Regardless of what Douglas Gresham may have said about Indian actors, one thing I am certain any new production of Narnia will avoid — and definitely should avoid — is casting it as "light-skinned Narnians" vs "dark-skinned Calormenes".

I know that's how it is in the books, which were written in the 1950s, at a time when having an "exotic race" as your bad guys was a standard trope in literature and film. That is not going to happen in today's world, nor should it. The Narnia books already get enough accusations of being "racist" as it is, even though there are very few passages in them that are seriously problematic and there's a lot more nuance in them than many critics give them credit for. 

The Calormenes actually only appear in person in two out of the seven books. They are not "the" terrible overarching enemy of Narnia and are not nearly as important within the series overall as some people seem to think they are. But one of the major claims made by critics who dislike the Narnia books is that C.S. Lewis pits his good, white, Christian Narnians against evil, dark-skinned, obviously-supposed-to-be-Muslim enemies. Again, that's not a fair accusation, but it is something any screen version of The Horse and His Boy and The Last Battle will need to avoid at all costs.

If we lived in a world where there had never been discrimination against people because of skin colour and/or cultural differences, probably none of this would even be an issue. But we don't, and it is. That's something the casting will have to take into account. There will just have to be ways to make the Calormenes "different" from the Narnians without it being simply a matter of skin colour. That shouldn't make a major difference to the plots of any of the novels if it's done sensitively.

I can kind of see that. It would be a concern to go with the "us vs them" stereotype, or even go overboard with it.

I wonder if in an episodic series, if they could explore on Calormen history between MN and LWW, how they got to the world of Narnia in the first place.

It is almost stereotype. So perhaps they should find a reasonable or even a sensitive casting director for the Calormenes and how they should be portrayed.

I can almost picture Lasaraleen as someone who laughs and giggles, and Aravis is annoyed by it. Then you have Aravis's stepmother, which I wouldn't want her to be the evil stepmother stereotype. Then there's Ahoshta, which you kind of have to make it look like you're sorry for him. Then Prince Rabadash who is childish at times. Though certainly wouldn't want him to be too childish. Then the Tisroc (hey, my name my be jasmine_tarkheena on the forum, but I'm also a free Narnian, so I don't say the "May he live forever.")

Then get to The Last Battle, they would only have to find the right actors for Rishda and Emeth (unless they want to give Emeth's six brothers each a name). Rishda should certainly be portrayed as subtle and he could be over the top (but not too over the top). Emeth could be portrayed as conflicted and maybe sympathetic.

I think for the villains, I think Rabadash can be both childish and over the top in HHB and Rishda can be subtle and over the top in LB. But please, no childish Rabadash or over the top Rishda!

Now I'm not saying they should or should not have LB make any references to HHB. Sure, both stories feature Calormenes. I don't know how, maybe like, "Oh, long, long ago, Prince Rabadash led his army to attack Anvard then eventually Narnia and that didn't work out. Now we have opportunity to have Narnia for our own" or something like that. I'm not saying they should or not do this, but I thought I get it on the record.

So yeah, I would agree. They should at least avoid "light-skinned Narnians" vs "dark-skinned Calormenes", like let's not go overboard with the "us vs them" stereotype.

Calormenes don't have to have dark skin, like either African or South Indian people.  They can be represented by people with average European looks but with dark hair and makeup that gives a distinctly different look. 

This has worked very well in the stage productions of HHB by the Logos Theatre. 

[Incidentally, there will be a return season this summer in Washington DC at the Museum of the Bible, if you have the chance to get to it!]

Posted by: @coracle

Calormenes don't have to have dark skin, like either African or South Indian people.  They can be represented by people with average European looks but with dark hair and makeup that gives a distinctly different look. 

This has worked very well in the stage productions of HHB by the Logos Theatre. 

