Food for thought

[pez]

While I totally agree that The Last Airbender is one goddamn whitewash (and Prince of Persia more forgivable since they have mixed race actors at least), it has made me wonder what'd happen if it was the reverse - if a film was made based on a game/anime/cartoon that featured mostly people with white skin, featuring lots of actors who are not white.

Maybe it'll be a mix of the following:
- Yay, diversification!
- Uh, WTF this is wrong. That's just colourwash, political correctness gone mad.
- I think this is wrong but I'm not going to say it because people'll call me racist.
- I don't care either way, as long as they can act.

There is a whole load of other issues in this, of course. Such as what do you classify as "white" - is it just the skin colour? Are Italians and Spanish white to you, for example? How about second generation Jewish? And mixed race people? If second gen Jewish are white, then how about second gen Asian, born in a white country?

They used a Chinese rather than Japanese woman for Memoirs of a Geisha. Is that okay? If it is, why? Is it because as long as they LOOK the part it's all right? Does that mean if a white person plays a person of colour, as long as they made themselves look like they have a different skin colour, that's all right too? Or should they have cast a POC into the role instead?

Would you more readily accept a yellow-skinned southeast-Asian Dante for a Devil May Cry film? How about a west-Asian Dante? How about a Jewish Dante? How about an Afro-Caribbean Dante? Is it okay because Dante's supposed to be half human and the game doesn't specify the country he lives in, or is it not okay because he doesn't look anything but white in the game?

And say, if there was a southeast-Asian actor for Dante, would you expect him to have makeup to make him look more Dante like... and would you expect him to change his hair/wear a wig that's like Dante's hair? Is that covering up his ethnicity or just professionalism? Is it okay because no race really has white hair? Now, what if the original Dante is blond? Would changing the actor's hair to suit be ethnically bad because blond generally indicates white people, or is it just being professional?

So yes, I realise there are many questions and issues. I have no answers, just some views, and some of them make me go "but I wonder what if..."

Comments

[impressioniste.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the individual title, and how the casting agency / director goes about things, personally. I think with The Last Airbender the sort of callousness and thoughtlessness is what really pissed some people off. Even Hayato was talking about it and he's not like OMG RAEG but more like 'Huh, some of this really isn't making a lot of sense.'

Shitty casting choices are heated enough debate. Racial casting issues are heated enough debate. When you mix the two, it's a clusterfuck.

I remember there being huge drama over the Memoirs of a Geisha thing. I personally have no problem with that because even though Chinese =/= Japanese, 'Asian' is at least in the same general REALM.

I remember them releasing a new version of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, and they had mixed racial casting. That was weird, though. There was like, a White King, a Black Queen ... and an Asian Prince. In that case my brain just kept going 'buh?!' every time I saw it. It wasn't like 'OMG OUTRAAAAAAAAEG' and it's a FAIRY TALE after all, but it was just weird.

IMHO things don't need to be perfect, but they should at least make some conscious effort to be true to source material. And acting ability always trumps race/skin color/hairstyle/hair color/whatever, within reasonable guidelines. Too much 'Political-Correctness' is just as bad as Whitewashing.

It's hard to say unless you talk about individual cases, because if say, a White Actor is really truly PERFECT for a particular character that's supposed to be Asian and they really cannot find any Asian actors to compare, I would probably support some sort of makeup-job to make him look more the part. But if there are just-as-good Asian counterparts available and they pick the White Actor for no really good reason, then it gets a little sketchy. I think the whole picture should be taken into account, and preference should go to someone who actually suits the role.

I mean, if they're casting for a character that is thin, a fat person can't get all pissy about discrimination because they didn't get the role, even if they are the greatest actor that ever lived, because you can't makeup over someone's weight like that. You can do it the other way around, though, and there have been occasions where actors wore padding or 'fat suits' and makeup. And you can't just have a total free-for-all where anything goes, either. Life isn't always fair, and that's just how it is.

All this stuff is why I tend to think it's an individual situation thing. You can't make any rules across the board that are particularly fair to any given side, and you can't please everyone all the time.

