Discrimination...

'The Hobbit': Casting agent dismissed after seeking extras with 'light skin tones'

by Josh Rottenberg

Categories: Film, Movie Biz, News, The Hobbit

Image Credit: Everett Collection

A casting agent working on director Peter Jackson’s adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was fired from the production after placing ads in a regional New Zealand newspaper seeking extras with “light skin tones,” according to Agence France-Presse. The casting agent was also reported to have told a prospective background extra, a woman of Pakistani heritage named Naz Humphreys, that she wasn’t suitable to play a Hobbit because of her skin color. According to The Waikato Times, video footage shows the casting agent telling people at an audition, “We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.” A spokesman for Jackson’s production company told Agence France-Presse that the casting director, who was contracted by the film, was never directed to make any restrictions based on skin color. “No such instructions were given,” the spokesman said. “The crew member in question took it upon themselves to do that and it’s not something we instructed or condoned,” adding, “It’s something we take very seriously.”

This could be a form of conflict theory in deviance because it has a person in a higher position directing and controlling what other people can do. The reason that this is a deviant is because it deals with race/skin tone.  The casting agent in my opinion is wrong in saying what he did to these potential extras for The Hobbit and thus he was fired. 

I discussed this with some of my friends at Cardinal Stritch University that have read the books and watched the movies and I qoute Carl McCorkle in saying “There are no Black people in the J.R.R. Tolkien’s books which makes sense to not have them in the movie…on another subject where can I go back in time and be in the Back to the Future movies and be in the DeLorean…” Mind you that he is a Black student and we may have been just joking around but on a serious note race does play a lot in people’s lives.

In the article it has a quote from the casting director ““We are looking for light-skinned people. I’m not trying to be … whatever. It’s just the brief. You’ve got to look like a Hobbit.” The … can be inferring that he might have wanted to say racist but instead paused and said whatever.  This is more of an act of discrimination and that is what can come from deviance. The casting agent did not share the same views and acted alone in his actions.  He may have been a loner in this thought process and thought that he should get his word out there and then he got reprimanded for his actions. The spokesman for the production stated “It’s something we take very seriously.” Meaning that even though the Hobbits in the books are described as light skin toned the potential extras should not have been deterred away just because of their skin tone. All in all the man has taken responsibility of his actions and has been fired but he still has to live with the fact that people will be talking about him in more detail than this blog and probably in a nastier way.    

The Rise of the Internet

Loners are “the most solitary, interacting with people but keeping their deviant attitudes, behaviors, or conditions secret. Some of the examples of activities that are kept secret as a loner are cutting, anorectics, bulimics, depressives, and sexual asphyxia are just a few acts that are done alone, but many commit.  The rise of the internet has allowed for loners to interact anonymously with others that commit the same deviant acts.  There are differences in the sites though because of the deviant act. Some support the activity and some seek to help stop the activity.  For example “…such as the “proana” and “promia” sites explicitly state that they reinforce and support the deviant behavior, regarding this as a life style choice. ..Others, such as many self-injury sites, purport to help users desist from their deviance but may actually end up reinforcing it by providing supportive ad accepting community where individuals can go when they feel misunderstood and rejected by the outside world.”  These sites sometimes have unintended functions.  They transmit knowledge of a practical sort of ideology among people, which enables them to better engage in and legitimate the behavior.  These sites help provide information on how to seek help, obtain medical or legal services; learn new ways to do the activity and how to deal with others that just don’t understand.  It can also provide for a way for people to come together in various ways and with people from all over the world…well that is if they speak English. 

A type of loner that is further discussed in Adler and Adler’s book “Construction of Deviance” are self-injurers.  This involves people that cut or burn or brand themselves. Some reasons that people self-injure are because they suffer from depression or feel alienated.  Self-injuring provides a form of comfort that assisted them during a stressful period of their lives. For some it is a release that feels better and then everything seems fine for just a little bit.  It doesn’t even matter that it might hurt that is not what is going on in their mind at that point. 

