CMU School of Drama


Monday, March 23, 2015

Does Hollywood hate Asia?

Salon.com: “Welcome to Asia,” says a grubby, Hawaiian-shirted Pierce Brosnan at the beginning of the recently released trailer for writer/director John Erick Dowdle’s latest film, “No Escape.”

Ominously, he replies: “You’re gonna love it here.”

1 comment:

Olivia Hern said...

This is an issue that I have actually been thinking a lot about lately. There has always been a problem with white washing in Hollywood, both in casting and in story lines. There is also a long history of yellow face (Think Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's) as a story telling device. Hollywood fetishizes the idea of the exotic other, someone whose ways are kooky and bizarre or scary and unintelligible, and exploits the xenophobic nature of humans to capture the "exotic feel" without having to do any work to actually develop a character-- cultural associations do all the work. Not only is it antiquated and offensive, it is just lazy story telling. In this movie No Escape, or the recent movie Lucy, Asian people aren't treated like humans. They are treated as disposable collateral damage in the "greater story." Given the amount dialogue about race in Hollywood that has sprung up recently, it is disheartening to see such blatant racism continue to be splashed across cinemas.