People get way too offended over things way too quickly. It gets to the point of inanity.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

With the director not being white, I do wonder what the fuck went through his mind during the casting. Or if he was under so much pressure from his company that he had no choice.

I see your point about Asian being in the same general realm. At least it's the same continent. But don't some Americans and Canadians get all touchy when they're mistaken for each other? I'm sure Spanish and Portugese people don't want to be mixed up. Personally I don't mind if people mistaken me for Japanese, but I DO mind when they wave and go "ah it's all the same~" when I correct them. It's like... "do we all look the same to you?" I suck at identifying races, and think that sometimes Americans and Australians look pretty similar. Somehow I don't think people'd be happy if I got the mixed up.

That'd be pretty weird, yeah. Seeing it's a fairy tale I probably would've told myself "it's like cats, with recessive genes," but I'd still boggle a bit too.

The "reasonable guidelines" I totally agree with. If they had tried to find the actors with the right colour but could not because their acting's not good enough, then casting white actors can't be so wrong. But they need to try first.

[impressioniste.livejournal.com]

Seeing it's a fairy tale I probably would've told myself "it's like cats, with recessive genes,"

For some reason I laughed way too hard at this.

But yeah that not-caring, 'oh whatever, it's all the same' attitude is unacceptable.

Unfortunately I don't have any experience living as a minority race so my perspective is all from the relatively privileged white-caucasian side.

If they had tried to find the actors with the right colour but could not because their acting's not good enough, then casting white actors can't be so wrong. But they need to try first.

Also something effed up is that didn't they claim they actually did that? And the acting was apparently still terrible, according to reviewers/critics. So it doesn't seem to hold a lot of water. (Not your statement, but the director/whoever's statement that they just picked the best actors and it had nothing to do with race/color).

I've seen people discuss the 'omg good guys = white, bad guys = asian-looking omg racist racist racist' but I can honestly tell you that unless I was actively looking for something racist in the movie, I would never have drawn that conclusion. Maybe it's because I'm not inherently racist and don't judge people by their color, or maybe I'm just ignorant. I'm not sure. It's not to say that I don't agree with people getting upset by the whole mess of racial issues with the movie. I just never would have even noticed that on my own.

A random other story:

I used to watch Power Rangers when I was like, 10, 11, 12. Somewhere in there. The Black Ranger was a black guy. The Yellow Ranger was Asian. Eventually the Green Ranger ended up as the Red Ranger, and he was Native American. I never noticed this until like... a dozen years later. Now, if the internet had been around back then, they would have been accused of racism and insensitivity and everyone would have been up in arms and screaming about the casting choices.

The studio swears it was accidental. Would people believe them, or would they crucify them like they did over Airbender? Noteworthy: the studio, once they realized the snafu, I guess, never made that color-casting mistake again.

tl;dr

[potter.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Memories of a Geisha casting was cool either, tbh, although the film is problematic to begin with because of its Western male narrator. But I felt when that film was cast, it played into this idea that everyone of East Asian descent looks the same and that's pretty offensive.

IMHO, the reason that people would get less irate about a 'reverse' colourwash is because it's less damaging. That's not to say that a 'reverse' colourwash would be okay, of course, in the same way that positive discrimination isn't okay. But it's seen as a lesser evil and I can understand why. The problem with the Airbender fiasco is that it was a wasted opportunity for marginalised actors and actresses to be represented as protagonists in a Western film. The same wouldn't be true of a 'reverse' colourwash - a 'white' film recast with actors/actresses of alternative backgrounds wouldn't lead to 'white' people losing power, authority or representation.

In terms of what can be classed as 'white' and what can't - this is where race and ethnicity become complex and multi-layered, so I'll try not to get too into that. In terms of issues like the film industry, though, what it boils down (IMHO) is marginalising. When casting for a film that features minority groups, I believe an effort should be made to represent said group with an actor/actress from that background. These actors/actresses are passed over for 'white' roles because the majority of Western films feature 'white' protagonists, so every time an ethnic role is recast, diversity is pushed further into the background. All it does is maintain the status quo, in which 'white' protagonists are all we see. That's damaging.

