Movies :: Features :: whitewashing :: Paste: Even after studying to be an English major and embarking on a career in government public relations, I don’t think I’ve ever spun as many excuses as Hollywood directors and actors when it comes to dancing around why they can’t just cast an Asian person in a role. Race-blind casting that wipes out formerly Asian characters. A blockbuster that demands an actor with sufficient star power, which axiomatically means nobody descended from the cultures on the planet’s most populous continent. A fear of making a stereotypical character—because, I mean, how can you write an Asian who isn’t a stereotype, right?
3 comments:
I am deeply frustrated by whitewashing. It's so unreasonable and the excuse that a production can't make enough money by having an Asian play a main role is a ton of bullshit. Maybe it's because the world is becoming more PC, but I definitely think that Asians are under represented in all forms of media and deserve more screen time.
Hollywood(and recently Broadway) has always favored huge names in their films rather than casting the proper actor in roles. This article highlights an issue regarding the portrayal of asian characters on screen. One of the most striking parts was the focus of how characters of color often times don't have a proper arc or character development, they are usually side characters to a white lead. When they are asian characters, they are often times changed and altered to be played by a white person as seen in Doctor Strange. The issue with the lack of inclusion is the industry's distrust in people of color. They are worried about their ratings and reviews rather than bringing truth to their films. They are distrustful of people of color being able to fill their audiences and bring in the following and money that movies desperately need. In order to change this under representation, it has to start with the audiences demanding that these roles be delivered with truth and proper racial casting. This article made me think of Miss Saigon, a musical that originally premiered with an outstanding cast of yellow face, among the yellow face was one of its lead characters, the Engineer, played by Jonathan Pryce a white man. The show was met with scrutiny due to the fact that the producers hadn't even considered an asian actor for the asian role before casting Pryce. It's greatly upsetting that asian actors had to play side characters to white people in a show about asian people. The only thing that separates success from trial is opportunity, and its time Hollywood, Broadway, and everything in between start creating those opportunities for actors of all shades.
Hollywood has a major problem with casting and has always had this problem. The facts are that it comes down to how society was structured - with white supremacy. Film is created by people and when people are influenced by society, these problems tend to occur. Hollywood has made some progress in getting better (a very minuscule amount of progress, but its better than nothing) and this progress just isn't occurring fast enough. There needs to be more movies, with more opportunities for other groups to be represented as the stars and in a way that is not stereotypical. The other side to forcing this want on Hollywood is to make sure that what they put out will also be watched otherwise the industry will simply collapse. This means a balance will need to occur as the movie industry moves toward better representation; society needs to become more accepting, open minded, and educated. Until this starts happening in conjunction, not much change can even happen. The movie industry simply is just being criticized with little help from the actual criticizers and is being criticized on this front as well as other fronts like The Great Wall in which the article talked about. Matt Damon played a European character which is what the story was about but the story does play on the idea of a white savior. However, the movie also did portray a very strong non-white female lead in addition. The movie is a start for big films, that play on less typically seen ideas, to start entering our society. The important point which the article doesn't touch on, is that regardless of what the movie industry SHOULD do. It CAN'T do it if no one is going to support the change. In order for change to occur within, there has to be that change in society with an additional want by the majority of people to have movies with more equal representation.
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