Hollywood Whitewashing - Page 2

While I agree to an extent I also see the other side. There are good English speaking Japanese actresses who could have done Memoirs well and I think it is kind of sad that they got Chinese actresses to play the roles (again the irony of Japanese/Chinese relations). I was happy for Ziyi and Yeoh getting meaty Hollywood roles though. Kinda sucks.

Frankly I have one huge gripe with Hollywood over the last 20 years (on this subject) and his name is Chow Yun Fat. Ever since I saw this guy in The Killer on Cinemax in 91 he's been a star in my eyes. What Hollywood has done with this guy is a fucking travesty. Replacement Killers and The Corruptor were a good start than team him up with limp Jodie Foster and next Bulletproof Monk. POTC 3 was a joke whatever. The man after Crouching Tiger should have been getting headline work.

I'm not sure what the story of him and John Woo has been over the years (and I know they had a falling out with him leaving Red Cliff) but equally Woo has been wasted as well. I just think its a crying shame an actor with his charisma and bravado has no work to speak of over the last 5 years (I await Shanghai if for nothing else his work).

Jake in POP was a stupid choice but that film is a stupid choice and a bomb on site.

Truth is Hollywood just doesn't fucking get it. I hope I live long enough for it to. I have a feeling they will because latinos will be the dominating race here in America soon and they will demand equal representation and rightly so.

Its one thing to talk about acting talent and its another to see studios pass on talent that doesn't meet their target demographics.

While I would want accuracy as much as possible, there likely were a number of issues that went into the casting decision for those roles that made them preferable. If it was because Ziyi and Yeoh are the more well-known Asian actresses, I can't necessarily complain if they wanted to attach some "names" to the film. It's not as simple as just saying no, they're not Japanese so they shouldn't be considered.

Was Dragonball Evolution not good enough for you? Seriously though, Chow Yun-Fat should have been getting meaty roles in the US. Though I did like Anna and the King.

I wonder if him and Jackie Chan sorta got disillusioned with the Hollywood system and just started taking paychecks, which should be at the least pretty good given their names. Jet Li, at the very least, seems to be able to do some fun stuff. Even if it feels like he was there to add the Asian style to a bunch of hip hop action movies.

Was it even a role that Jake really wanted?

I don't know if that's going to have the biggest effect in the short run.

Thing is, it's sorta damned if you do and damned if you don't. I can imagine that there are those that want to go with quality, but if it means passing on the hottest thing out there for an unknown who is really good, I can't blame them for not wanting to lose their jobs.

Like I said i'm conflicted on that one. Its a weird deal though. I had a coworker who was Chinese and had been living here in the states for 3 years and she was really pissed with Ziyi for doing that film. Tensions are still pretty high.

I did my eyeballs a favor and stayed away from Dragonball. Hey look another whitey lead!

I think Jackie is just a junk yard dog at this point. He can't do the action anymore and he'll take continual work. Jet Li well I think Jet is less the entertainer than Jackie is so I think Jet is more limited. He is what he is at this point.

I would be curious to know the answer but I speculate that he got bored doing straight dramas or his agent just tossed his ass in the arena.

Curious to hear your thoughts.

Look I understand Hollywood can be savage but sometimes you got to go with some originality. If we compare this to Football the studios do the simple run up the middle over and over again to move the chains to get that 10 yard first down. Thing is throw the ball every once in awhile and mix it up.

Hollywood has a hard time with any mixing it up of ethnic looking people in lead roles. Period thats the deal here with POP. This film will have no chance of working with any actor even the most popular Will Smith. Might as well have gotten Dev Patal or Andrews or someone who isn't Caucasian.

At this point in 2010 you're either through the door or you're still the gate keepers that let one creep in every once in awhile.

I mean I still laugh to this day that Denzel Washington won his first Best Actor Oscar for Training Day. Not Malcolm X (understandable) or The Hurricane (but boy oh boy Kevin Spacey was so Aww in American Beauty *pukes*) but playing a filthy corrupt LA cop. I won't go into Halle Berry's either.

