The art of storytelling is such a beautiful thing. Whatever the form — verbal, literature, on the small screen, or the big screen, a story can pack a wallop if it’s structured correctly. It’s can inform, excite, educate, or explain.

The beauty of storytelling is that we can also hear from so many diverse perspectives and people. There’s so much possibility for people’s stories to be told, people who have historically been silenced or marginalized.

Here’s the thing, though: These possibilities are being squashed. Sure, the stories are being told, but who are they being told by?

For example, take the movie "Argo," which was based off true events. The main character, Antonio Mendez, however, was played by Ben Affleck who is not Latino. A story about a real Mexican-American was told by a European-American. Does that seem right?

This isn’t an isolated case either, this taking characters that are of color and having white people play them (whitewashing) has happened from the beginning of cinema and even though our nation “has progressed” it continues to happen.

From "Breakfast at Tiffany’s" (Mr. Yunioshi), to the entire cast of "The Last Airbender," "The Hunger Games" (Katniss Everdeen), "Pan" (Tiger Lily), "The Lone Ranger" (Tonto), most of the cast of "Exodus: Gods and Kings," "The Dark Knight Rises" (Ra’s Al Ghul) and most recently "Doctor Strange" (The Ancient One), Hollywood has a serious problem with casting white people when they should be casting people of color (POC).

You may think, okay why is this a problem? Here’s the thing, though, like the repeated theme in "Hamilton" (and don’t you dare tell me Hamilton is reverse-whitewashing, that’s not a thing), who tells your story is so very important, especially when you think about the people who will be consuming the media.

A lack of POC in the media affects society as in two ways. It affects POC themselves, and it also affects white people. Representation matters, so not seeing yourself reflected at say, the movies, makes it sometimes hard to see your own potential and value. It also makes it really hard for POC to break into the business as well. What producers and directors are really saying when they won’t cast POC for POC roles is that they can’t bring in money or they don’t have as much value as white people. Without getting the chance to prove that they can bring in money, more POC won’t be given opportunities.

Whitewashing is really detrimental to white people as well. It feeds into the selfish and quite frankly disgusting ideology of white superiority, which is harmful to one’s personality and soul. It also encourages ignorance in white people to not learn more about other cultures. And that ignorance isn’t a good thing.

Whitewashing affects everyone negatively, so we need to stop accepting it as okay. We need to talk about movies that allow this, even when our favorite actor is in it. We need to encourage and celebrate POC who are successful in Hollywood, and we need to boycott movies who allow whitewashing to continue because it’s not okay and we need to stop accepting that it is.