As a side point, the Dante point is interesting. In terms of keeping his appearance, I don't think people would object to a white wig, but it wouldn't necessarily be seen as okay just because no race has white hair. Look at James Cameron's Avatar. It's often defined as racist even though no race has blue-coloured skin, because it rewrites American history in an 'exotic' and therefore more appealing way. Even when considering the appearance of characters, it seems to me possible to do harm.

Re: tl;dr

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

a 'white' film recast with actors/actresses of alternative backgrounds wouldn't lead to 'white' people losing power, authority or representation.

That is very true.

Agreeing with you about needing to make an effort to find actors with the right background.

The whole racial argument about Avatar makes me boggle a bit, really. For example, in Independence Day, it's America that finds the way and sends out the people to go save the world. They even go to teach all the other nations how to do it. That can be seen as "USA is better and clever than the rest and they save the world". But is it about that, or is it about human tenacity, and the loltastic idea of being invaded by aliens and we should all just have a laugh and don't think about it too much?

In Japan, loads of anime and manga depict Tokyo as the centre of the world. Tokyo gets trashed, the whole world disappears. X, Angel Sanctuary, Sailormoon... the list goes on. And that's apparently fine too. Us western fans tend to just lol about it, and it doesn't seem to make Japanese kids think Tokyo > everywhere else.

The message in Avatar is clearly an environmental one. Everything can have something discriminatory in it if people are determined to dissect it, it's just whether or not the dissection is reasonable...

Re: tl;dr

[storme]

Well, there's a tradition of 'white guy joins the indigenous noble savages and leads them to greatness/salvation' which is linked with american history and the treatment of the native american peoples (See also, eg, the british treatment of empire territories for other examples of white-man-saves-the-natives--or there are tons of film examples of it all over, but the pandoran people do seem to evoke native americans). http://zoethe.livejournal.com/711646.html is a clearer listing of the issues, I think. So it's not like people have to look *that* hard to find an issue with it.

Re: tl;dr

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

But at the same time, in Avatar it is the Americans who are doing the damage to begin with. It's those people who say the Na'vi are the savages, and then the other Americans oppose them and try to make changes. It's not as if the film is saying the indigenous are bad and Americans are there to save them. It more a case of "look, we're doing it wrong. We need to stop."

And, as discussed on IM, if the film was made somewhere else and therefore the lead is of a different race, I bet that'd have been okay. If that's not racewash, I don't know what is.

Things need to be judged on a case by case basis, rather than "hey this sounds like those other films I bet it's the same."

Re: tl;dr

[storme]

As you know, I've not seen Avatar, so mostly here I'm just explaining what I've seen in terms of racial objection. (I don't have any real judgement on it being racist or not, genuinely. But I saw my friendslist erupt over it.) To be honest, it doesn't matter really that it should be judged differently on a case-by-case basis. My point is that those associations are going to make people go RACEFAIL even if they probably shouldn't.

Re: tl;dr

[impressioniste.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a tradition of 'white guy joins the indigenous noble savages and leads them to greatness/salvation'

I know it's not exactly the same, but this made me think of the Disney version of Pocahontas.

I didn't really pick up on most of it when I was younger and it first came out, but that is really one facepalm of an animated film adaptation of a story.

Re: tl;dr

[potter.livejournal.com]

There're definitely issues with American cinema in general - I think it was U571 that got them into a lot of trouble after they took British WW2 code-cracking victory and recast it with American submariners. It's where the line is between American filmgoers wanting to see American victories (which is fine) and where it becomes 'America is wiser than all of these ignorant peoples and it will Show The Way'. I'm quite serious about the affect of cinema on societal thought and I don't think a lot of what's seen in films is good for us generally, regardless of how much it entertains. But that's just me and other mileage may vary!

It's definitely true that other nations have a similar nationalist slant on their media. That said, even though Japanese kids don't think Tokyo is everywhere else, they are still isolated from other cultures and I'm not sure that their media doesn't worsen that. If you look at the massive success of Hetalia, for example, that's hugely entertaining for thousands of fans but I'm not sure I trust a Japanese media outlet to depict individual European countries without preying on stereotypes. It just comes down to individual tolerance for that - it winds me up, so I've avoided it.

