White casting becoming Hollywood epidemic

A major issue in the film industry lately has been whitewashing. Whitewashing is a casting method in American film where caucasian actors and actresses are cast as non-white characters.

In the early 20th century, white actors would represent minority characters by wearing blackface and/or yellowface and exaggerate the perceived demeanor of those minorities.

A main reason of the lack of diversity in movies is because many movie producers think that white actors will increase profits and that white actors look better on screens.

Which is terrible.

Another reason is that many directors will cast the people that they’re comfortable with. They’re choosing their friends, or the people that they are used to instead of casting the actor with the highest talent or the actor that actually fits the role.

There are 50+ movies that have been made in the past 90 years that have been accused of whitewashing. That’s 50 movies too many.

The casting of white actors for colored roles not only affects the acting community, it affects the audience that’s watching. For example, earlier this year Disney announced that they are making a live-action remake of the 1998 movie, Mulan.  Before they disclosed that they were casting all Asian actors, rumor had gone around that they were casting white actors for the roles of Mulan and Li Shang.

This caused upset fans of Mulan. For the audience, casting a white actor implies that people of color can’t be heroes, making it hard for children to see themselves in their favorite stories and think that they can make a difference.

Hollywood for some reason still thinks that white actors have the widest appeal. They’re not just ignoring whitewashing, they’re in denial about it. A study from UCLA showed that minorities are underrepresented in every level of film: from producing, directing, writing and acting. It was also found that 90 percent of the films that came out this summer were directed by white men.

Caucasian isn’t the default race. Most people want to see their ethnicities portrayed properly.

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.