“If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different”: Unpacking Colourism in Hollywood

Image Credit: Amaia Tahilramani

Safreen AC Discusses How the Increase of On-Screen Diversity Has Not Solved Hollywood’s Colourism Problem

Hollywood’s issues with racism are not an industry secret, and while the industry as a whole has made progress in tackling the issue of on-screen representation of Black actors over the last decade, it continues to fail when it comes to colourism. Despite the increase of diversity in film and television, the industry continues to cast projects on the basis of a narrow conception of racial diversity. 

In 2021, the film adaptation of In the Heights excluded dark-skinned Afro-Latinx people from its narrative, effectively failing to capture the diversity of the actual neighbourhood it was supposed to be celebrating. Most recently, the highly anticipated casting of Heathcliff and Catherine in Emerald Fennel’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights disappointed fans as Heathcliff, who is described as dark-skinned in the Emily Brontë novel, is being played by the white Australian actor, Jacob Elordi. 

Women of colour are particularly impacted by the bias towards lighter skin tones. A 2021 study found that nearly 80% of Black female characters across film and television had light or medium skin tones. Not only is it harder for dark-skinned women to find roles in general, but light-skinned actors are often cast in roles originally based on dark-skinned women. In 2016,  Zoe Saldana infamously played the role of the singer Nina Simone despite the latter being a dark skinned woman. Angie Thomas’ book, The Hate U Give, features a dark-skinned black woman as the protagonist, but in the film adaptation the character was ultimately portrayed by Amandla Stenberg, a light-skinned actor. The principal Black characters in recent shows like the Gossip Girl reboot, Never Have I Ever, and Euphoria are largely light-skinned.

Various actors, both light and dark-skinned have also spoken out about colourism in the film and television industry. Despite critical and commercial success, including an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and a Tony which made her one of the select few to achieve EGOT status, Viola Davis continues to face barriers when it comes to booking roles and getting projects made. According to Davis, it took more than six years to find a studio willing to back The Woman King, and she partially attributes this to the fact that the entire cast consisted of dark-skinned Black women, once telling Vanity Fair that “If I had my same features and I were five shades lighter, it would just be a little bit different.”

Zendaya, who is one the most recognizable Black actors working today, has also spoken about the privilege she has in relation to her dark-skinned counterparts. To point out light-skinned privilege is not to erase the talent, work, and strides in on-screen diversity that actors like Zendaya, Amandla Stenberg, Halle Berry and others represent; rather it calls for us to question why the work and talent of actors like Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, and Lupita Nyong’o is rendered invisible within the industry and among global audiences. 

We often see dark-skinned actors frequently being cast in stereotypically trauma-filled roles when they are included in films and television shows. In Bridgerton’s first season, all but one of the Black characters portrayed as significant and worthy of merit are played by light-skinned actors, and the most abusive and violent figure happens to be played by one of the few darker-skinned men with a speaking role on the show. Dark-skinned actors are often relegated to side roles or cast as characters enmeshed in never-ending suffering. This industry approved typecasting is what withholds Black actors from achieving mainstream success.  

Audiences can also interpret and respond to characters differently when they are dark-skinned. Claudia, a central character in the TV adaptation of Interview with the Vampire is played by two different actors, Bailey Bass and Delainey Hayles, in the first and second seasons respectively. In online discussions of the show, the audience spoke of Claudia in season one as young and innocent. Conversely, in season two viewers treated her as an adult and denied her any youthfulness, despite the fact that the character is permanently stuck in a state of adolescence throughout the show. The story and core aspects of the character did not shift or change between the two seasons, and both actresses are in their 20s. Only her skin colour changed, evidently impacting viewers’ perceptions of the character; it is likely that the response to the character across both seasons is linked to colourism. 

A similar trend exists in the general response to characters played by dark-skinned actors, with viewers displaying a tendency to interpret their actions as more aggressive or harsher in comparison to similar storylines involving lighter-skinned or white characters. It is essential to keep in mind that while Black actors are subject to racist abuse regardless of skin tone, dark-skinned actors, especially those cast as characters originally conceived of as white, are often recipients of hate comments that specifically target their skin tone and other physical features, such as the controversial casting of Halle Bailey in 2023’s The Little Mermaid.

The very stories that are allowed to be told today both shape and are shaped by discourses of colourism within the film and television industry. Productions such as Insecure, I May Destroy You, The Woman King, or Rye Lane, that centre around fully-fledged, complex, and vulnerable dark-skinned characters are helmed by artists who have tirelessly pioneered to create such a space to represent their own stories. These projects have proven that there is space for stories featuring dark-skinned women, and yet, casting and production decisions that claim to be based on “merit” or “colour-blindness” continue to reflect a preference for lighter skin tones. Rejecting colourism is only the starting point, and the industry has a long way to go to build a more diverse and inclusive media landscape.