Cameron's Avatar is difficult. I do think there is a strong environmental message in it but I also feel that it's a retelling of the native American story, only in this version there are heroic Americans who lead the way to victory. Yes, they're the ones who have essentially done the damage in the first place, but the point of the film is that it's America that goes in to save the day. To me, that's a bit of a redemption fantasy and it's made accessible to the viewer because the 'natives' are depicted as 'alien' (non-native to earth) rather than the historical people who were involved.

It might've been more tolerable had the Na'vi found their own route to victory without the aid of American machinery and military tactics. As it was, the message was that the same spirituality and moral strength that was so admirable was clearly not enough to save their land - it took an outside American 'might' to do that. Avatar presented the 'noble savages' well, but it still had to remind the viewer that without American might, they could not survive. I don't think people are being unrealistic in their viewing of Avatar as discriminatory, though again that's down to individual feeling. For me, though, Avatar definitely hit my 'this is uncool' buttons.

Re: tl;dr

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

My interpretation of Avatar is along the lines of the Na'vi being representative (or personification) of nature, which can then "explain" their connection with nature, and the upload/download of memories etc, because all of nature is connected and if you harm one aspect, you'll eventually bring harm to another, etc. And the fact that nature can be fierce, but also fragile.

People say that the Na'vi markings and hair hint at the native Americans, but the ancient Chinese used that sort of hairstyles too, and plenty of African tribes like to paint their bodies. I really do think that it was the sort of story another writer from another country could have come up with. And if they'd filmed that, there wouldn't have been a problem because that other country doesn't have a history with natives.

If the story had the Na'vi defeating machines with their own strength, that would have been ideal yet... unrealistic? (Not that any of it was realistic, I know.) Any species that have lived in isolation, undisturbed, would not know how to defend themselves when a new predator comes along. (I've watched too much QI.)

[genkischuldich.livejournal.com]

Well, if you think about it, this is technically the case with the Kuroshitsuji musical. It isn't even an issue.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Hm, but the Kuroshitsuji musical isn't being sold worldwide, and it's performed live, which means it needs to be in a language the audience can understand. I'm sure there are white actors in Japan who can speak the language, but I presume they're fewer in numbers than ethnic actors in America.

But of course, there is the whole thing about how foreigners are treated in Japan, too.

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking that, too - especially since I've always loved that RSC plays I saw in England were essentially colour blind, to me as an outsider, there never seemed to be a criterium other than how well an actor could act to the reason why they played a role. I am a total nut for either true colour blindness like that, or keeping it completely real, i.e. period pieces with really British-looking actors, stuff set in Asia with Asian actors.

I really don't care about Avatar one way or another, but to have a movie that's supposed to have Asian looking characters cast so that the main good guys are white, the main evil dude Asian, and most of the background be Asian? That sorta screams bad attitude, especially since I seem to remember the director yelling about how diverse his cast is. Uhm, no, it really isn't if the main trio is lily white. It *could* be a coincidence, yes, but from my point of view, the pattern in the casting suggests that they were not being colour-blind, but at best didn't think about it at all, at worst cast what they thought would be commercially successful.

Sigh. I dunno.

What do you think of the new Karate Kid movie? Are you going to go see it when it comes out? I only saw the trailer and read a few interviews, but from that, I had the impression that this would be a movie where they really did the whole race thing *right* - no colour-blindness, but acute awareness of it. I suppose it's not really comparable, but something about Avatar really just does not sit right, and I do agree that it would have been important to get it right, considering the target age group.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

The one good thing we can hope for is that the shitstorm this has kicked up will alert production companies, casting agencies and directors that the audience does expect better from them.

I don't think I'm going to watch Karate Kid, but only because I've never watched any Karate Kid related things and therefore I have no interest in it.

[semishade (from livejournal.com)]

I'm going to watch Karate/Kung Fu Kid as soon as it gets here - but that's because it has Jackie Chan and a cute chibi in it, and that combo presses all the right buttons (Ken and Kaoru appear in many guises)! On the other hand, I utterly cringed when I saw the trailer for Avatar.

