Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Warner, Kristen J

Titel

It’s Tough Being Different: The Pitfalls of Colorblindness in the CW’s The Vampire Diaries

Ist Teil von

• The Cultural Politics of Colorblind TV Casting, 2015, p.95-129

Auflage

1

Ort / Verlag

United Kingdom: Routledge

Erscheinungsjahr

2015

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• When The Vampire Diaries (TVD) premiered on the CW in the fall 2009, it introduced a host of new characters onto the televisual landscape. Television series Bonnie Bennett is a woman who discovers she was a witch descended from Salem witches but happens to be Black. The character's origin never changes, only her surname and racial makeup, the epitome of blindcasting. This chapter takes a bifocal approach to demonstrate how Bonnie Bennett exists as the literal embodiment of both the success and failure of colorblind casting. Exploring the role of Bonnie Bennett at the micro level and, at the macro level, considering the 'The CW network' as a transitory space for diversity, the chapter illustrates more closely what the stakes and consequences are for blindcasted parts. One of the primary reasons to explore Bennett's role in TVD is because of the ways it navigates and circumvents the ugly racial history of Virginia through crucial discursive adjustments to her character's lineage.