There may be an increasing Latino population, especially one that increasingly speaks English, but I don't know how well that will translate to a shift in entertainment in any appreciable way.

I know for a fact that that young latinos are a demographic that Hollywood is looking to cater to. That will create new roles for Latino actors, but I don't know if it's going to create roles of substance that will lead to a big change. Maybe it will, but I don't know.

Maybe it should be like in The Mentalist, where Tim Kang is one of the cast, who just happens to be Asian. Of course, it's also not the lead.

I completely agree. But, it's really the ones at the top that make these decisions. Of course, with the average tenure of studio heads, it might be coming sooner rather than later.

Yeah, that's true. I kind of wonder about the projections they ran though, and what kind of impact Jake's casting had.

At least people are speaking out when the egregious stuff happens. Hopefully that'll quicken progress.

I don't know either. Again leading roles.

This is Jerry Bruckheimer. The man who thought King Arthur was hip. Tried to make Ben Affleck a leading man. Gave us Gangsta's Paradise in Dangerous Minds.


Speaking out is great but studios and more importantly Hollywood in general have an aww shucks kind of vibe to this stuff. When Denzel lost for The Hurricane and won for Training Day I wasn't aww shucks I was ashamed. Its fucking retarded.


Here is Drew Moriarty McWeeny talking simply about franchise fatigue and I think good ideas aren't the only thing Hollywood is missing the boat on. Gutless cowards and fools who cannibalize and also overlook and bypass talent who they deem unbankable.

Yeah, and I'm sure that you'll get progressively more offensive portrayals of important non-white people the further back you go in time; my point was kinda, this shit is happening now, Ghandi's just a biopic that no one barely even talks about anymore. It'd be different if that movie had Star Wars-like staying power and was still an ongoing popcultural concern, but as it stands, I'll opt to get angry at the shit that's happening now, not the shit that happened a few decades ago.

Not whitewashing per se, but what was up with Firefly and Serenity? For a universe that implied that the Chinese were large parts of the universe, what with Mandarin being part of the common vernacular, I don't think that there were any speaking roles for Asian characters.

In fact, where there any asians aside from a couple of extras?

I'd like to add that as much as I loved Oded Fehr, I wouldnt cast him as the Prince of Persia, since he's jewish.
Actually, that would had been awesome, just to see Iran's presidential reaction.

A fair point, though Firefly still an improvement over Buffy as far as ethnic diversity goes tbh.

What, the sole Asian character being used as a joke about not knowing the other's language isn't really diversity?

I am shocked.

Of course, it would have to go fairly far back since we see their parents, who are pretty much as non-Asian as could be.

Just because you mentioned GI Joe - the actor that played Stormshadow was Korean, and was apparently suppose to be Chinese.

I just saw the Avatar web-comic myself, and would like to say I actually saw a casting call here in MN (at the Mall of America, I think). I can verify that the contents of the casting-sheet used are accurate. I think the reason fans are in such an uproar is that the series celebrated Asian culture, and managed to be perfectly successful with American kids. It's a pretend grouping of Asian cultures, but they're based in historic reality to a certain point.

It could also just be that fans are fans and hate it when anything is changed in adaptation. Personally, as a fan, I'm more offended that Shyamalan is on fucking record as saying the movie won't be funny, and that he doesn't get the purpose of Momo and the Cabbage Man. What the fuck, man?

ETA: I also remember that Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift had something like half its major speaking roles filled out by Korean actors.

It's been a while since I saw the movie, but isn't Storm Shadow supposed to be Japanese?

You're right, it was a Ninja school, not a Kung-fu school. All those Asian martial arts look the same to me. My stupid point still stands, because he is surely not supposed to be Korean.

Also, Snake Eyes was played by a white guy.

Snake Eyes is supposed to be a white guy.

And in Heroes, the guy playing Ando is James Kyson-Lee. Who is Korean. According to someone that would know better than I, apparently his Japanese was pretty bad.

Tsk, clearly I know dick about GI Joe characters. I have her the same thing about Kyson-Lee's bad accent.

Speaking of, and slight derail, does anyone here know the appropriate way to shorten a Korean name in English terms (meaning last name only, like Spielberg, instead of Steven Spielberg). I'm disagreeing with my editor, who changed all the 'Chan-Wooks' in my Vengeance Trilogy review to 'Parks'. Do I have to write the whole name every time?

All of my Korean friends refer to that director the way your editor does.

The Google ads on this page are trying to set me up with Chinese chicks. It may be true for Hollywood but you certainly can't whitewash the internet.

Getting back into the whole POP thing, you have to keep in mind that depending on the time period, the racial character of certain populations can differ. For instance, thanks to Alexander's conquests, it's possible to find blue eyed blondes in Afghanistan. If you consider that he conquered Persia, as well as the subsequent Hun, Arab, and Mongolian invasions of Persia, you get a wide variety of groups within that area.

It's really hard to believe how far we haven't come as far as accepting Asian and Asian American performers in pop culture goes. The last sitcom about Asian Americans was Margaret Cho's show that was cancelled in, what, 1995? There's never been an Asian winner on Idol. I think it says something about American culture that the only Idol contestant of Asian descent that most people remember is William Hung. I don't think there's ever been an Asian winner on Top Model, either, even though there have been several winners of color.

That Charice girl is one of the few Asian singers who has a chance at mainstream success, and that's due in large part to the push from Oprah.

The subject of Asians in American movies is a whole other issue. The de-sexualized image of Asian men still needs to be smashed. The chaste relationships Jet Li has with most of his female co-stars in his films speak to that issue.

Don't Stereotype Asian American Men

Margaret Cho on the Harajuku Girls

You simply cannot de-sexualize Chow Yun-Fat or Rain. But otherwise, yeah, your point stands. Probably part of why Tony Leung and Andy Lau have never bothered coming to Hollywood.

Rain was in two Hollywood movies, I only saw Speed Racer, but did he have a romance in Ninja Assassin?

In some ways, it's probably easier for a guy like Jackie Chan or Jet Li to cross over, since their draw is heavily on the action side. They don't need to speak English all that well. Chow Yun-Fat is a better actor, I believe, and his first American movie was pretty much the same as his well-known action flicks. He got to stretch in Anna and the King though.

I watch The Mentalist, don't judge me, and it seems that Tim Kang's character is the most underwritten. The two leads get a lot of screentime, because they're the leads, and the two other people in the team, aside from Kang, get screentime because they have a romantic subplot. Tim Kang feels like he's just sorta there. I don't recall if he had a developing subplot.

It would have been interesting if Kang's character had feelings for the white chick and we got to see that play out, but that's just me.

I'm sorry, I was just expressing personal, straight guy having second thoughts feelings about those two actors, who are way sexier in their HK and Korean flicks (or music videos). My second sentence was the real 'statement'.

No romance in Ninja Assassin. His relationship with Naomi Harris was just professional.

Naomie Harris was the (awful) platonic "love interest", they hardly broached the idea of the two getting together and so there is no real attempt at romance (or chemistry, really) which is weird, because as Gabe Powers noted, it is impossible to de-sexualize Rain. I couldn't get over how amazing he looked, and how he could easily become this country's first Asian sex symbol if he was given the chance.

If we're actually going to talk about this, I actually found Rain's relationship with his sister in Speed Racer pretty palpably sexual. Kind of not the thing we're going for here, but you know.

HA! I never vocalized that in my head, but I agree with you! If we're REALLY gonna talk about this, I think Rain's relationship with his dad in Speed Racer was sexual as well!

Was it intended, or is Rain just that fucking sexy?

God damn it. I mean, thanks for the help.

To me, calling Park Chan-wook simply "Chan-wook" is as if you're close friends. It just doesn't feel right to me. Calling him Park sounds more fitting.

I'm also much more used to the family name coming first. Chan-Wook Park doesn't sound right. Like Ziyi Zhang. Weird!

EDIT: Also, Yun-Fat Chow? Urg.

Though I've never met him, and I am a male, after watching Ninja Assassin, I found myself pregnant with his child. Yes, he's that fucking sexy.

He killed it in the single episode that revolved around him. I'd say we actually know more about his character than the other nonlead whites, but even still he hasn't gotten as much screentime as them. Feels a bit like a Ronnie Gardocki at this point.

I'd watch a show centered around the character. A reformed criminal turned cop, back in his old neighborhood to bring justice to the streets and reconcile his past. Basically Justified with Kang.

Must have missed that episode. He was a reformed criminal?

Ex-gangbanger.

I guess it'll be airing again June 10th if you're really interested in some Cho screentime. Good episode.

Let's hope that they have another Cho episode where he flashes back to his time as this:

I've notice that the English credits of Asian films have started switching the order of Chinese names specifically. Ziyi Zhang especially. She was always Zhang Ziyi in her early English credits.

If I recall you are of Korean decent, nooj? That would pretty much make me flat out wrong and admit defeat.

What about the female ninja in training? Wasn't there some attraction there for them? It's been awhile...

I am Korean. But highly Americanized. But I speak enough of the language to get by. Still use english subtitles for Korean films though.

Styrr, I totally forgot about the female ninja in training. In fact, I saw both Ninja Assassin and the DTV Ninja around the same time and often get details of the two movies mixed up.

Comedian Danny Hoch telling the story of how a racial skit made him turn down an apperance on Seinfeld:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq8...infeld_extreme

Just watched the Danny Hoch video that Zahn linked. Fascinating stuff. And when such a story is being told the way Hoch is telling it, it's easy to make judgements about Jerry Seinfeld and Michael Richards. It's downright depressing, but I can't say that I could or would have done the same thing had I been in Hoch's position.

I've actually been reading up some more on the Last Airbender front of the Hollywood whitewashing issue at... (wait for it!) www.racebending.com! And as interested I am in seeing the movie, I think I'll be waiting for it on video.

Going back to THE MENTALIST, I did see that episode about Cho. Sandrine Holt guest-stars as his girlfriend, interestingly enough. So, he's got that going for him.

It's a little hard to reconcile how he is now, and what he's supposed to have been in the past. Flashbacks probably would have made it a little easier.

And evidently, the Avon Park Playboys is a rather multi-racial gang. Kind of like that gang in DEATH SENTENCE.

Perhaps they're chanting the gospel of Shyamalan, who said in defense of the casting:

"Here's the thing. The great thing about anime is that it's ambiguous. The features of the characters are an intentional mix of all features. It's intended to be ambiguous. That is completely its point. So when we watch Katara, my oldest daughter is literally a photo double of Katara in the cartoon. So that means that Katara is Indian, correct? No that's just in our house. And her friends who watch it, they see themselves in it. And that's what's so beautiful about anime."

This is a fair point to address I think. I think it's indicative of the fact that there are two issues.

The first is how the casting actually hurts the narrative and themes of a film as an artistic expression.

The other issue is what the casting says about and how at affects society. And while movies like Prince of Persia and The Last Airbender may be fluff, they are still widespread fluff. Even if you don't see these movies, the consequences of them are inescapable. Consequences that Diva made a thread about here:

Show me the dumb kid

From what I'm reading elsewhere, it seems like people who worked on the animated series are very disappointed about the way the live-action movie has been cast and have spoken out about it, which seems like something the original creators of the series (listed as executive producers) cannot openly discuss except to say that he had nothing to do with the casting for the film and presenting the following image once the white leads were cast.


Turns out the movie is also doing away with the use of Chinese calligraphy that was heavily present in the series and replacing it with a made-up one.

I just received words from the movie producers. They are not going to use Chinese calligraphy at all, replacing it with unreadable symbols. I won’t be participating in the movie.