Yes, that's the sort of thing I was trying to get at, although I haven't actually seen it done in a real production. Good to know it has been done on stage and it worked well! I would love to see the Logos Theatre productions, but am not likely to be visiting the US in the near future. I wish they'd do an overseas tour!!

Calormenes don't have to have dark skin, like either African or South Indian people.  They can be represented by people with average European looks but with dark hair and makeup that gives a distinctly different look. 

 

Whereas I agree that this can be done and done well, it does seem like a shame that in order not to appear racist, people of European decent need to be cast in roles that could go to people with skin tones that are more suited to the desert climates and are under represented in film.

@twigs great ideas. In a similar way, Logos used a Vikings look for Telmarines in Prince Caspian. 

I think olive skin has also potential for Calormenes, middle-eastern looks. 

I'm sure that by the times HHB and LB movies or series adaptions gets released, we'll have a lot of people talking when it comes to the Calormene portrayal.

Anyhow, as @coracle said, olive skin do have potential as Calormenes as well. You can almost call HHB "Arabian Nights in Narnia."

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

Anyhow, as @coracle said, olive skin do have potential as Calormenes as well. You can almost call HHB "Arabian Nights in Narnia."

Which is just the problem. The minute you have Calormenes looking identifiably "Middle Eastern" — let alone "Arabian Nights" — there are going to be accusations of racism and Islamophobia flying everywhere, and very understandably so. Netflix is not going to take that risk, and neither are any other film / TV production companies that want to cater for the mainstream market.

70 or so years ago, a white British / Irish author like C.S. Lewis could easily get away with having villains who are an obvious Oriental mishmash stereotype. That's how the books are; they're a product of their times and I wouldn't want a word of them changed. (I'm amazed the publishers haven't bowdlerised them yet, as has been done with Enid Blyton and, very recently, Roald Dahl.) But we live in a different, much more interconnected world now, and no modern film producer is going to accept a script where the fantasy good guys are (mostly) light-skinned and obviously supposed to be Christians, and the bad guys are dark-skinned and bear a suspicious resemblance to stereotypical Muslims.

That's just the way it is, like it or lump it. The minute a modern screen version of Narnia makes the Calormenes mostly dark (or even darkish) and makes their culture look too recognisably like Middle Eastern or Indian / Pakistani (or probably any other culture in this world that's been subjected to European colonisation), it'll be sunk. 

I've actually watched a movie, One Night With King, which is about Queen Esther. The way they did Susa is just stunning! It almost look like how I would envision Tashbaan to look like!

Plus, the Persians were portrayed by English actors, for the most part, and I can kind of see where they could have English actors to portray the Calormenes.

Just to be clear, the objectionable thing is not in casting Middle Eastern actors as villains, but in having an entire villainous race based on real-world ethnic stereotypes about Middle Eastern cultures.

Therefore keeping the broad-strokes depiction of a stereotypically Persian society as your inherently evil antagonists and then casting them with white actors doing 'brown face' is just compounding one bad decision with another. 

I think what @courtenay and others were suggesting is just steering clear of the whole "Arabian Nights" cliche altogether and then casting whomever into your entirely imaginary culture which can be whatever you want it to be.

For me, the only way you can get away with doing the Calormen as a straight up Persian culture is if you add a tonne of nuance and complexity to the story to show that they aren't inherently evil in a way that is linked to their ethnographic roots. That though risks overcomplicating the plot just for the sake of adhering to an unnecessary stereotype.

@icarus

That is true. It is a fear that they would be depicted as stereotype.

Hey, if I caused any controversy on here, I'm sorry.

Even though my Narniaweb name is jasmine_tarkheena, I'm actually a free Narnian. I don't say "the Tisroc (may he live forever)."

Anyhow, I just wanted to hear what your dream cast might be for the Calormenes. That's all.

Posted by: @icarus

Just to be clear, the objectionable thing is not in casting Middle Eastern actors as villains, but in having an entire villainous race based on real-world ethnic stereotypes about Middle Eastern cultures.

