For many years, whitewashing has been a very silent controversy. In many movies clear Asian roles have been taken over by famous white actors which gives no chance in a small named Asian actor. There are many movies that this has happened like in the movie Aloha, Prince of Persia, and Doctor Strange, but some movies have cast the right races to the character like in the movie Moana or even Black Panther.
Whitewashing is a casting practice where the film industry in the United States would cast white actors in historically non-white character roles. Many movies have seen this happen in the 20th and 21st century. The non-white roles that were played by white actors were often wearing a term called blackface or yellowface. Blackface has mostly stopped by the mid-20th century to the early 21st century. While historically black roles are now played by black actors, yellowface still happens to this day. People have argued that directors and casting directors are just choosing the best actor, but in reality, they are choosing their friends or the actors that the people recognized and considered as “mainstream” or relevent. Or in other terms the director and casting director just wants to choose the actor or actress that will make the movie the best box office results and casting an ethnically correct actor for the character would not do that.
White actors are casted to maximize profits with an exception for a few famous black actors such as Will Smith, David Oyelowo, and Denzel Washington. As Andrew J. Weaver said, “There is an assumption in Hollywood that whites would avoid movies with a majority black casts, or any race cast for that matter. You see this whitewashing of films – even films that have minority characters written into them are being cast with whites” (Rose). Even if an African-American or an Asian-American is playing a main character in a movie or even a television show they most likely would get payed less than if a white actor played that same exact role. For example, a popular television show that is still being made by CBS is Hawaii Five-O. In this television show there are five main characters. Two of the five are white actors played by Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan. These two actors were getting paid more money per episode than the two Korean descent actors. Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park have been on the show since the first debut episode in 2010. Racial discrimination pay is a big deal in the film industry. Some actors and actresses of color do not get paid as much as their white counterparts which is an ashame. “It’s almost habit,” Tashima explains, adding that for Hawaii Five-0, “I don’t believe the producers ever thought they were doing anything racist” (Berg). More opportunities are opening up for white actors to build up their resumes with successful roles, so they can negotiate higher salaries. While even if this is the same case for actors of color they do not get to negotiate for higher pay because subconsciously studios think of the white actors.
Asian-Americans make up 5.4 percent of the population in the United States and growing. Even with that percentage only one out of twenty speaking roles go to Asian-Americans and out of that less than one percent are given the lead roles in films (Lee). This ratio of roles given to Asian-Americans discourage the Asian-Americans actor/ess young or old by stating that even if they try really hard for a role and are equally perfect for it but is up against a well-known white actor or actress the Asian-Americans are most likely not going to receive that role. Asian-Americans not only have a hard time getting the ethnically specific roles, but it is also a hard time for them to get normal or regular roles.
In the movie Aloha, filmed in 2015, which was thought to make box office gold was put under fire. Aloha is a romantic comedy with a celebrated military contractor and a Hawaiian air-force captain. This movie is placed on the island of Hawaii. When the casting list came out and most of the main characters where white. Especially when Emma Stone was cast to play a character in the movie who is an Asian-American woman named Captain Allison Ng. After that information was put out a large controversy has happened which included petitions to uncast Emma Stone as the lead role. During this time Emma Stone released a statement saying, “I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology” (Naahar). She also stated that she has learned a lot of the history of whitewashing in Hollywood and how the problem serious the problem is.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, filmed in 2010, was running smoothly with the casting except one small but big detail. The main character Jake Gyllenhaal was casted as the prince of Persia. He was chosen even though he has no trace to Persian descent. It is said that years after the movie was released Jake still comments on Hollywood whitewashing. He says, “a white American with a Swedish last name was cast to play the prince of Persia from, you know Persia” (Entertainment). With this statement one can see that not everyone ignores Hollywood whitewashing.
And finally, in the movie Doctor Strange, filmed in 2016, is just another example of Hollywood whitewashing. Traditionally in the Doctor Strange comics the Ancient One is originally portrayed as an Asian man. But when the comic was being adapted into a film, the Ancient One was casted to Tilda Swinton, a white British actress. The writers of the movie have slightly changed the concept of the movie to have Swinton fit in better. Swinton has commented on the matter of her being the Ancient One saying, “Anybody calling for more accurate representation of the diverse world we live in has got me standing beside them,” adding that, “I think when people see this film, they’re going to see that it comes from a very diverse place, … they’ll see that it’s not necessarily a target for that voice” (Entertainment). By Swinton saying this statement about the movie it makes it sound like Swinton does not care about Hollywood whitewashing because she got the part of the Ancient One in the movie.
While the problem persists, some directors and casting agents for movies are going against whitewashing by going the extra mile to cast the ethnically correct people to play the roles. For example, Disney’s released Moana in 2016 which was a great example on how to go against whitewashing. Disney wanted to do right by casting the voices of ethnically appropriate actors. The main character who is a young princess from the island of Motunui is played by a fourteen-year-old girl named Auli’i Cravalho. Auli’i is from the island of Oahu, Hawaii, she is a mixture of Hawaiian, Chinese, Portugal, and Irish (Rhoades). Auli’i was chosen from hundreds of young Polynesian women. In the movie everyone from Maui played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who is from Samoan descent, to the singing crab played by Jemaine Clement, who is from Maori descent, were all casted strategically by Disney (Rhoades). Disney was determined to not be accused of whitewashing in which they have succeeded in. Many people were pleased with this movie and how the story line was very ethnically correct with all the myths and legends from multiple cultures.
Asians are not the only non-white people to be whitewashed from a role. African Americans face this difficulty too. But a recent movie has gone past the odds and casted a predominantly African American cast. Black Panther is the movie that has done so well even overseas where “black films don’t travel well” this is due to the audience not wanting to see a movie predominantly filled with actor and actresses that they are not use to (Waltham). This movie has been put in box office history by overcoming great obstacles and achieving the success that Black Panther deserves for going against all odds (Wilkinson).
Today Asian-Americans are defying the odds by having popular television shows like Fresh Off the Boat, which is based on an Asian family moving to America, to all Asian-American cast movies. For example, a movie that is coming out soon with an all Asian-American cast is Crazy Rich Asians, which is based off a book by Kevin Kwan. This movie is defying all odds because the director and cast is all Asian. This movie is also being produced by Warner Bros. which is a big-name production studio. This movie is changing the whole game of Hollywood and whitewashing.
As seen through these examples Hollywood whitewashing does happen to a lot of great actor and actresses that the people may never know due to whitewashing that still happens to this day. But some movies have gone against Hollywood whitewashing, and have clearly put in the effort to searched and try to find the best ethnic actor or actress to play the characters in movies or at least try to before they decide to cast a white actor or actress for a non-white role. Hollywood whitewashing has gone on for far too long. It is time for Hollywood to stop trying to put this problem to the side. Whitewashing is slowly getting better in movies, but it is not happening fast enough.