Rita Panahi: Why can’t we just allow actors to act?

Cancel culture has come for the acting profession and one cannot deny the delicious irony of the artistic community being bullied by a monster of its own making.

The artistic community is being bullied by a monster of its own making.

Cancel culture has come for the acting profession as it has for every artistic pursuit from music to literature. One cannot deny the delicious irony of the Left eating their own with even the most PC “progressive” projects thwarted by the very ideology that the industry panders to i.e. identity politics-obsessed grievance mongering aka woke wankery.

In recent weeks we’ve seen a number of examples of artistic integrity being compromised by new rules designed to protect the feelings of the perpetually aggrieved.

Last week a production about the LGBT community, starring a member of the LGBT community, was cancelled because the lead actor was the wrong letter in the LGBT melange, according to LGBT activists.

Hugh Sheridan’s casting was deemed deeply offensive and hurtful. The Queer Artist Alliance Australia were among those critical of a non-trans actor being cast in the lead role: “The choice to cast a cis-gender male as a transgender character is offensive and damaging to the trans community,” the group wrote.

Hugh Sheridan’s casting was deemed deeply offensive.

Anne Hathaway in The Witches.

In response the team behind the production issued a grovelling statement about “diversity” and “inclusivity” and promptly withdrew the musical from the 2021 Sydney Festival.

But that little Australian furore was nothing compared to the international backlash faced by Aussie songstress Sia who made the egregious error of casting a non-autistic actor to play an autistic teenager in a film she has written and directed.

Sia was slammed for having a “neurotypical” (yes, that’s a word now) actor play the non-verbal autistic lead despite her protestations about supporting diversity by casting trans folk and having “people on the spectrum” advising her.

Alas, the National Autistic Society, the American Association of People with Disabilities and a multitude of activists and actors lambasted her for casting a non-disabled actor to play a disabled character. She should’ve just apologised and begged for forgiveness.

That’s what Oscar-winning actor Anne Hathaway did earlier this month when she was censured for playing a witch with three fingers on each hand.

She issued a ridiculous statement apologising to “people with limb differences”. What utter madness.

How about allowing actors to act rather than rely on lived experience to play a role? Otherwise we better have Daniel Day-Lewis give back his Oscar for My Left Foot.

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Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist

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