Twitterstorms

Just a quick note picking up on some of my thoughts today.  Late last night on Twitter, one of the lovely  young men from Heartstopper felt obliged to out himself following some appalling bullying around his authenticity for the role he had played.  Made me very sad that something so joyful has led to such personal traumas for these talented young people.  Of course, the nastiness of human nature has always been there (See The Crucible!) , but the scale and immediacy of the social media age makes it all so much sharper.  While many many people have leapt to his defence, the damage has been done, not to his reputation which I am sure will be unaffected, but for his wellbeing and for future actors thinking about taking on groundbreaking roles.  There is so much still to do if a teenager feels pressurised to reveal stuff that is no-one's business but his own.   

Then today, one of his co-stars was revealed to have got a starring role in a new Marvel project;  along with the congratulations were people griping about the lack of authentic casting in what is seen by them as a Jewish role.  I absolutely get and support the importance of representation, but that should also allow for actors to be able to play a role without always having full lived experience in real life - surely that is what acting is, after all.  There's a more subtle discussion to be had about this than I am capable of at the moment.  I am worried I might inadvertently find myself giving credence to the red faced 'political correctness gone mad' brigade, but how do we make sure that we do enable representation where it is possible and right to do so but don't end up in a situation where only fully authentic casting in every respect will do?  Where does that leave the amazing female Hamlets for example?  

EDIT: And this sums up my ongoing sadness that a young man who enacted the most beautiful coming out scene I have seen to date had his own choice stolen from him https://edition.independent.co.uk/edition/uk.co.independent.issue.021122/166568/index.html

FURTHER EDIT:  getting a bit uncomfortable at the amount of media attention this is getting now which isn’t really helping his privacy. Every leading paper has had an opinion piece saying how terrible it is, and Netflix has changed their Twitter bio to read ‘We love you, Kit Connor’. Nice but hey, leave the guy alone now maybe?