The lack of minority representation in movies is nothing new. In fact, I can’t recall a time in the American movie industry where this wasn’t the case. Clearly, this is an ongoing phenomenon, however, it isn’t as clear as to why movies always feel the need to dominate the screen with white faces.

But if we view movies as an industry, then, potentially, the motive behind whitewashing becomes obvious: money. Now this isn’t the only reason, but I do believe that most movie studios assume their audience to be white and thus appeal to them for the most profitable box office; if that means ignoring and disregarding minorities so be it. If they make money, they don’t have an issue.

This belief of mine implies that white people are more inclined to see a film that is whitewashed and thus creates bigger profits for movie studios. Before I explain this, I want to show why whitewashing is a serious problem that has consequences off the screen. Some may argue that it doesn’t matter, that a movie is just a movie and the lack of minority representation doesn’t affect people in real life. However, I think these people need to examine the consequences of unequal representation.

Whether you know or not, movies influence our perception. Often while were watching a movie we cease to be conscious of that we are in fact watching a movie. This inevitably leads us to view characters as actual people, which blurs the line between cinematic representation and actuality. Thus, what we see onscreen tends to change, albeit subconsciously, how we perceive reality offscreen.

Therefore, lack of/poor representation can have plenty of negative effects. First of all, poor or racist representation reinforces stereotypes. If you continue to see a stereotype on screen eventually you will believe it to be true, especially if minorities are primarily casted as stereotypical characters and nothing else.

Secondly, there is the lack of representation that can be harmful. Having an all-white or near all-white cast implies that minorities don’t matter and no one cares about their lives/problems. It essentially puts more importance on the lives of white people and less on minorities.

This not only hurts minorities but aids the overall ignorance of racism. If the film is all white then the film world can have no racism, and if this perception transfers to reality then people become less and less aware of America’s racial problems.

These are just some of the consequences of whitewashing, but hopefully I demonstrated why it is an important issue. And now to go back to my earlier statement that movie studios function like a business and strive solely for profit. Just because whitewashing is a thing doesn’t necessarily mean studios do it for economic reasons, but I think from a purely business whitewashing makes sense.

A common question a company or marketing team might ask is who is our audience and think of ways to appeal to them. In movies, ideally you would think everyone is the target. But that is a difficult task, so they have think what is the best way to get the largest audience. Inevitably, movie studios will conclude that, given the number of white people and the racial wage gap disparities, the most profit can be gained in attracting white people.

Now, I’m not saying people only see a movie based on racial representation, but it definitely has a huge impact. Often time audiences want to relate to the characters to increase the overall pathos of the movie. Usually, it tends to be easier for people to relate to characters of the same race, the reason most likely due to a lack of empathy and sympathy some have towards other races.

I believe it is this same lack of empathy/sympathy in white people that makes it hard for them to relate to characters of a different race that increases the ignorance and indifference to the racial problems in society. If more people tried to relate to other races, then potentially we would see an increased effort in ending racism.

What I’m trying to get it is America’s racism is reflected in the whitewashing of movies; whitewashing strengthens racism while racism makes it easy for studios to target white people and generate max profit. So, while whitewashing may appear an easy problem to fix, it is really rooted in our country’s history of racism and disregard of others for the sake of money.

All this being said, I think things are getting better, even if progress is slow. Although this last year has shown racism is still very much a problem, people are acknowledging it and doing something about it. Likewise, more and more movies have been made that give minorities a voice.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as Black Lives Matters has gained popularity we’ve seen recent movies such as "13," "Moonlight," "I Am Not Your Negro," "Hidden Figures," and "Get Out."

Ultimately, there is a correlation between society’s perception of racism and the amount of whitewashing prevalent in movies. Whitewashing in movies is a problem that affects the real world and coincides with racist ideology. To think whitewashing isn’t a problem is to ignore one of the many consequences of racism.