These are some quotes taken from the book mentioned earlier (these are by people that self-injure): “When I hurt like that, I get really self-involved.  I get my blinders on.  I’m all about me, and don’t disturb me…so that if someone was cutting themselves in my house, even though I do it, I’d be uncomfortable.  It’s my thing, you know? I’m in control.”

Here is a site that has information to help and support self-injurers: http://fuschia9.tripod.com/si.htm. 

Another quote from the book is about the practical problems: “The practical side to it –how am I going to explain these cuts all over myself in the summer, to my friends? Am I going to go to a job interview with a big scar or a cut on my arm? And that really freaked me out – I don’t want anyone to know; no one can know, no!”

These are just a few things that occur for those that self-injure.  It is a personal act that they keep to themselves and it is hard to explain when someone finds out, because they do not understand. The sites that are there to help and support those that self-injure are okay in my mind because it helps them realize that there are people like them and they are not alone.  It may be a deviant act but at least some are trying to get help for it.    

Deviance of Work Environment

In the working environment the norm is to show up to work on time, be dressed in appropriate work clothes (such as dress shirt, pants, and shoes), to look clean and to be organized. Some places of work also control how someone has to speak to customers or potential clients.  The rules on tattoos and piercings might be strict as well. In the field of business it is “unprofessional” to have tattoos that are obscene or piercings that are anywhere besides the ears (places that people can see such as the face or mouth).  The deviance then is to not dress in the manner that the work environment wants you to or to have tattoos or piercings that are not appropriate. This means that someone could be overlooked in hiring based on their appearance and not their actual work ethic. 

Some places have it in their rule books about how someone is supposed to dress, look and the rules on piercings. Most of these places are fast food, retail, coffee shops, restaurants etc. These places more than likely already have a uniform where someone is not able to express their uniqueness through what they wear.  In some coffee shops the workers are encouraged to wear what they feel like, but there pants with holes in them, shirts that may have sayings on them, and down to the shoes sometimes.  The saying that I was told from a place that I worked at was “Wear something that you would find appropriate to wear in front of your grandma”.  So low cut shirts are out for females, which is a norm in most work locations.  People do not want to see a woman’s chest when they are ordering coffee or buying merchandise it is just not business like.  These attitudes are seen on a regular basis. 

Moving on to piercings and tattoos in a society where it is becoming a regular daily thing to see at least one person with a tattoo or piercing.  The difference is that in the work place the placement of the piercing or tattoo can be the norm or it can be deemed as deviant.  An ear piercing is fine but a pierced tongue is not.  The tongue piercing people may not even see when speaking to the worker and if the customer did it is not a big deal.  The company is worried about the image that this may portray not the quality of the worker.  The employer might be worried that it could be labeled as a place that does not show class through their employees.  In the hospital area nurses are not supposed to have tattoos that  are too big and if they do have tattoos they are supposed to be on places of the body that are hidden; if they have tattoos that are seen by the public and cannot be hidden the art is supposed to be very small.  The thing that I discovered from a friend that bothered me a little was that a “transfer nurse” is able to have a sleeve of tattoos and that is acceptable but the nurse that sees the patient is not.  Some may think that because the patient has to see the nurse more than the transfer nurse and the patient may be uncomfortable having someone take care of them that has a lot of tattoos is the reason that nurses are not able to have many tattoos that are visible. 

In the business world this is seen as an okay practice.  It is the norm for businesses to have rules and regulations on dress and body piercings and tattoos.  I see a problem with this.  It should not matter what the person looks like or speaks to do the job. I can understand if the person looks like they have not taken care of their hygiene or speaks in euphonics but other than that clothing, piercings and tattoos are becoming part of the norm in society today that if someone does have a sleeve of tattoos or a face piercing that many people just brush it off as nothing and they continue to go into that business and get what they need no matter what the person looks like. 