Re. what is white, I was surprised to discover at college that the definition of "Aryan" was based on language classification rather than colour, precisly because skin tone can vary (some Japanese people paler than me etc).

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'm not terribly fond of Jackie Chan, so I guess I won't be seeing it.

I wish they taught that definition back in school. All I learned from GCSE history was that Aryan = blue eyed, blond haired = Hitler's favourite looks!

[semishade (from livejournal.com)]

Likewise. Although it still boggles my mind that Urdu, Russian and English are all parts of the same linguistic group.

[animegoil.livejournal.com]

And honestly, that's why I think people need to take a chill-pill. It's just a ridiculously complex topic, and we've been beaten over the head with certain ideas (make sure to be diverse! etc etc) that when you change the scenario as you just did, it makes us maybe think about it a little more and realize it's not as straightforward as it is, and that maybe we have no fucking idea what to do in certain situations either. The easy cases of racism are easy, and we can point and say YEAH, THAT'S WRONG! But as soon as you turn the scenarios a bit, we have no idea what's right and wrong anymore.

I don't approve of discrimination or racism, obviously. And I am kind of pissed at the Airbender movie because it was just so blatantly -wrong-. But I'm not going to call them racist either and get all up in arms about it like I've seen some people do. Because that's just being extremist in the other direction. I'm sure they've already heard plenty of criticism about their casting -- probably even AS they were selecting the cast. Clearly it didn't stop them. Why? Who knows. Where they actually being racist? Who knows. Maybe other stuff got in the way, maybe they had some other reasons for picking these actors.

Uuuuugh. Sorry, it's just been driving me crazy. Racism is bad, you shouldn't stand for it, yadda yadda, but at the same time, this isn't hurting anyone, so I don't see a need for some people to fucking boycott the movie and act like it's the devil. It's just a movie. Just like I don't think race jokes are bad, as long as it's not a reflection of how you act towards that race. But that's another ballpark -_-;;


kfhawehak UUUUUUGH. CHILL PILL PEOPLE. (and not talking about you, lol, cause you seem chill about it. Which is why I ranted to you. you seem reasonable about it XD)

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

I wonder. Perhaps the casting people were all, "it's based on a kids thing, it doesn't matter, nobody'll pay attention to the race thing." Or perhaps choosing the right colour was difficult. You'd want a Japanese person of the right age, who could speak English, can act and preferably with a bit of martial arts background. It's not the easiest criteria. But still, taking the easy way out, for a film that has plenty of money to play around... maybe they aren't racist, but they are plain stupid and corner-cutting. Surely they could've cast the net real far and wide until they find the right people.

I wouldn't claim that this whitewashing it's not "hurting anyone" - apparently this film has awful special effects and has been universally panned by critics, but had it been a successful one, a POC's acting career could have been launched, and that can easily lead to the audience being more used to see people from other races on their screens. The calls of boycott will help to that, and if someone was totally unaware because they don't know the original Airbender, they can be made aware that Something has Gone Wrong here.

Like you, I dislike playing the racial card. Overreaction or not, hopefully something good can come out of this.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

When they were casting, they specified “Caucasians or any other ethnicity," which implies that they weren't even looking for nonwhites.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

orz that's pretty much fail. They should've just said "any ethnicity".

Though I wonder if that's the typical wording that's used during casting, and they just did it the same way without thinking about its implications. Because they do sound that stupid.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

If they do it that way typically, they really ought to change it ._.

[schweinsty.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I disagree with the previous commenter that the movie isn't hurting anyone. Especially if it had been successful, the whitewashed casting would have fed into the status quo that American audiences only want Caucasian heroes, leading to a Hollywood where, even after the huge success of Slumdog Millionaire, Dev Patel stated in an interview [paraphrasing, though I can hunt it down if you'd like] that he was only being offered secondary parts such as 'Indian cab driver' or other such stereotypes.

