Do you think actors playing people from races other than their own are doing anything racist or not?

no, it's not racist. it's funny. people need to lighten up with the whole everything is racist thing.

I don't think it is.

The very fact that as early as early as 30 years ago some major Hollywood studios refused to use true ethnic actors to play ethnic roles is racist in and of itself. The producers felt that these races were not were not capable of producing actors, and that the general public would not accept diversity on the screen. That was racist. Today however I do not think this is the case. I believe the movie going public would prefer to see indians playing indians and so on...
Can you imagine the cast of roots being white people in blackface.

I don't think there is anything inherently racist about portraying someone of another race. It could be, but in most cases it probably isn't.

Is that why they had an all white cast for "The Conqueror"?

You know, if everyone stopped pointing at everything slightly racist and using that word to 'judge', I think we would have a lot less racism going on.

I don't think there's anything racist in person playing another a person from another race. If they can pull it off with their look, then that's fine, if not, then don't do it.

And as far as I know, Semites are considered to be of Caucasoid race. According William A. Haviland's Anthropology (eight edition), ... okay, I can't find the quotation to prove my claim right now, but they state how there's only three races in the world, which are Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. South Asians and Hispanos belong to the Caucasoid race. So do people of the Middle East.

I guess it depends on how it's being done. Mickey Rooney in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" was definitely racist. But that was also from another era. Perhaps today it could be done better, although I can't think of any examples of actors playing people from other (human) races than their own.

maybe just a bit, but not really.

I mean Dave Chapelle plays a white guy, and its funny as crap. If done properlly, its not racist at all.

it generally makes more sence for actors to play someone of their own race, gender, and yes, sexual orientation. Common sense would tell you that. However, that doesnt mean that they have to. Wasnt there a time in Shapspearian day when there were no actual female actors playing female characters. I think if you could pull it off, then its fine with me, but not nessasarily a good idea. And also, didnt Tom Hanks and Robert De Niro play a gay character before. There's nothing wrong with broadening your horizon, but in acting, how you look determines (and limits) greatly who you can and cant play.

I feel ambivalent... kaleb777 has made some good points about how some people (he would say Liberals) have taken things too far and seem to want to squelch any talk of race or racial differences, labeling such things "racist".
I think race is a very complex issue. I'm aware of a few race-based biases I have in my own head, that pop-up from time to time, so I don't feel completely innocent in this matter. Also, I don't want to overreact to things to try to make up for my own internal issues.

Yes, This is a good example indeed. The Public wants to see "The Duke" not "some Chinese man". Hollywood has come a long way. I think Caucasions playing Black roles is by far the worst example of this trend. We are at a point in History where most roles are interchangable.

No, of course not.

It usually is, especially when all they use is stereotypes, but it doesn't really bother me when people make fun of my race (white white white). The only thing that bothers me related to that is when someone dishes it out and can't take it. If you're gonna do something to someone, don't get mad when they do it to you!

Like all those old Tarzan movies with white people playing African tribesmen...those were pretty silly!

I don't think it is...but that would depend on the part that was being portrayed. Chief Dan George said that he would not portray an American Indian if that Indian character was not true to life rather than a stereotype. He wouldn't play any role where Native Americans were being mocked or shown in a bad light.

You are right...I would rather see actors of a particular race portray that race. But, I can also understand when there is no one available to play the part of a Native American, getting someone of another race that could be made to look the part.

I think the actor is just getting his next gig, but the writer or producer may well be racist. Of course, they may also be doing the same to fight racist attitudes. The explanation in the survey points out the best and worst of bad racial acting. Sellers was unconvincing as an Indian but still hilarious, but I won't even watch White Chicks. I figure it can't be a conspiracy of critics trying to keep me away from something good; that movie must suck. Hell, the previews look bad.
If you really want to see actors trying to pull off races they don't resemble, look at each and every movie made in the studio years of Hollywood. Almost every ethnic group was a played by a Jewish male, usually so thinly veiled as to be laughable. On the other hand, some actors have such features as to play almost any ethnic group. Check out Ben Kingsley, who's been about everything but a black man.
If a movie is racist, the tell-tale signs are always more overt than casting. It's the role of the ethnic character in the story, such as blacks depicted as either clowns or savages in all of early moviedom (like D. W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation"), or whites as soul-sucking hatemongers in more recent films by black directors (like John Singleton's "Higher Education").

Other. If it's a current comedy like White Chicks, it's simply comedy; I think this film is hilarious, what I've seen of it. I only tend to object to the way it was many years ago in films when whites nearly always played other races. Asian, Native American, and Latino people were played by whites in old films whose names I can't recall. I think THOSE roles were racist because back then the world WAS very racist and movie execs would rather have white people made up to look like other ethnic groups than to use people who were actually members of that ethnic group. It didn't always come across very believable.

It depends a lot on the intent and the context. I've seen white actors playing the lead in Othello and black actors playing the lead in Henry V. Neither bothers me all that much. I also don't have a problem with people playing characters from other races in a comedic context (which given the two examples in the explanation seems to be what the survey creator implied). Sacha Baron Cohen's Ali G was never about him being racist, it was about capturing the reactions of pompous celebrities trying to appeal to a younger audience they know nothing about by agreeing to be interviewed by a moron.
When it comes to racism in comedy, if the butt of the joke is racism itself then I like it. It may not be politically correct to some but it's a valid comedic target. If the butt of the joke is a particular race, then whether it's funny or not, it is racism.

Ben Kingsley is mixed race. His father is of Indian descent and his mother is of Jewish descent. So it's small wonder that he could play Gandhi or Itzhak Stern so well.

Not necessarily. What is the intent? If the intent is racist, then it's racist. If the intent is to make a good film with the right actors for the characters, regardless of what they look like, that's not racist.

I've played Hamlet. Is that sexist? I don't think so.

by definition, racist only if the actor is mocking the race..... If it's in a comedic sense, I don't take this sort of thing very seriously at all and the people who do have a serious problem.

It is all in good fun, I don't think it needs to be murdered like this, everyone makes fun of everyone, the only people who are offended are a little too uptight for my liking.

Not racist.