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Hey I'm a queer black woman with a degree in theatre and I'm here to tell you that yes it's okay and this wouldn't be a question if it wasn't to fuel your hate boners for particular actors https://twitter.com/aizawasuwu/status/1265366860926726145
It's acting. It's ACTING. They aren't actually saying it. They're saying words that a racist character says and not putting those words in scripts doesn't erase the fact that racists say those words.
This is all especially ludicrous when it's about Blackkklansman which was written and directed by a black man. If you're going to sit there and say that a black writer/director who has consistently written movies surrounding race isn't allowed to decide what the characters
in his stories say then that's paternalistic as fuck and disingenuous. Just say you don't like Adam Driver's face and go!
But even when it's not a black writer, you have to look at it case by case not make blatant statements about what actors are allowed to say in character
Do I think Qu/entin Ta/rantino wrote the character he played in Pulp Fiction just so he could personally day the line "Is there a sign in my front yard that says Dead N*gger Storage?" ABSOLUTELY
*blanket statements not blatant
Is there an issue sometimes with people using racism, homophobia and transphobia as a shorthand for "asshole?" Of course!
But writers also deploy these words with care and censoring them does nothing to combat racism.
I've told this story before but I've personally witnessed an actor going from barely being able to say the n word without stuttering & going red, to being able to convincingly use it on stage. An actor being convincing in their role isn't a sign they're used to using a slur
Anymore than a character being great in bed or good at dancing or football or archery means they're that in real life
These kids really are out here like "The Hays Code, but make it STRICTER"
Y'all can choose to do whatever you want with your little milquetoast coffee shop stories but you not liking an actor doesn't mean you get to dictate the rules
So another example from my theatre experience. I was stage managing a production of The Glass Menagerie. There are several different revisions of this play and the director chose one edition because he liked some of the changes, but this one edition has Amanda referring to
one of the servants on her family's estate as the n word during one of her recollections. This is the only edition where this happens
As a company we discussed whether or not to keep it. My take was that ultimately Amanda is supposed to be a sympathetic character and while her use of the word might not have caused people to bat an eyelash in the 1940s but today it might turn people against her
We also talked about whether it had the potential to take people out of the moment. But, I don't think we would have had the discussion if it was in all the editions
We ended up changing it to boy and I know some would argue for keeping it and at a different theatre they might be right. I still don't know if we made the right decision
But there was never any question about whether the actress should be allowed to say it (though she was relieved to not have to)
