has a point – it would have been much more appropriate to cast ethnic minority actors for Rosa and Amy’s characters. After all, it’s a sitcom, not a documentary, which means it has no obligation to reflect the demographic reality of Quebec City. It’s not like the original version is an accurate version of a New York detective squad to begin with.
Daniel 18:22 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
Whitewashing those two important POC characters is insulting to the spirit of the original. And it doesn’t matter what racial breakdown we would normally see in a Quebec City police department. It’s a goofy sitcom, if you’re hung up on accuracy, you’re not going to make it far with this series.
Kids are inspired by what they see on TV and in movies, and it can have a deep effect on what they want to do with their future. This casting only furthers the problematic and institutional whiteness of our police force.
Kate 18:24 on 2020-08-23 Permalink
It seems like Patrick Huard is having to excuse himself repeatedly for his choice of casting. But the show is made now – maybe if it’s renewed for another season they will change things up a bit.
jeather 08:29 on 2020-08-24 Permalink
If you are making a shot-for-shot remake of a TV show you can probably take the time to google the cast and see that Beatriz and Fumero aren’t white.
Kate 09:57 on 2020-08-24 Permalink
jeather, I’ve seen it questioned on twitter whether the producers of Escouade 99 would have perceived those characters as nonwhite. That’s partly what I mean by U.S. demographics not mapping precisely onto Quebec’s.
GC 10:53 on 2020-08-24 Permalink
If they are reusing the scripts, I wonder what they will do when they get to storylines that revolve around the ethnicity of those characters. (Assuming they have any…I’ve only watched a couple of episodes of the original show.) I assume they must be tweaking a few things, however. New York is a very different city than Quebec, in ways other than demographics, so some of it is just not going to translate.
Blork 12:10 on 2020-08-24 Permalink
I’ve only seen a few minutes of the original show, but as other have pointed out, Quebec City and NYC are very different places on many levels, so I’m not sure how well this will translate. For one thing, I see in the trailer for the Quebec version a scene where the big boss comes in and the detectives all stand up (all wearing civilian clothes) and salute him, military style. Not sarcastically. That would NEVER happen anywhere in Canada, and particularly not in Quebec!
jeather 12:40 on 2020-08-24 Permalink
They might not have seen Beatriz and Fumero as non-white, but again, as people recreating a show, they have a responsibility to actually do some research into this, especially given the regular issues about diversity in casting in Quebec. I’m also unclear why whoever has the rights to B99 approved this version, though I don’t know enough about Hollywood to comment there.
Blork 15:45 on 2020-08-24 Permalink
I think it’s silly to assume they didn’t do any research into the characters and their ethnicity. TV shows — especially ones sold for regional remakes — come with “bibles” that describe characters and their story arcs. All of that would have been discussed at length, most likely. The issue (if there is one) is the CHOICE to not map the characters directly in terms of their ethnicity. I’m speculating that this choice was based on their wanting to find a balance between the breakdown on the original show and what would “fly” in Quebec in terms of being believable enough to catch and keep an audience.
DeWolf is right when he says “After all, it’s a sitcom, not a documentary, which means it has no obligation to reflect the demographic reality of Quebec City.” But maybe the producers thought they needed to reel in the diversity a bit from the original for the sake of believability from the audience’s POV.
…and by “believable” I don’t mean the audience needs to believe it’s real, I mean it can’t depart from it so much that it has no local flavor at all.