Black Arthur: Netflix’s “Cursed,” or A Defense of Diverse Casting

Much of the negative response to Cursed — an audacious and original take on the Arthurian legends — stems from those who find its representation of dark-skinned heroes and supernatural “fays” “ahistorical” or unfaithful to the sources. Cursed indeed departs sharply from the medieval fiction genre, which tends to evoke an all-white pre-modern Europe through fantasy, as in Game of Thrones, or historical narrative, as in The Tudors or The White Queen.

The first few episodes of Cursed are at times clumsy, to be sure; but the show gets better as it progresses. I found the last half of the season riveting and the diverse casting — including of a black Arthur — convincing and even moving, juxtaposing with a jarring and even pathetic dissonance what we imagine as a post-racial world, in which people of all skin tones easily mingle, and an eerily familiar one driven by the red paladins’ hatred of the fays.

Netflix’s casting approach deserves defending for the sake of not only this particular series, but also others resisting the all-white norms of the medieval fantasy genre. By way of example, then, the following response to critics of Cursed’s black heroes and fays gestures at a framework for justifying diverse casting in any screen production evoking medieval Europe: