Canadian actor Adam Beach recently penned an essay outlining the persistent issue of whitewashing in Hollywood. It’s hard to argue with his points or the merit of his piece, because we have eyes and can see that this is still to this day a “thing” that Hollywood really needs to stop.
Hollywood has long been known to whitewash characters of ethnic backgrounds, and despite the popularity (or cult status) of these films, it doesn’t detract from the point that this is some shit that isn’t needed any longer.
Beach actually said it best when he quipped:
“There is no need to cast non-Native performers and actresses in Native roles. This is not 1950...”
YAHTZEE!
Of course, this goes well beyond mere whitewashing of Native roles. That’s been going on since the days of the first old westerns with the traditional “Cowboys and Indians” motif. To be honest, it was rare to see actual Indians (or Natives/Aboriginals/First Nations Peoples as they prefer to be called these days…) in the role of the Indians. Instead we were treated to dusted up, dirtied up “redskins” playing at being Indians.
Times were different then. We get it. Hell, we remember playing Cowboys and Indians when we were growing up too. It was just how we did things back in the day.
Would we do it today?
Nah.
Too much political warfare being waged and political correctness to make the game fun anymore. You can’t even pretend to “hate” them because of fear that some nosy fucking neighbor would be all up in your face within moments calling you a fucking racist and probably calling the cops to launch a hate crime charge.
Ugh…we digress.
So what makes his essay so worthy of note?
Nothing, really. We’ve seen countless ones before his, and will likely see countless others to follow. It’s just that it comes at a time when we want to speak about such topics so as to spark debate and chatter online about it all. To provoke a dialog and exchange (what we are all about). His is no more special or profound than those that came before it, but the timing is impeccable.
There are many a theory as to why Hollywood keeps doing this shit (Ghost In The Shell anyone?), and our take is one of simple economics. Hollywood still feels and convinces themselves that if they cast A-listers or “known” talent in their fare, that people will forget that the character they’re seeing is of deep ethnic origin and so very, VERY non-white.
The first example we can recall seeing was Mickey Rooney playing at a Japanese character named Mr. Yunioshi in the 1961 classic, Breakfast At Tiffany’s. Yes, we watch a lot of classic films.
Though at the time we found it funny and amusing since we get that it was a caricature of a Japanese man, we couldn’t help then and still to this day to notice how we struggled to wrap our heads around it all. Almost as though we knew it was insulting and demeaning without being able to articulate that at the time. Years later, seeing it again, it’s so fucking cringey it ain’t even funny.
Break that down even further and include the real world events into the scenario, we had just been at war with the Japanese not some 16 years prior, and odds are that feelings were still terse between the cultures. Hard to cast a Japanese actor at the time without someone freaking the fuck out about it, right? They bombed Pearl Harbor after all, and that is something that people won’t soon forget (especially in 1961). Animosity towards certain cultures has to play some role in these choices when we choose to include historical real world events in the mix.
Not to mention, 1961 was a very different time too, yes?
How about John Wayne as Genghis Khan (in The Conqueror, circa 1956)? Anyone else remember that?
Holy shit. Unreal. Could that have been any worse? He was as Mongolian as Don Cheadle.
But it wasn’t just classic films that took liberties and then matured. No. You’d think that Hollywood would have matured enough to have moved past that bullshittery. Nope. There are contemporary films that are still taking liberties with casting calls.
Exodus: Gods And Kings from 2014 anyone? A white Welshman and a white Aussie to play the two principal characters, who happened to be from the fucking Middle East. Yeah there was an overabundance of whites deep in the desert back in the day, right?
Don’t even get us started about the Bible and how many whites there obviously were 2000 plus years back roaming the desert near Jerusalem. Can’t think of many more deeply Middle Eastern names than Michael, Mark, Joseph, Peter and so forth...
So yeah, it even hit the Bible for Christ’s sake. (see what we did there?)
Ridley Scott who was behind that epic fucking failure knew it was all about money. He admitted it directly when he was quoted as saying:
“I can’t mount a film of this budget … and say that my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such. I’m just not going to get it financed.”
It’s always about the Benjamins.
Whatever the issue is, wherever the issue is, in whatever context it springs forth from, when you peel away the layers all that remains is some talk about money and/or finance at the end of it. The world is pretty simplistic in that sense.
Hollywood though, seems to forget that we are truly not in 1950 anymore. We are in a society now that demands equality and representation, and if you try to whitewash something, the crowd will voice themselves and voice themselves rather loudly and publicly. They will waste little time doing so either.
Yet Hollywood keeps pushing through their shit, banking on 1950s logic that star power eases consciences.
No. No, it really doesn’t. We really can’t think of any major blockbuster that employed whitewash techniques that was well received critically and commercially. We can’t think of one. If 1950s logic applied and was working, we’d have no issue at all coming up with several notable examples of how quickly people overlooked whitewashing because of simple star power.
A thought just popped into our head – can any of you imagine a classic film like Roots (1977) or a more contemporary masterpiece like 12 Years A Slave (2013) being whitewashed and so well received? Can you imagine trying to tell a story about slavery with whites being cast as the slaves? Jesus Christ...
If Hollywood will only bankroll major motion pictures with white actors and star power, and risk losing gobs of money in the process...wouldn’t it make more financial sense to simply cast as needed, ethnically speaking, and hope the losses are less severe, or even better, the losses aren’t there and it’s actually successful? Isn’t the first rule of business to make money? According to their 1950s logic, it’s better to bankroll a major motion picture for $200 million with a cast of whites in principal roles and lose your ass in the process...than to bankroll it for less, but casting ethnic actors for their ethnic roles?
Who the fuck thinks like that?!
ProTip: it’s 2017, Hollywood. As Beach pointed out, and those that came before him, it’s not 1950 anymore. Quit bankrolling whitewashed dreck that could’ve otherwise been really decent fare had you simply embraced the fact that we are living in the 21st century now and had cast ethnic actors for ethnic roles.
Hollywood needs to start taking risks. It’s that simple. They’re leaving a lot of money on the table by bankrolling flops that might have been successful otherwise, minus the whitewash. And because they’d be casting non A-listers, the bankroll would be considerably less, but they could also uncover the diamonds that lay in rough as a result. The up and comers that Hollywood could then consider star power despite their “ethnic handicap”.
Just sayin’.
Free your 8
~ SC
FULL DISCLOSURE: We are Caucasian. Deeply Caucasian. So Caucasian that you can almost see through us. We scare the sun we are so pasty white.
As always, if you have any questions, concerns, comments or suggestions, feel free to leave them below or contact us.
