Daily BrewCasting agent for CBC retracts call for ‘any race except Caucasian’
Are you interested in working with a talking yam, host Patty Sullivan and various other children’s entertainers? Well, now you can. And good news for white folks, that goes for you, too.
An agent looking to hire a new host for Kids’ CBC has retracted a casting call which declared they were looking for “any race except Caucasian” after receiving questions about the exclusion.
The job posting was released by Larissa Mair Casting Agency, which had been contracted to find a host for CBC, and posted on her company website as well as Craigslist.
The search was for a male host for Kids’ CBC – a block of children’s programming that includes the popular Yamma Mamma, a singing puppet yam that lives in Toronto’s Kensington Market.
The following was listed among the criteria needed by a successful applicant:
Male between the age of 23-35yrs
Any race except Caucasian
Non-union
Must be able to carry a tune (ability to dance or move well is a bonus but not necessary)
By Monday night, the postings had been removed and Mair was calling the issue a mistake.
“We have made an error and changed the notice,” Mair told Yahoo! Canada News. “This is open to All Ethnicities.”
In an interview with the National Post, Mair attempted to explain how the error happened:
We were asked to seek a cast of diversity. We mistakenly took that to mean that the production was not seeking Caucasian actors. This was a mistake that was made entirely by the casting company.
A CBC programming spokesperson told the Post the government-funded television station did not approve the wording of the advertisement and was looking to hire the best talent while making an effort to represent “Canada’s diversity.”
They’ve already got a singing sweet potato. How much more diverse do they need to get?
