Creative Equity Toolkit

The problem with 'cripping up' and why casting disabled actors matters

Article examining 'cripping up': when able-bodied actors portray people with disability, such as Daniel Day-Lewis' role in 1990's 'My Left Foot'.

'what must it have been like to be one of those child actors on the set of My Left Foot? To not only watch a man act as though he too had cerebral palsy on screen, but to see him continue the charade once filming stopped.

How would they have felt, then, to later see him walking on stage to accept an award for how well he imitated them?'

The sorry part is easy – why true racial diversity in the arts will take more than words

'Because the arts scene is often based on unspoken rules, networking and gatekeeping, there are generally no channels for complaint if you are typecast or overlooked as “inexperienced” based on race.'

‘There are no more excuses’: six industry insiders on Australian TV's problem with race

Creatives of colour discuss issues in the Australian screen industry.

Benjamin Law: 'On The Family Law, the team demonstrated that when gatekeepers make the excuse, “Oh, there aren’t enough actors of a certain background” – that’s bullshit. You just haven’t made the effort to find them. Yes, it’s harder than just calling up the same Caucasian faces that you already know. Taking the time is the only way you’re going to do it.'

Whose life is it anyway? Novelists have their say on cultural appropriation

Hari Kunzru, Kamila Shamsie, Aminatta Forna and others on writing outside their experience.

Ask 'Did I find it easier to write about this because I filtered it through a white gaze and thus made it palatable for a largely white publishing industry? And most of all, and this bears repeating, don’t get defensive. Because you may be making a larger conversation about marginalised communities, and their ability to tell their own stories in their own voices, all about yourself.' ~ Nikesh Shukla

Writing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Characters in Fiction

This article discusses the problem of cultural awareness in Australian publishing when it comes to writing First Nations characters. It presents a series of prompts and further reading for non-Indigenous writers who want to include First Nations characters in their work and who want to avoid stereotyping and insensitive portrayal.