The other part that a business can control of a worker is the way that the person speaks to customers.  There can even be a script that they give the employees for answering the phones or taking orders at a restaurant.   It is encouraged in telemarketing  that a woman  that answers the phone and the other person on the line is a man that they should speak in a flirtatious manner and speak with a higher pitched voice. 

For a business to have that much control over someone; I wonder why anyone would want to work at all.  Well there is the fact that people have to work to make money.  A conflict theorist may say that in a capitalist economy this is the norm.  The fact that an owner or manager of a business can have so much control of what an employee says or does is part of conflict theory. The reason is that the owner would be an example of an elite and the worker/employee is the example of the inferior group of society.  The manager controls the hours, benefits and wages of the employee. The employee has no say in what their hours, wages or benefits are, therefore, the managers (elites) have control over everything.

These statements about clothing, piercings and tattoos according to working conditions are only true for some businesses and companies.  The rules and regulations change as the jobs/occupations get better.  The point of this was to open the eyes of some of what is going on the business world and how much control someone can have over another and it can become alienating.  There are many theories that can go into this practice; I focused on conflict theory. Of the theories that I spoke about in “Theories 101” are there any that you can think of to explain the practices that were discussed?

Process of Deviant Identity

We have looked at the definition of deviance and the different examples of deviant behavior.  Theories have also been discussed in detail and with relevant examples.  Now let’s discuss deviant identity.  Deviant identity can be seen as part of labeling theory because it is the aspect of deviance that “requires that people accept the identity and make it their own.  Identities refer to the way people think of themselves. “(Adler and Adler page 241). This is part of labeling theory because it creates a situation where people can be stigmatized and thus a label is created such as: “nerd, slut, fatty, loser, jock, smarty pants etc.” those are just a few, there are many more in society today. 

There are seven stages to the development of identity, which, is also known as the “deviant identity career”. (To make a side note…not every person that is deemed deviant will go through all stages)

 The first stage is called: “caught and publicly identified as deviant” (page 242). People may start to think of this person in an altered way. For example a person that a sorority girl (we will just call her Betty) is rumored to have slept around with an entire fraternity house.  Then the gossip starts between her sorority sisters.  The continuation of the banter will lead into stage two which is the “retrospective interpretation”.  This suggests that more people besides Betty’s sisters have begun to change their attitudes towards her.  So let’s make sure we get this straight. First the people have changed their thoughts about the person that is deviant. Then the people changed their attitudes towards the person that is deviant. Stage three: “Spoiled Identity”.  In simple terms the person’s reputation has been ruined.  At this point of the story of Betty’s situation is hard to reverse the thoughts and attitudes of the people around her and possibly people she doesn’t even know.  Since she has been labeled now as a “slut or skank” take your pick of labels for her or don’t. It’s up to you…but society is going to expect her to make the rumor real and start to sleep around a lot.   “The dynamics of exclusion” is what Betty’s former sorority sisters and friends are beginning to do to her.  When she is walking into a party her sisters may not acknowledge her, pretend she isn’t there and they may feel uncomfortable when she is talking to their boyfriends or potential boyfriends.  Some people are repulsed by her actions and some may take her under their wing.  She may then shift into a different circle of friends and she might even deactivate from the sorority.  The example of her joining a new crowd is stage 5.  “Treat differently” is stage 6 and this is the fact that they may even stop inviting Betty to social events and if her sisters are really that upset they could send her standards and then consequences or penalized for her actions as not representing the sorority in an appropriate way.  “Internalize the deviant label and come to think of themselves differently… is likely to affect their future behavior” (243).  In Betty’s case she may drop out of school because she cannot handle the label, transfer to a different school, or just continue with her behavior and still be seen as a slut and the labels could get worse.  In the way that her label could get worse is that people may start saying that she has a sexual transmitted disease/ sexual transmitted infection.  Betty’s future love interest may hear these stories and decide that he is not interested solely based in people’s thoughts and attitudes about Betty.  Keep in mind they only have a class together and he asked her on a date to get to know her better.  When he heard the information he stood her up. The next day in class he shrugged it off as “I just forgot…sorry.”

