In 2009, a movie was released that was based on a Japanese manga (comic book) that originated in Japan. The premises of the movie was that a teenage inherited a mystical item that imbued him with immense powers. With these powers, he fought off evil alien forces that threatened all life on planet Earth. The name of that movie is Dragonball Evolution. Due to the source material containing Asian people as the main characters, it would only be safe to assume that the actor casted for the main role would be Asian as well. However, Hollywood directors went with the choice of having a white actor play the role of the hero. As expected, many fans of the manga were enraged that Hollywood would choose a white American actor to play the role of a highly known character in manga history. This form of giving ethnic roles, such as Asian, African-American, Hispanic, and Indian, to white actors and actresses is known as whitewashing. Hollywood directors are choosing to make film adaptations of books, cartoons, and comics and making any lead or supporting minority character white. Over the years, this has always been an issue that played in the back of society’s mind but now it has come to the front. With the recent Academy Awards controversy of having no diversity among the nominated actors and actresses, people are calling for a change in how Hollywood chooses its actors and actresses for their ethnic roles. This has been a long-standing issue within the film industry and people believe that a change needs to be made in this progressive age. This essay will the whitewashing and discrimination aimed towards Asian-Americans and South-East Asians that goes on in American films.
With the Academy Awards, whose committee is composed of primarily older white males, having no non-white actors or actresses nominated for awards this year, people have begun to see the issues with whitewashing roles. The reason that this is an issue because if Hollywood continues to whitewash roles then it takes away role opportunities for minorities. It also continues to reinforce the assumption that white actors make more money for the studios than minority actors. In an interview with Variety, director Ridley Scott defends his reasoning to have an all-white cast play the roles of based off Egyptian characters in his film Exodus: God and Kings. “I can’t mount a film of this budget, where I have to rely on tax rebates in Spain, and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such,” Scott says. “I’m just not going to get it financed. So the question doesn’t even come up.” (Dennis, 2014). Scott blatantly laid out the reason as to why he chose to case Australian, British, and Caucasians as lead Egyptian roles and the reason why is to make more money off the film. He fears that having non-white actors and actresses would ruin the gross income on the movie, therefore he chose not to have his movie portray geographical correctness which would be having darker skinned Middle-Eastern actors and actresses in the lead roles. Even after the backlash that Scott and the film company received over their casting choice, in his latest film Scott chose to whitewash roles once again. His latest film The Martian, which was based on the book by Andy Weir, whitewashed all the minority roles and changed their cultural last names. The Media Action Network for Asian-Americans (MANAA) pointed out that Scott changed the Hindu Asian-Indian character Dr. Venkat Kapoor to a Baptist Vincent Kapoor and had a British black actor play him (McNary, 2015). Not only was Kapoor changed, but Scott also changed the Korean-American character to be portrayed by a white blonde actress. More recently, Alex Proyas’ God of Egypt came under the same fire that Exodus did due to its non-diverse casting. Just like Exodus, the premise of the movie was based in early Egyptian times but based on mythology gods. When the movie poster was released, showing Gerard Butler as the main character, outraged viewers went to Twitter to air their grievances with the whitewashed poster. Bette Midler tweeted, “Movie, #GodsOfEgypt in which everyone is white? Egyptians, in history and today, have NEVER been white. BRING BACK GEOGRAPHY!! It's Africa!” and an equally outraged Mere Smith showed her disdain of the trailer, “Dear Hollywood, White people did not rule ancient Egypt. Ancient Egypt did not worship white people. Hope this helps, -Everyone#GodsOfEgypt” (Lee, 2015). In regards to the backlash, Proyas and Lions Gate Entertainment issued an apology stating, “The process of casting a movie has many complicated variables, but it is clear that our casting choices should have been more diverse. I sincerely apologize to those who are offended by the decisions we made” (Mendelson, 2015). The most common roles that are whitewashed are Asian roles and in some instances they play on stereotypes and racism.
