Introduction:
Thesis: Whitewashing has become rampant in Hollywood movies and is beginning to reflect negatively on the American society.
Body Paragraphs:
I. Whitewashing in recent movies.
A. Examples from movies that have been released in the past years.
1. The Last Air Bender
2. Prince of Persia
3. Argo
4. Cleopatra
5. Othello
6. Warm Bodies
7. A Mighty Heart
II. Why Hollywood continues to use white actors to play Asian Americans in movies. Most of the time, this leads to them performing a racist and stereotypical role.
A. Movie examples of white actors and actresses playing Asian Americans.
1. Aloha
2. Dragonball: Evolution
3. Breakfast at Tiffany’s
4. “Is Hollywood 'whitewashing' Asian roles?”
5. “Whitewashing Was One Of Hollywood's Worst Habits. So Why Is It Still Happening?”
B. How this is affecting other minorities outside of the media.
1. “Television and the New Black Man: Black Male Images in Prime-time Situation Comedy.”
2. White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism.
3. Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race.
4. Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-blind Society.
III. The recent uproar at The Academy Awards over Chris Rock using racial jokes in his speeches and why the nominated actors and actresses were white.
A. “Chris Rock Criticized after Asian Joke at Oscars.”
1. Chris Rock uses Asian children to make a joke about Asians being good in math.
2. Backlash over his joke because he made it so African Americans didn’t have to be the punchline.
B. “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver- Hollywood White Washing (2/22/16).”
1. Asks the question on why is this still happening in 2016 movies.
2. States that the continuation of whitewashing characters is blatantly racist.
Conclusion:
Whitewashing is a continuation of racial discrimination in Hollywood movies. In the video of the John Oliver show, one director stated that he whitewashes to get money because most well-known actors and actresses are white. Whitewashing has been around in movies long before the Oscar incident. It is a hard business for minorities to break into when the movies are American made. It also affects minorities outside of the movies such as everyday people.
Annotated Bibliography
Belia, Lale. "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver- Hollywood White Washing (2/22/16)." YouTube. YouTube, 22 Feb. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJy_OU1DPcg>.
This video talks about the various instances of whitewashing happening in movies across the United States. The video is an excerpt from the John Oliver show. One example from the video is how Jake Gyllenhall was cast as a Persian prince.
Brown, Michael K. Whitewashing Race: The Myth of a Color-blind Society. Berkeley: U of California, 2003. Print.
This excerpt from the book talks about how whitewashing has affected more than just movies. It goes into details about how it affects politics and many more aspects of minorities. One example it uses is healthcare insurance and how minorities cannot afford it.
CNN. "Chris Rock Criticized after Asian Joke at Oscars." YouTube. YouTube, 29 Feb. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPCJvyk8yBg>.
The video is of a CNN reported interviewing Anthony Berteaux, an editor for SDSU, about the racial joke comedian Chris Rock made at the Academy Awards. Berteaux is explaining why it is hypocritical for Rock to make a joke about Asians while defending African Americans. The interview points out that jokes like those are what continues to perpetrate racial stereotypes.
Dávila, Arlene M. Latino Spin: Public Image and the Whitewashing of Race. New York: New York UP, 2008. Print.
The excerpt talks about although Latin Americans are one of the largest demographics in America, they are vastly underrepresented in media, politics, and other aspects.
Doane, Ashley W., and Eduardo Bonilla-Silva. White Out: The Continuing Significance of Racism. New York: Routledge, 2003. Print.
The excerpt examines what it means to be white and why people choose to have white people as the stars in various forms of media. It also talks about how this can lead to racism in a lot of aspects.
Ghahremani, Tanya. "25 Minority Characters That Hollywood Whitewashed - Wang and O-Lan in The Good Earth (1937)." Complex. Complex Media Inc., 1 Apr. 2013. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/04/25-minority-characters-that-hollywood-whitewashed/the-good-earth>.
This list of movies shows when whitewashing became a thing in Hollywood. The list starts at the year 1937 and continues on to the most recent movie. The list also mentions why whitewashing is considered racist as many of the earlier movies played heavily on racial stereotypes for minorities.
Gray, H. "Television and the New Black Man: Black Male Images in Prime-time Situation Comedy." Media, Culture & Society 8.2 (1986): 223+. Sage Journals. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. <http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/8/2/223.extract>.
The journal examines how African Americans have been viewed in the media since the 1980s.
Lee, J. D. (1997). Performing Asian America: Race and ethnicity on the contemporary stage. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
The book talks about how Asian actors and actresses had to deal with discrimination first in theater productions and then movies. It states how some of them would not audition due to them knowing they would not get picked because of their race.
Ruimy, Jordan. "11 Worst Examples of Whitewashing in Movies." Screen Rant. Screen Rant, 22 Sept. 2015. Web. 09 Mar. 2016. <http://screenrant.com/worst-examples-whitewashing-movies/?view=all>.
The article lists Hollywood movies where whitewashing has ruined the movie. The majority of the movies listed come from source materials, such as books, where major characters were a minority. For example, in Birth of a Nation, a white actress played the role of a Puerto Rican woman.
Scherker, Amanda. "Whitewashing Was One Of Hollywood's Worst Habits. So Why Is It Still Happening?" The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 10 July 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/10/hollywood-whitewashing_n_5515919.html>.
This article examines why whitewashing continues to happen in films today by using studies from universities. "Indeed, Hollywood's white bias appears to be deeply embedded in every facet of the industry. One study from UCLA found that minorities are unrepresented in every stage of film and television production; from writing to directing to acting to producing."
Siek, Stephanie. "Is Hollywood 'whitewashing' Asian Roles?" In America RSS. CNN, 13 Jan. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2016. <http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/is-hollywood-whitewashing-asian-roles/>.
This article examines why Hollywood chooses to replace Asian actors with white people. One reason for this is that American studios want to make movies "American" and replaces minorities with white actors or actresses.