And even if one were to cast minorities in previously white roles, it wouldn't have nearly the same impact; 'diversity-washing' doesn't have the same, long history that whitewashing and yellowface do, and Caucasians have much more of a chance to break into acting, even with the occasional case of minorities playing caucasians; 72.5% of acting roles go to caucasian actors, whereas only 3.8% go to Asians*. It's often said that the reason there aren't many minorities headlining movies is that there aren't many bankable minority actors, but this is probably just a symptom of the fact that they (and especially Asian actors, which are some of the least represented) are never given a chance to headline a movie or tv show.

As for the 'who's white' question - IDEK. I'm half-white (German) and half-hispanic, and most people think I'm one or the other depending on how tanned I am, so - eh. I think that depends more on self-identification a lot of the time.

...Sorry if I word-vomited here, hope I didn't come off as proselytizing. It's just a topic I'm kind of invested in atm.

*Should have noted that these statistics are from 2008, but I don't think things have changed much.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

I disagree with her as well. Though, in the case of Dev Patel, I wonder if it's as much colour discrimination as the fact that he doesn't have the "typical movie star look" - goodlooking, or great body, or awesome charm and charisma, etc. Dev Patel's looks were perfect for Slumdog, but for the typical Hollywood blockbusters, those are not the "right looks". Which is really really sad.

Urgh. What with more races represented in TV shows like Heroes, Lost etc, you'd think that things would start changing in films too. But, to be a bit more fair, I do wonder a bit about Asian actors in the US. My impression (which might be wrong) is that a lot of actors start going to acting schools and having agents relatively young. Asian people might start late because Asian parents, even when abroad, more often than not want their children to become lawyers, doctors, bankers, and they will push their children in that direction in the same way that some child stars are pushed very hard by their obsessive parents. So Asian actors might start late, probably when they're independent from their families, and have less experience and might be less "worldly" about the filming industry, have less contacts, and don't have agents who have long standing relationships with them.

I mean, look at any film or TV show that's made in HK or China. You'll be appalled by the standards of the extras. That's because acting is so actively discouraged that extras are literally just people off the streets who're there for half a day for some lunch money.

But yes. The race problem is massive. And hey, if I don't want people to discuss, I wouldn't have posted in the first place. >)

[semishade (from livejournal.com)]

I'm having a smile over this because there are one or two Taiwanese series which I suspected had done exactly that (pull someone off the street) when they wanted an actor for an English role.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

The biggest difference is that historically, it is not white people who are oppressed. (That's why I think reverse discrimination is BS)

[semishade (from livejournal.com)]

Not oppressed by POC. Plenty of instances of oppression *within* white communities.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

Point! I was more referring to the issues between PoC and whites in casting.

[yuki-scorpio.livejournal.com]

There is more to discrimination than just what's historic, though. At big corporations and government departments, it is possible that to reach a certain % diversity target, job applicants who are from ethnic minorities/female... etc, will get favoured over other applicants. It's so that the company can then promote themselves as "30% of our staff are non-white" which makes them look all politically correct and awesome.

And then there are instances when people dare not say anything when something bad has happened and it involves a POC doing the damage, because whatever they say, it can be construed as racist.

[uminohikari.livejournal.com]

That's true, and applicable to other places as well (the college application process for one), but at the same time... it /is/ harder for a those groups to get a job, period. So the people not in those groups can more easily (and I'm not trying to say they can just snap their fingers) get a job.

There's a study (will find the link if you're curious) that showed that people who identify as not racist (I'd imagine most hiring people who belong to this group) will chose both black and white applicants who are overwhelmingly qualified for a position, and reject both black and white applicants who are clearly not qualified. The difference is, for those people who lie in the middle, the whites are given the benefit of a doubt, but the blacks are not.

...I'm not exactly trying to defend the diversity target though. I think that it's an issue (the higher difficulty faced by PoC//females) that needs to be addressed, but not that way.

I'll be honest and say I've /never/ heard of one of those cases.

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

The fact that there are so few Asian faces in American films is why I can overlook the way Hollywood thinks Asians are one giant pool of tan folk. I always notice when Chinese (-American) and Korean (-American) actors get cast for characters with Japanese names. But it's better than having no one who looks (somewhat) like me in media.

signed,
Japanese-American hapa who like to see more mixed race actors cast w/o any heavy-handed reference to race in the plot