There have been severely instances where Asian-Americans roles have been given to white actors and actresses despite the source material stating that the characters were of Asian heritage. A few examples of this happening can be seen in the movies The Last Airbender and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. M. Night Shyamalan based his adaptation, The Last Airbender, off of Nickelodeon’s Avatar: The Last Airbender. In the original, the main characters are of Inuit descendants and travel over an area similar of ancient China. The creators of the show took extra and precise care into incorporating various Chinese elements into the children’s show to have certain movement styles historically correct. When Shyamalan directed his version, he whitewashed the main characters, Aang, Katara, and Sokka, as well as changing the traditional way of pronouncing their names. What really riled fans of the series up was the fact due to the whitewashing of the main characters, it lead to the movie coming out with a racist theme. People who are unfamiliar with the original animation would see that the heroes were white while the villains were non-white. Specifically, the villains, Prince Zuko and the Firebenders, were the only members of the cast who were a different ethnicity. Although Prince Zuko was a part of the main cast, he was still casted the wrong race. In the animation, everyone is of Inuit or Chinese descent but in the movie all the villains were portrayed as Indian descent. With the amassing criticism and outrage for his adaptation, Shyamalan issued a statement defending his version. “My child was nine-years-old. So you could make it one of two ways. You could make it for that same audience, which is what I did -- for nine and 10-year-olds -- or you could do the Transformers version and have Megan Fox” (Koch). His defense of whitewashing a movie and including signs of racism is to blame the viewers for not understanding that he made the film for children. He makes no mention of the original animation and history that he could have worked with to ensure a successful multi-cultural children’s movie. Another example of a racist Asian stereotype comes from a movie that is considered a staple in America’s film industry. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a movie that has captured the audiences of older and younger generations. It was praised as being flawless when it does have one glaringly huge flaw. The Japanese neighbor featured in the film is a caricature of a racist stereotype of what Asian people are like. Instead of the director finding an Asian person to at least play the role, the role was whitewashed and given to the actor Mickey Rooney. “The same way minstrel shows showcased overtly racist slapstick comedy featuring performers in blackface, Rooney’s role as I.Y. Yunioshi was a majorly exaggerated caricature of people of Japanese descent” (Ghahremani, 2013). Rooney was give fake teeth and imitated a broken English dialect when she was speaking. With the increase in whitewashing Asian roles, many prospective Asian actors and actresses no longer apply for the roles. In their minds, they believe that they will be passed over for the roles in place for a white actor or actress. The recent whitewashing of Asian roles is proof enough that their fears are real and a major issue in the film industry. Kent A. Ono, who is a professor of Asian-American studies at the University of Illinois, that Asian-American actors and actresses are steadily finding a displacement in their work due to whitewashing as well as an affront to their identity (Siek, 2012). If this whitewashing continues to persist in American cinema, it will be inevitable to see all-white casts nominated for their role portray of a different race.
The underlying root of why whitewashing continues to be a problem is that directors want to play it safe and cast white actors and actresses for their leading roles. To them, they see it as more ticket sales which will increase the gross income of the movie. Ridley Scott admitted to using this tactic since more people will know who a white actor is instead of an Asian actor. There are various movies from the past (Breakfast at Tiffany’s) and present (The Martian, Dragonball Evolution, and The Last Airbender) that have whitewashed out roles meant for actors and actresses. Even upcoming projects, such as the Japanese manga hit Ghost in the Shell, has confirmed that Scarlett Johansson will play the role of Japanese Motoko Kusanagi. Talk show host Bill Maher blames the reasoning for whitewashing on foreign countries and not the American film industry. “The dirty little secret,” Maher said on his HBO show, “is most movies are made now with an eye to the foreign market, and Asians really are racist” (Evans, 2016). Faulting the blame to another country does not fix the fact that these movies are made in America. If Ridley Scott’s logic is applied to that statement, then filmmakers only care about the profits and will continue to whitewash movies. Whitewashing movies should not be based on whether or not a movie will be profitable with Asian leads. If a role is described as being someone of Asian or any other ethnicity, then the actor or actress portraying that character should fit the requirement.
Works Cited:
Dennis, David, Jr. "Ridley Scott's Explanation For Whitewashing His Exodus Movie Is Infuriating." Medium. Medium, 26 Nov. 2014. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <https://medium.com/@DavidDWrites/ridley-scotts-explanation-for-whitewashing-his-exodus-movie-is-infuriating-8d36bd555ada#.f0dflp90l>.
Evans, Greg. "Bill Maher Whitesplains Hollywood’s Diversity Problem: It’s China’s Fault." Deadline. Penske Business Media, LLC, 23 Jan. 2016. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://deadline.com/2016/01/bill-maher-diversity-china-real-time-with-bill-maher-1201688927/>.
Ghehremani, Tanya. "25 Minority Characters That Hollywood Whitewashed - I.Y. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)." Complex. Complex Media Inc., 1 Apr. 2013. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2013/04/25-minority-characters-that-hollywood-whitewashed/breakfast-at-tiffanys>.
Koch, Cameron. "M. Night Shyamalan Still Doesn't Understand Why People Hate 'The Last Airbender'" Tech Times RSS. Tech Times, 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://www.techtimes.com/articles/54925/20150522/m-night-shyamalan-doesnt-understand-why-people-hate-his-avatar-the-last-airbender-movie.htm>.
Lee, Benjamin. "Gods of Egypt Posters Spark Anger with 'whitewashed' Cast." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 13 Nov. 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/13/gods-of-egypt-posters-anger-whitewashed-cast-twitter-exodus>.
McNary, Dave. "‘The Martian’ Slammed Over ‘White-Washing’ Asian-American Roles." Variety. Variety, 08 Oct. 2015. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://variety.com/2015/film/news/the-martian-white-washing-asian-american-ridley-scott-1201614155/>.
Mendelson, Scott. Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 27 Nov. 15. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/11/27/exclusive-lionsgate-responds-to-gods-of-egypt-whitewashing-controversy/#6775948931f4>.
Siek, Stephanie. "Is Hollywood 'whitewashing' Asian Roles?" In America RSS. CNN US, 13 Jan. 2012. Web. 23 Mar. 2016. <http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/is-hollywood-whitewashing-asian-roles/>.
