By P.B Santos
Whitewashing has been around Hollywood since the beginning of Film, many critics are complaining about the recent castings of white actors in none white roles; Jake Gyllenhaal as a Middle Eastern in “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time“ which opens May 28 and Noah Ringer as the Asian lead, Aang, in “The Last Airbender” which opens July 2.
If you are not familiar with what whitewashing is here is a brief description; “whitewashing” is when they cast white actors in lead roles that were originally intended for people of color.
The casting of the “Last Air Bender”, a Nickelodeon cartoon series about an Asian boy, reminds me of when David Carradine, a white male who looked sort of Asian was cast as Kwai Chang Caine aka “Grasshopper” in the lead role of 70’s TV series Kung Fu, a role that the legendary martial arts film star, Bruce Lee originally came up with and was not cast in because producers felt America wouldn’t embrace a Chinese in a lead role, basically if White people saw a Chinese man they would just change the channel.
As a Filipino-American, I feel upset about these type of castings, but at the same time I also understand why they cast movies and TV shows this way and it has to do with business.
Good lead roles for minorities are few and far between. I don’t think the studios are racist, I think they are catering to there most lucrative audience, you have to realize America is still majority white. When they change castings from stories that are originally cast with Asians or Latinos, and make the characters white, they do it to attract more viewers, in turn earning more money.
Like the movie “21” although the book was based around mainly Asian-American characters, the movie was “whitewashed” and the Asian-Americans were replaced with non-Asians, but you have to understand, they had to change it to appeal to the mainstream of America. More examples of whitewashing in recent movies, “Speed Racer”, “Dragonball Evolution”.
Even though its 2010, if the cast of certain movies stayed true to their ethnic characters, the movies wouldn’t draw that much at the box office. If that movie “21” cast the main roles as Asian’s, it wouldn’t even do half of what it grossed in the first week of its release, so the studios would take a loss in profit. I can only really think of one minority or person of color who can actually draw consistent huge numbers at the box office and that is Will Smith.
The movie and television industry is still a business, so casting mainly white characters with token minorities in supporting roles is the best bet financially for the major studios.
I am pretty sure the studios have done studies on demographics, and what group appeals to what show or movie, and who watches what, and the white demographic, brings in the most money so the studios whether they like it or not must appeal to the larger demographic in order to make a significant profit.
In my opinion, if you think about it, almost every race and ethnicity in America watches movies that are mainly white casts, but not every American watches movies with non white casts dealing with non white stories.
So, until American audiences start supporting movies with non-white casts or ethnic characters then these “whitewashed” castings will just continue on.
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