MovieChat Forums > Some Girls (2012) Discussion > It's got potential

It's got potential

posted 11 years ago by blackvenus800000
12 replies | jump to latest

My first thought when seeing the poster for this was, " oh no, another cr*p British show about 'young people' ".

It's impossible for writers to write credible teen characters.
There aren't any teen writers being given the chance to write for tv/film.
There are only (usually) middle-aged men and women.
Even if they were a 'wild child' when they were young, things have changed too much for them to keep current.

The dialogue is always dated.
Probably because by the time they're aware of certain slang words, they're already years (or sometimes decades) old.
The characters are often nothing more than older people's IDEA of teenagers today. Worse still, they're very often copies of IDEAS taken from other tv shows, which weren't credible in the first place.
So, we end up with a middle-aged person's idea of a teen that's played by a young adult.
This is something we've seen on tv numerous times before. It's time to change the game, please!

The actors who played Viva, Amber, Saz, Rob and Anna are all competent. Holli and Brandon suffered with wooden and stilted delivery. Possibly because the dialogue was unnatural.

We were trying to work out what was going on with the casting of Viva's family. She's black but she's got a mixed race dad and a mixed race brother. Ooooooookay.

Ending on a positive, it's refreshing to see a British show with a black lead character who isn't portrayed as some kind of criminal!

[–] SloaneLondon 11 years ago

I found it pretty funny. Will keep watching.

[–] forherwealth 11 years ago

Uh there's no reason that guy can't be her dad

Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

[–] blackvenus800000 11 years ago

Uh there's no reason that guy can't be her dad
I'm only talking about biologically, maybe I wasn't clear.

I don't have anything against Colin Salmon as an actor at all. I'm just making an observation that this is lazy and inaccurate casting, something that casting agents are often guilty of. There are PLENTY of actors of all races, yet black actors are woefully under-used.
There are plenty of mixed race actors, many of whom are cast in roles of 'black' characters.

Adelayo Adedayo, the actress who played Viva, is black. Colin Salmon, the actor who played her dad, is bi-racial. Both Adelayo's biological parents are black (and so are all her grandparents). Colin's biological father is black, his biological mother is white.

It's biologically impossible for Colin to be her father. It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so glaringly obvious to the eye!
They could've cast an Indian boy as her brother. Or a Chinese boy then. If they're going to throw biology out the window, why not?
I've only seen this happen with black casting though.

Things don't change or improve without people first saying something.

[–] forherwealth 11 years ago

casting is usually like that because of whitewashing in the media.

That being said, you don't know very much about genetics do you? It's is most definitely not genetically impossible for a darker skinned child to come from a so-called mixed-race person. There are plenty of instances, where, say a black father and a white mother will give birth to a set of twins, where one appears white and the other "black." Or where parents that are in the lighter skin hues have darker children, even if they are of the same ethnicity.

If you're going to say, "the media favours light skin," that's a reasonable argument. Saying it's genetically impossible? BS. In the same vein, two white parents can have a child that looks "black" and two darker skinned parents can have a lighter skinned child, because of colonialism and genetics/allele pairings.

Hell, even if her dad WAS Chinese, there's no reason why she couldn't come out looking the way she does.

Buffy vs Edward: Twilight Remixed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

[–] blackvenus800000 11 years ago

Babe, that's not what I said.
I'm well aware that there are genetic throwbacks etc.
There is no 100% certainty what complexion offspring will come out.
I was talking about the actors SPECIFICALLY.

I made a point of saying that the actress (not the character) is black. And the actor (not the character) is bi-racial. Therefore it IS biologically impossible for her to be his biological child.
It's jarring to us (those who noticed and commented on it) because we KNOW the actress is black and the actor is bi-racial.
Why wasn't a more feasible actor cast as her father? There are thousands of black actors to choose from, if they could be bothered.

If Dakota Fanning was cast as Colin Salmon's daughter, wouldn't it look odd to you? Knowing that it's possible for him to have a child of that complexion doesn't stop you from knowing that he's actually bi-racial and she's actually white?
I commented on Viva's family because more than one person around me mentioned it, so I knew it wasn't just strange to me.

It's definitely a given that the media always opt for white or light actors. Being an actor, if you're black, is not a great career choice. Odds are, you'll get cast as a drug user/dealer, prostitute, thug, single mother, token black friend or magical negro.
But I was originally just pointing out that everyone watching with me questioned what was going on with her family casting.
It would be refreshing if the media actually portrayed a black family, using actual black actors.
Is there a rule that there can only ever be 1 black person on screen at any one time? :-)

[–] fuhgeddaboutit01 11 years ago

don't expect BBC to have any common sense in casting. It's far too politically correct.

