Non-exclusionary Casting: Why I love Merlin (so far) [EDITED]

I have started watching the BBC Television drama Merlin and while I am still in the first season I wanted to comment on the racial diversity of the cast. "Whitewashing" is a phenomenon in the entertainment industry in which a character written as a person of color (as in a book to movie adaptation) or previously played by a person of color is portrayed by a white actor. Two recent examples are the casting of Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games and Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. The character of Katniss is not described as black, but she is described as having darker coloring. While I think that Jennifer Lawrence was an excellent choice in terms of personality and acting ability, it is possible (although by no means guaranteed!) that her lighter skin was a factor in her casting because it better fits the image we expect from a hero.

The casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan is a trickier issue. The original character of Khan was supposed to originate in southeast Asia. He therefore would be a person of color. Khan was originally portrayed by Ricardo Montalban, who is Mexican and whose skin was artificially darkened with makeup to play the role. The racial question of casting of Benedict Cumberbatch is therefore more complicated. Khan was originally a character of color, but he was played by someone of an entirely different race heavily made up to be darker. (When white people do this, it's called "blackface" and is generally considered so offensive that even playing a part in a movie that requires blackface in historical context is taboo.) And to be clear, Cumberbatch was offered the role in Star Trek only after two other actors who were POC turned it down. The casting department finally made the decision to go for talent over race, which I think is hard to argue with when someone is hiring an actor.

Now, why do I love Merlin? Because it is a show which could easily have uses an all-white cast and had the (relatively) legitimate excuse that the few black people in Arthurian-era Europe would not likely have been found among the knights and servants in Camelot. And Merlin didn't. Instead, the creators of the show decided to make race a relative non-issue and just cast the actors they liked for the parts. I'm only in the first season, but I have seen a black knight of Camelot and of course the lovely Gwen.

That is, the lovely (future, as of season 1) Queen Guinevere Pendragon, wife to Arthur Pendragon. If you think this is no big deal, you're wrong. This is a very big deal precisely because the show treats it as no big deal. They made the Queen a woman of color. I think that counts as the exact opposite of whitewashing and gets the creators and casting directors of Merlin some major points for casually-inserted equality.

Aren't they cute? Hooray for non-exclusionary casting!