Not everyone goes through all seven stages and some are skipped over, but the person is still labeled and then internalized eventually.  It can be a fast or slow process it all depends on the situation.

I know that I have been labeled in my lifetime and at one point I did accept it but then I left and changed the way I thought about myself.    Think of ways in your life that you may have been labeled deviant…how did you deal or cope with the label; did you accept or deny the label?

Theories 101

There are many theories of deviance that sociologist have come up with throughout years to explain why people can be defined as deviant.  Far too many to go into too much detail about each one and not bore a person to the point of never wanting to read this blog again.  The theories that will be discussed are labeling, conflict, and differential association theory.  Yes, only three theories but it is much easier to concentrate and understand three.  This way I can go into more detail and give more relevant examples for each theory.

Labeling theory, in my opinion, is the most basic theory and this can apply to many situations of deviance.  This comes from an interactionist perspective and their view of deviance is the violation of some agreed upon rule that was made by society.  This would be like a folkway, mores or laws that were discussed in the earlier post. By breaking rule a person becomes an “outsider” and in-turn a label is applied to them.  Take for instance a person in high school that studies a lot and does not go to sporting events or participate in extracurricular activities.  This person enjoys reading and is into comics and may not have that many friends; there best friend might be there parental unit.  The label that the person may receive from their peers is “geek” or “nerd”.  (“Deviance is not a quality that lies in behavior itself, but in the interaction between the person who commits an act and those who respond to it…” (Adler and Adler page 42). In this example above the person is labeled deviant by its' peers because the people are responding to the act of not following the norm of what the “in-group” might be doing.  Another example can be seen in an article titled “Homophobia and Women’s Sport” written by Elaine M. Blinde and Diane E Taub.  This article is refereeing to women that play sports being labeled a lesbian.  This is because the women are breaking the rule of traditional female roles.  To some this is a potential threat and is labeled deviant. Some get trapped in this label and some can escape at times by posing in men’s magazines in a more feminine pose and wearing makeup. When a woman enters a field of work such as politics or business that has been headed by men the woman can be called a “dragon lady or a bitch”.  The reason for this is because she is assertive and gets the job done just like a man is supposed to do.  This is an example of labeling theory because the women gets stuck in this position of having to prove herself in the position of work she is in and each time this becomes more of a masculine quality.  Do you know of anyone that has been in a position where they were labeled but the label failed?

The group that argues that powerful members of society or the “elites” create definitions of human conduct is part of the conflict theory of deviance.  Those “laws” or definitions created are then enforced onto the less powerful groups in society, through the criminal justice systems, insuring that the elite’s interests are protected.  Deviance is then created because of class struggle and people breaking laws for means to an end.  An almost perfect example of this is the documentary “Crips and Bloods: Made in America”.  The law enforcement continues to arrest Black men and put them into jail. When these men get out of jail it is difficult for them to get a job, because they have to put that they had committed a crime on any job application.  This is a continuing cycle of the issue of no work and crimes developing.  The elites/society will say that we did not attribute to this outbreak of crime; it is their fault entirely. Pretty much saying they chose that life style of having to break laws in order to survive.  This documentary sums up conflict theory very well and I would recommend it to anyone that has not seen it yet. 

A theory that believes that deviance is socially learned through close friends and family is called differential association theory. This is more about the attitudes and behaviors that associate with their circle of family and friends to be either deviant or not deviant.  For example if a boy has a close friend that grew up in a good neighborhood, does all the right things, has an education that may exceed others and have a good family unit these boys with grow up to be not deviant.  If we turn the good qualities that society accepts and turn them negative such as: coming from a dysfunctional family, not well educated, does the wrong things these boys will more than likely become deviant in the eyes of the general public. 