It is not only a disappointment on the cast. They are removing all the successful elements of the original TV series. I think that would keep a lot of Asian audience away.

I am disappointed to learn that the Avatar movie has removed the successful cultural elements of the original Avatar TV series. Whether this is a right decision will be seen in the box office.

- Professor Siu-Leung Lee, cultural consultant, Avatar: The Last Airbender


Also, here's what the casting director for The Last Airbender was reported to have said when it came to casting the extras in the film... roles where caucasian candidates were not singled out for. In fact, in this cast they seemed to only want minorities to provide color in the background.

“We want you to dress in traditional cultural ethnic attire,” [Deedee Ricketts, the casting director for the film] said. “If you’re Korean, wear a kimono. If you’re from Belgium, wear lederhosen.”

One middle-aged black woman, clad in a denim jacket and black slacks, raised her hand. “Are you at a disadvantage if you didn’t wear a costume?” she asked, evidently concerned about her “non-ethnic” outfit.

“Absolutely not!” Ricketts reassured her. “It doesn’t mean you’re at a disadvantage if you didn’t come in a big African thing. But guys, even if you came with a scarf today, put it over your head so you’ll look like a Ukrainian villager or whatever.”

That's just embarrassing.

In some ways, I don't know how much can be hold against Shyamalan. He more than likely can't express any negative opinion about anything to do with The Last Airbender.

Of course, there had to have been a time when he could have walked like Hoch did. But, that would likely give him a bad rep though.

Shitty situation. But yeah, that's some screwed-up casting direction. Though, I now want to see mcnooj in a kimono.

I'm still more upset about the apparent erasure of the humor, but this is really pathetic stuff. I feel really bad for Michael DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who probably aren't allowed to say anything about this shit.

Yeah, the problem is simply so systematic there is no one source to pin 'the blame' on. What I'm fascinated by is that so many of the choices this production has made, as well as how it has dealt with reactions to these choices, have really been playing right into the Whitewashing narrative. Now, this could be that I'm getting all of my information from a site that is actively pursuing this issue in the name of social responsibility. Biased? Sure. But studio PR and damage control being what it is, it's hard to get a good look at the other side that doens't come across evasive or incompetent.

The fact that Shyamalan really needs this to be a hit really clouds the discussion. Or makes it ever more clearer. Or both.

Though Shaun Toub, who plays Uncle Iroh, has expressed sympathy towards his director for being in a position of "damned if you do and damned if you don't," which I think is true to a certain extent.

But "damned if you do and damned if you don't" also applies to the success/failure of this movie. How much do you wanna bet that if the movie is successful, everyone involved will be patting themselves on the back for a whitewashing well done... and bemoaning the fact that they didn't make it 'accessible' enough should the movie underperform?

Oh, and...

That's good stuff right there. Night just can't fool around in Hollywood he needs this film to be profitable if wants a real directing career in the town. That's sad.

Systemic is also the correct word for this and I think that fits Washington D.C. ie Federal Government and State Gov as well but I digress.

At least Prince of Persia tanked that was good news.

Whatever happened to just casting blind. Whoever was best for the role got it. See a chunk of Brit TV and uh...Grey's Anatomy (which gave us the trifecta of awesome that is Sandra Oh, Chandra Wilson and Sara Ramirez).

Speaking of Ramirez. Was there much in the way of controversy when she played what's essentially the pastiest/whitest woman on the planet in Spamalot? Or does she get a pass because it's Spamalot?

And why is there anger over the casting in Avatar (I know I was annoyed. Need some little wushu-trained kids in there!) but people were totally behind the fellow from Community playing Spider-man? Is it because Shylaman's "blind casting" excuse was so ridiculously blatantly a lie?

And I say this as someone who WAS angry about the Avatar casting and supportive of the Spider-Man casting. I mean if we're supposed to be moving towards a post-racial all cultures are our culture world how do we stomach the inherent hypocrisy of that?

Has the late hour just made me obtuse and offensive?