[–] suchalovelylady 11 years ago

"Politically correct." Only in this world would people complain that there are too many brown people on tv. I suppose if the cast was all white... BBC would be rebellious and daring? Having 50% of the main cast be black and asian is a problem.

Anyway, I agree with the OP. The show needs to sharpen up a bit... but, it really does have potential.

[–] XxLu-LuXx 11 years ago

Race aside I've really enjoyed this show. It's nice to see a drama set on a council estate where it does not involve guns or gangs. I also think it's an authentic portrait of when I was growing up. Plus its funny!

[–] conductor71 11 years ago

"don't expect BBC to have any common sense in casting. It's far too politically correct." - fuhgeddaboutit01

Yes, I certainly picked up straight away on the obvious political correctness in this series but maybe not as others did. What I saw was the familiar old BBC chestnut of the black and Asian characters being the smarter, saner ones who study hard and don't get into trouble with the police, whilst the two white characters (three if you count Mel, the young cider-swigging teenage mother on the estate) are all completely dysfunctional losers in different ways:-

Amber is totally daft and has multiple sex with boys of any race and then describes it all in graphic detail to her mates afterwards; Holli is violent, from a stereotypical dysfunctional family where the parents are presumably such failures that she has to bring up her vast horde of younger siblings. She'll obviously end up in the criminal justice system soon if she isn't part of it already; Mel- well I've already summed her up in the previous paragraph. She also refers to her young baby as 'Baldy'.

It also didn't escape my notice that all the characters had to be described as 16-year olds, to play safe. In reality, they would be getting up to these things two years earlier, but, particularly in the menacing anti-BBC Savile witch hunt era that the series was first broadcast in, you can understand why all the girls had to be at least 16 years old. After all, we don't want another BBC Director General having to resign even quicker than the last one in response to another Daily Mail outrage campaign!

Other PC traits included negative portrayals of the girls' male peer group- examples being Viva's brother who is constantly playing with himself and Amber's first boyfriend in the series, sex-obsessed Brandon, who is just the complete stereotype of a black teenage boy, don't you think? However, given that we are supposed to be seeing the series from the point of view of a 16-year old girl and her mates, I think that in this instance, I can accept the one-dimensional view of their boyfriends and brothers as all being part of the general joke. After all, this is supposed to be a comedy series- not a drama.

To sum up, I think the political correctness has backfired to some extent, because the funniest and most attention-grabbing characters by a very long way are actually the dysfunctional white ones- Amber and Holli. Without them, the series would be completely dead in the water. No matter how hard the writer tries to tell us it is all about unstereotypical Viva, it is not. It is about her two white, very sterotypical friends and I have to admit it is them that has kept me watching this and loving it so far. As for the Asian character- sorry but I just don't have any empathy or affection for her. However, a prosperous future awaits the actress who plays her. No doubt she'll be popping up as a 'token' in Eastenders at some point, along with 1,001 other TV dramas.

[–] cougar18 11 years ago

I think you are being a bit too harsh on the character of Saz. We got a better glimpse into her character in the last episode, notably her body hair issue.
It was funny seeing her friends mention all of the different nick names she had accumulated.
We also got to see more of her family, so we are being given more information about her character.

We are being given far more information about the different families, also, in the more recent episodes. Holli and Saz families for example are giving us some more information.
Like others have said, the show is showing some strong potential.

[–] Trouble-GTB 11 years ago

Firstly it's not about genetic throwbacks, it's not freak occurrences, it's common for children to look different than their parents.

Secondly, it's ridiculous to get so caught up on the races of the actors: The actors are hired to play a part, that means they are pretending to be people they aren't really. It's good that they hire actors for their skill rather than getting caught up on who they are in their own lives.

When it comes to familial relationships, as long as it's feasible that they're related in terms of appearance, and they do a good job, who cares. In fact even if they decided to get a Japanese father as he's the best actor for the job, then great, she can be adopted, or maybe the mother was already pregnant when she met the father (and you can chose to believe that if the different races of the actors bothers you oh-so much)

There are so many movies/shows where they have a mother and daughter who have exactly the same blonde hair but their facial features are so completely different that they couldn't possibly be related... That's a much bigger problem. They focus on the most blatant, obvious traits that they ignore the rest, yet you have taken it to the opposite extreme; you don't seem to care about the acting ability, indeed, you seem to have forgotten that they are in fact acting out a role. Everyone should just enjoy the show or change the channel.

Argh people are frustrating! Well I've ranted and rambled enough.

[–] Trouble-GTB 11 years ago

THANK YOU!!

My mother is much darker than my dad and I'm the the same colour as her, though a shade or two lighter. But both my sisters are much darker than all of us and they're a very different colour, much redder base rather than a yellowish/brownish base

(that bit may have made no sense without seeing us)

All I'm saying is you're right, it's entirely plausible for her to be his daughter colour wise