Time for strain theory! There are a variety of strains that a person can encounter in their lifetime and some are more easily solved than others.  Some may have lost something good (their job, family/friend, home, significant other leaves them, scholarship, etc.). Another could receive something bad for example: a sexually transmitted disease or infection. There is also the other case of failing to get something they want for instance a promotion, a cure for their disease such as cancer or they may have just failed to succeed at getting the job.  All of those are examples of strains.  The general idea of the theory according to deviance is: “people engage in deviant behavior, such as crime, because of the strains that the person is experiencing.” (Adler and Adler page 77).

In conclusion multiple theories exist and there is not a right or wrong one; it is just how it may fit into the context of the deviance that is being studied.

Deviance 101

Deviance is a social construct and is constantly changing. To understand what I mean by that statement there are specifics things one needs to know about deviance. What does deviance mean? Well, the social norms are what define what is socially acceptable and what is not. The socially unaccepted action would fall into the category of deviance. Social norms or simply put norms are "behavioral codes or prescriptions that guide people into actions and self-presentations conforming to social acceptability. Norms need not be agreed upon by every member of the group doing the defining, but a clear or vocal majority must agree.” (Adler and Adler, 2009, p.11).
Norms are created in society to have an in and out group. This allows for boundaries to be drawn of right and wrong; it also shows what the social order is. We could keep going back and forth and just saying what deviance is and what norms are but there are conceptions of deviance to consider.

William Sumner (an American Sociologist) defined three concepts or types of deviance. The first is called a folkway; it is "a simple everyday norm based on custom, tradition, or etiquette.” (Adler and Adler, 2009, p.11). A violation of a folkway is not a major offense it may have just been seen as strange, such as a women walking around with an umbrella on a sunny day or wearing sunglasses inside a building. There are many of these that people see on a daily occasion and it does not interrupt their daily life. The next type is a more (”mor-ays”) defined by Sumner as “norms based on broad societal morals whose infraction would generate more serious social condemnation.” (Adler and Adler, 2009, p.11). Some examples of mores are same sex marriage, teenage mothers/fathers, and transgendered individuals. These can be seen as violating the social order. The third and final type of deviance he mentions are called laws. People that violate these norms are “subject to arrest and punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment (and possibly even death)…regarded as necessary for maintaining social order.”(Adler and Adler, 2009, p.12).

Then there is the fact that people can be labeled as deviant. Attitudes, behaviors, or conditions are known as the ABCs of deviance. Attitudes are based on peoples' belief system and this is most often tied to religious and political beliefs. The deviant people in this situation would include: cult members, radicals, and mental illness are just a few of the types of deviants that are associated with attitude. Behavior is based on external actions that can be considered deviant. These can be purposeful or unintended. An unintended behavior could be having a speech impediment. The purposeful would be to engage in activities that are known to be out of the norm such as: a sorority/fraternity member continually not attending mandatory chapter meetings and an underage person with a fake ID going into a bar. To complete the ABCs of deviance would be to end with conditions. Conditions are “ascribed deviant status, based on a condition they acquire from birth.” (Adler and Adler, 2009, p.13). This does not mean a birth defect. It could be because of their family’s economic status that they were born into (poor or rich); another example could be a person born addicted to crack or fetal alcohol syndrome.  They did not plan on their mother being "irresponsible"/deviant before they were born. It is not their fault that they were born this way, but the label of being a "crack or alcohol baby" will remain with them the rest of their lives. It could be because of a physical disability acquired at birth but that is not necessarily always the case.

In summary deviance is going against a social norm. Sumner had three types of deviance: folkways, mores, and laws. Then there were the ABC’s of deviance: attitudes, behaviors, and conditions. Are there things that we do in the United States that are considered a social norm but could be considered deviant to another culture? When considering this question think of all the concepts mentioned earlier.