Therefore keeping the broad-strokes depiction of a stereotypically Persian society as your inherently evil antagonists and then casting them with white actors doing 'brown face' is just compounding one bad decision with another. 

I think what @courtenay and others were suggesting is just steering clear of the whole "Arabian Nights" cliche altogether and then casting whomever into your entirely imaginary culture which can be whatever you want it to be.

For me, the only way you can get away with doing the Calormen as a straight up Persian culture is if you add a tonne of nuance and complexity to the story to show that they aren't inherently evil in a way that is linked to their ethnographic roots. That though risks overcomplicating the plot just for the sake of adhering to an unnecessary stereotype.

Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to say. As someone who's generally a bit of a purist when it comes to adaptations of favourite stories, I personally would be happy if a screen version of HHB and/or LB could play it "by the book" and do the Calormenes pretty much as they are described in the stories. But the reality is that that's not going to happen in today's world, and I completely understand why and am totally in favour of finding a way of portraying the Calormenes without ethnic stereotypes that can too easily be read as racist. In fact, if that could be done, it would show just how strong the Narnia stories are, that the villains in two of them DON'T have to be played as an "Arabian Nights" cliche (good way of putting it, icarus) in order for the stories to work.

As I remember discussing in another thread recently, what actually makes the Calormenes villains is not that they have dark skin and wear turbans and fight with scimitars and live in a desert country. The truly bad things about them are that their culture is highly materialistic (gaining worldly wealth and personal power are all-important); extremely hierarchical with a huge divide between the haves and have-nots (the contrast between the dwellings of the poor and the rich in Tashbaan); run on the rule of "might makes right" (Tashbaan's "one traffic regulation" of "everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important" implicitly applies in all aspects of Calormene society); blatantly misogynistic (underage girls are married off to older men with absolutely no say of their own in their future, and we don't have even the slightest hint that women are allowed to hold any political offices at all); very violent (beatings and punishments are dealt out at the slightest provocation); imperialistic (the main ambition of the rulers is to conquer and take over other lands, particularly Narnia and Archenland, for themselves); and with practically zero concept of basic human rights (not only the lack of women's rights, but also the practice of slavery). These are all things that the vast majority of people in today's world would see as wrong and despicable, in any culture.

And with that, compare and contrast Narnia. A land where not only human beings, but dozens of sentient races coexist — Dwarfs, Fauns, Dryads, Naiads, Centaurs, and all the many, many species of Talking Beasts, most of the time living together in harmony and mutual respect... would we humans be able to achieve that in this world, if we shared it with several other species as intelligent as ourselves, when so much of the time we struggle to get along even with other humans who aren't quite the same as us?! And yet in Narnia, for the most part, the different peoples and creatures get along well and there are almost never serious conflicts between them. It's emphasised more than once in the Chronicles that Narnia is a free and peaceful and happy land full of joy and celebration, and it's only when things go seriously wrong — like the White Witch and later the Telmarines taking over — that there is any significant degree of injustice and cruelty and suffering. As Jewel explains to Jill in The Last Battle, those are the times when Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve are brought in from their own world to help make things right again. But most of the rest of the time, Narnia is so stable and peaceful that there's "really hardly anything to put into the History Books". And while it's ruled by a monarchy, the Narnian Kings and Queens are as much under the law as all other peoples and their role is essentially to make sure everyone lives in harmony and respects one another. There's no value put on acquiring personal wealth or lording it over others, no sense that any individual or group would ever be stripped of their intrinsic rights to live in freedom according to their own nature. It's a highly idealised fantasy world, of course, but it's a world that just about anyone would want to live in and would be accepted in as long as they too uphold that inherent ethic of, well... loving one's neighbour as oneself.

