“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.”
That was director Ridley Scott’s response to claims of whitewashing in his film Exodus: Gods and Kings, given in a 2014 interview with Variety.
For those who don’t know, whitewashing is the term used to describe the Hollywood practice of casting white actors for nonwhite roles. It’s a nearsighted concept closely associated with ‘blackface’ and ‘yellowface’, which saw white actors covered in makeup in an attempt to (unsuccessfully) hide their true ethnicity.
Scott’s statement was true enough. It’s not a secret that the system puts most of its stock in bankable white actors. However, the issue was not only with the leads, but with the entire cast. Sure, they cast Sir Ben Kingsley (a half-Indian British-born actor who has played Indian, African, Middle-Eastern, and Asian), but there were few performers with an ethic background whose roles extended beyond the traditional slave or soldier.
We should have been surprised, but we weren’t.
Exodus was not the first film to receive a backlash over whitewashing, but it was certainly the most prominent release at a time when Hollywood was making vows to strive for equality across the industry.
Two years later, the landscape is unchanged.
When, in February 2015, producers of the US adaptation of Ghost in the Shell announced that Scarlett Johansson was set to play lead character Makoto Kusanagi, the cry of “whitewashing!” was barely heard amidst a collective shrug of indifference from fans. This was not the first time a live-action remake had been attempted by Hollywood; it would likely fall apart, just like the others.
But when Paramount Pictures and Dreamworks Pictures announced the film had commenced principal photography in April of 2016, criticism reached fever pitch.
Ghost in the Shell is a classic piece of Japanese cinematic history. Adapted from Masamune Shirow’s manga, the 1995 film is considered one of three (along with Akira and Ninja Scroll) that established anime as a credible artform in the eyes of Western audiences. Its psychological themes, principal amongst them the struggle for identity, and handling of uniquely Japanese cultural issues, were unlike anything previously seen in what was considered a medium for children.
And here was Hollywood, ready to butcher it in the way it does so well.
Online, every cry of outrage was met with a counterpoint. There were some who argued that the characters already looked white (here’s why they’re under that impression), and others who tried to make the typically ignorant argument that it doesn’t matter which race the actor comes from.
But it does matter. UCLA’s 2015 Hollywood Diversity Report explicitly found that “films with relatively diverse casts enjoyed the highest median global box office receipts and the highest median return on investment.”
At some point, the producers of Ghost in the Shell must have realised this as well, but their response only made things worse. The day after Paramount and Dreamworks announced filming had begun, a source from special effects company Lola VFX informed ScreenCrush that they had been conducting tests to “shift (the) ethnicity” of Johansson through post-production effects.
Essentially, they had been trialling digital ‘yellowfacing’.
Paramount confirmed the source, though denied attempting the tests on Johansson specifically, and reassured the press that they would no longer be continuing.
The following day, Hollywood screenwriter Max Landis (Chronicle) created an impromptu vlog, which he uploaded to Youtube.
In it, Landis starts by attempting to deflect blame from the system…before launching into a five minute spiel explaining exactly why the system is to blame.
After trying to explain why the producers of Harry Potter didn’t make one of their characters Asian (an explanation which would actually seem to support the argument Landis is speaking against), he states:
“You shouldn’t be mad at the film industry, because they’re operating out of fear.”
Fear of what? Of not profiting from a film if they don’t have major white stars in all the roles?
Exodus: Gods and Kings, made on a $140 million budget, bombed.
Aloha, the $37 million film in which white-as-white Emma Stone plays a woman of half-Hawaiian and Asian heritage? Bombed.
The Lone Ranger, a $215 million production that saw superstar Johnny Depp playing the Comanche Tonto? Bombed.
Hollywood is failing to recognise the real problem. It’s one that is just as important to the system’s future success as ensuring all ethnicities are represented on their screens, especially if it wants to continue sourcing its creativity from international markets.
The moment Scarlett Johansson was cast in Ghost in the Shell, the adaptation no longer appealed to fans. Not because of the actress herself, but because it was all the proof they needed to know that the story they care about is not going to receive the respect it deserves.
It happened with Dragonball Evolution and The Last Airbender (in which the three leads are children, invalidating Landis’s rant once again) in recent years too. The moment a studio thinks audiences won’t support a film unless it’s whitewashed is the moment they prove a film isn’t worth supporting.
The only way to make them realise this is by not supporting the film on release.
I know I won’t be, and I hope you’ll join me too.
All the movies you mentioned in whitewashing were terrible pieces of filmmaking. The ethnicities of the castes actors had nothing to do with it. These are terrible films.
Dragon ball evolution is hated by fans not because of the white actors because in the English version, the characters sound like white American actors so we associate them as such.
did we forget that India has Bollywood and china has its very own unique box office. Where Asian actors are in 99% of the roles because they are the majority in those countries. Just like Asians are the minority in Hollywood.
Why is no one complaining that Hollywood isn’t making movies for and about native Americans. The last Native American I remember seeing in a film was in the atrocious Suicide Squad, and oh he died 10 minutes after making his entrance.
Everyone is so concerned about having Black and Asians in big roles in movies. Yet no one is talking about Indians from India(yes I realise they are Asian too but are left out of the argument).
Every person has some bias so get off your damn high horse.
The difference is that Indian and Chinese films are aimed at predominantly Indian and Chinese audiences. Historically, very few do any real business in other territories. That’s definitely not the case for American films.
Ignoring that though, statistics have shown that American minorities are going to the cinema far more consistently than white Americans, and they’re going to films that star people of the same race. There’s no better example than Furious 7, where 55% of tickets were purchased by Hispanics, African Americans, and Asians. Is it at all surprising that Furious 7 features the most diverse cast of any modern blockbuster franchise?
Regarding your point about Indian and Native American films, just because they weren’t mentioned here doesn’t mean nobody’s asking for them. That said, Hollywood’s never going to make a story about indigenous people unless the project is brought to them by a Native American.
I don’t really understand your last sentence. Should minorities not be represented in films because white people want to watch white people on screen? Why does people’s so-called ‘bias’ make any difference to the validity of this argument?
Thanks for taking the time to comment.