In the world of stunt performers, wigging is the practice of a male stunt actor dressing as a woman to stand-in for a female actor. Painting down is the practice of white stunt performers darken their skin to stand in for actors of color. In the industry, a stunt is referred to as a gag. Some stunt performers argue that wigging and painting down result from unfair hiring practices. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Wigging in Stunts”
I learned a couple of bits of industry jargon recently, wigging and gag.
I don’t know either one of those.
Wigging is a film industry term and it refers to male stunt performers standing in for female actors by putting wigs on and doing the stunt instead of hiring a woman.
Right.
Does that make sense?
So you’ve got an actor who needs a stunt done. They’re an actor who’s not going to do it themselves. They’re a female actor. And so the male stunt performers are just dressing up like women to do the stunts instead of just hiring a woman to do the stunts.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And there’s controversy in that community because there are women who say, hey, I’m perfectly capable of doing this. Don’t be wigging.
Don’t be wigging, right.
Yeah.
Dressing up like that.
Right.
And they call the stunts gags.
Oh, I did know that term.
Yeah.
I wasn’t quite sure what gag you met, but I assumed it was one I didn’t know.
Yeah, yeah.
So a guy will be wigging in order to do a gag. There’s also another practice called painting down, which is when Caucasian stunt performers make themselves darker to fill in for a person of color who’s an actor.
Right.
Yeah.
Instead of going to a little more trouble to find a person of color to do the role.
Yeah, because there are plenty of perfectly capable people of color who are in the stunt industry.
And want the work.
Yeah, exactly.
Like we all do.
We all want a chance to do our jobs.
Right.
So wigging and gags and painting down.
Wow, interesting.
And how did you come across this?
Well, I was reading this article about a stunt performer named Devin McNair, a woman who filed some complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission because they were wigging when she could have been performing the stunts herself.
Right. Yeah. That’s not quite a Mrs. Doubtfire situation where the whole point of the script is to have a man dressed as a woman, right?
Right. Right. It’s that there are women who are perfectly capable of doing these things according to them.
All right. Give us a call. 877-929-9673.