My apologies for going a fair way off the topic of casting the Calormenes here!! I'm simply trying to say — if an adaptation can play up that basic contrast between Calormen (the kind of society no-one in their right mind would want to live in) and Narnia (the kind of society most people WOULD want to live in!)... that actually brings out a very deep strength of the Narnia stories and a message that is amazingly relevant for today's world, for all kinds of audiences. If a new screen version of the Chronicles can somehow nail that, I would hope most potential critics would be left with nothing much to say.

(And I'm happy to re-post this in another thread, or to have it moved, if it's too much of an interruption under this topic! )

@courtenay 

Wouldn't the Tisroc also be a villain in HHB? I know he doesn't have a very big role, but I think he's willing to let Rabadash go to launch an attack on Anvard then eventually to Cair Paravel, and wouldn't care or less if he got killed. So maybe the Tisroc could also be a villain.

And yes, as we love the Narnia books, we hope a screen adaption would go by the book. But it's not going to be easy to do. For HHB and LB, if they're going to have to make some changes in order to make it work for a movie, I understand that.

And how would you portray Aravis and Emeth, since they're the only good Calormenes in the series? I think it would be great if we see more good or sympathetic Calormenes. Probably not all of them liked being under the Tisroc's rule. Maybe Emeth could feel sympathetic when he sees how the Narnians are being mistreated. Hey, probably not all Calormenes would have liked being under Rishda's rule in Narnia (if he had been successful, that is).

Posted by: @jasmine_tarkheena

@courtenay 

Wouldn't the Tisroc also be a villain in HHB? I know he doesn't have a very big role, but I think he's willing to let Rabadash go to launch an attack on Anvard then eventually to Cair Paravel, and wouldn't care or less if he got killed. So maybe the Tisroc could also be a villain.

Not quite sure where you're coming from here — of course it's implied that the Tisroc is a villain, being the tyrannical ruler of the villainous nation, though he's not one who plays a huge role in the story itself. But that isn't the point I was getting at, and I can't quite see how it fits the topic of this thread.

And yes, as we love the Narnia books, we hope a screen adaption would go by the book. But it's not going to be easy to do. For HHB and LB, if they're going to have to make some changes in order to make it work for a movie, I understand that.

I'm not saying it's "not going to be easy" to portray the Calormenes as they are in the books. I'm saying it is not possible — unless we want not only the Narnia books themselves, but the adaptations and their makers, to be slammed as racist. No modern-day director is going to take that risk. That isn't difficult to understand, surely?

And how would you portray Aravis and Emeth, since they're the only good Calormenes in the series?

I would portray them as close to the books as possible in terms of their character, naturally. The concern here is the outward depiction of the Calormenes, not the nature of the individual characters. At the risk of repeating myself, if the Calormenes are portrayed as uniformly dark-skinned, with costumes and props and architecture that are obviously based on "Arabian Nights" or similar stereotypes, that will be taken as racist by the vast majority of modern, well-informed, reasonably intelligent viewers.

As I've already said myself, I can easily accept a book that was written in the 1950s as a product of its times. Lewis, in relying heavily on certain stereotypes for his villains, was only doing exactly the same thing that so many other authors of his time and place and culture were doing. But the world is different now and we're much more aware of how harmful and insulting those kinds of stereotypes can be and have been. So no modern screen adaptation is going to be able to get away with repeating those exact stereotypes, and nor should it.

What I keep trying to say is that the basic characters — the personal natures — of the various Calormenes can be kept much the same as in the books, for the most part. It's their outward appearance — and whether or not it looks like an insulting caricature of particular peoples and cultures in our world — that's the main problem for casting and design.

And the further point I was getting at before is that what makes the Calormenes villains is not their skin colour or style of dress or architecture or the place they live in. It's the whole nature of their society, which has serious faults that we can recognise all too easily as problems in our own world, past and present. Narnia, on the other hand, is a near-ideal world that should make us wish we too could live there. It's that contrast — not "light-skinned European-style goodies vs dark-skinned Oriental-style baddies" — that's truly basic to the stories and that a good adaptation should be able to bring out.