More Hollywood Shenanigans
First I would be remiss not to say: Happy Lunar New Year (AKA Chinese
New Year, since evidently some people don't know that countries other
than China celebrate it). I hope you all have a prosperous Year of the
Rat.
A few posts ago I talked about Heavenly Kingdom, which is a long-awaited collaboration featuring Jet Li and Jackie Chan... and randomly has a white dude as the main character. Of course, I'm not at all surprised that there's now this upcoming movie, 21.
The basic premise of the movie is simple - it's based on the true story of a handful of MIT computer/math students who analyzed the casino odds, came up with ways to predict when face cards would be coming up, and basically took a bunch of casinos for millions of dollars. They even wrote a book about it called "Bringing Down the House", and now it's being made into the movie.
So what's the big deal? Well, the majority of these students were Asians. Blah blah blah insert stereotyping about how well duh, math and computer students at MIT are almost by definition Asian. But now take a look at the movie poster. Or the movie trailer. Huh, that's funny... the main characters are now white. There's still some Asians left, but they're just window dressing. It's not like they wanted to make a role for a blockbuster actor like Brad Pitt or anything, either - I've never heard of this Jim Strugess dude. No, it's pretty much clear that the only reason this whitewash was done is that Hollywood still thinks it's unpalatable to have a movie where the leading men are Asian. Asian Week noted that there would be much more outcry if it were the true story of a black guy that was changed to a white guy in the film adaptation; I guess just like I noted previously about politics, Asians don't complain enough and thus just get run over by the Hollywood machine.
There's also the upcoming Speed Racer adaptation from the Wachowski brothers which of course changes the entire Racer family to whites, but that's more forgiveable considering that when the anime was brought over to the US in the first place they changed all the names. Few people know that Speed Racer's original name was the very Japanese Mifune Gou. I still don't understand why there are random ninjas throwing around shuriken in the new Speed Racer trailer, though. I hope it's not just because the Wachowski brothers think "hey, kids love ninjas as much as they love kung fu, let's just toss some in there!"
A few posts ago I talked about Heavenly Kingdom, which is a long-awaited collaboration featuring Jet Li and Jackie Chan... and randomly has a white dude as the main character. Of course, I'm not at all surprised that there's now this upcoming movie, 21.
The basic premise of the movie is simple - it's based on the true story of a handful of MIT computer/math students who analyzed the casino odds, came up with ways to predict when face cards would be coming up, and basically took a bunch of casinos for millions of dollars. They even wrote a book about it called "Bringing Down the House", and now it's being made into the movie.
So what's the big deal? Well, the majority of these students were Asians. Blah blah blah insert stereotyping about how well duh, math and computer students at MIT are almost by definition Asian. But now take a look at the movie poster. Or the movie trailer. Huh, that's funny... the main characters are now white. There's still some Asians left, but they're just window dressing. It's not like they wanted to make a role for a blockbuster actor like Brad Pitt or anything, either - I've never heard of this Jim Strugess dude. No, it's pretty much clear that the only reason this whitewash was done is that Hollywood still thinks it's unpalatable to have a movie where the leading men are Asian. Asian Week noted that there would be much more outcry if it were the true story of a black guy that was changed to a white guy in the film adaptation; I guess just like I noted previously about politics, Asians don't complain enough and thus just get run over by the Hollywood machine.
There's also the upcoming Speed Racer adaptation from the Wachowski brothers which of course changes the entire Racer family to whites, but that's more forgiveable considering that when the anime was brought over to the US in the first place they changed all the names. Few people know that Speed Racer's original name was the very Japanese Mifune Gou. I still don't understand why there are random ninjas throwing around shuriken in the new Speed Racer trailer, though. I hope it's not just because the Wachowski brothers think "hey, kids love ninjas as much as they love kung fu, let's just toss some in there!"
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The darkened theater, my salty treats and a cold, sweet drink sweating in the cup holder beside me and I hear the all too familiar theme music fade in all around me. Can it be? I thought. YES! They are making a Speed Racer movie. Popcorn went everywhere. All these cool images flash on the screen and then…Speed Racer is some random white guy?! I was instantly deflated. All the cute Japanese boys they could have cast for this role and they gotta round up Hollywood’s whitest and put black wigs on them? It’s like blackface. It’s like Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It’s like Angelina Jolie in a Mighty Heart. I can understand that any actor can play any part, but let’s be fair a disproportionate amount of film roles are going to white males.
OK, here's the thing, the point, the main impetus for my comment, there has to be a more vocal protest. And not just from me, I can complain all I want, but as we all know “Cash moves everything around me.” Are we going to silently boycott the films we think are racist or will we mobilize, get the word out that Hollywood’s racism won’t stand?
Everybody knows Whitie runs Hollywood. Historically other races and even people of differing religions or cultures were not represented in Hollywood films. As an actor if they were Catholic, Jewish or anything other than a white Protestants they had to change their name and have a whole other back story; they had to conform or pick another profession. Their culture had to be suppressed or lost. Because the bottom line for these people in Hollywood is money. What’s gonna sell? What sold last year? OK let’s go with that. A hundred years later you’re stuck with the same dry-ass formula. What can I do to change it?