Hollywood loves white-washing minorities.
For many years, countless movies take a character, who is supposed to be a minority, and white washes them. There are three ways they do this, according to this “Whitewashing in Hollywood” source, “An originally non-white character is turned white, A white actor plays a non-white character, and a white actor is inserted into a story about non-whites.”
Remarkably, this happens more times than none. Most recently, the Ancient One, an asian character in Marvel’s Doctor Strange, is played by the white Tilda Swinton. Marvel tried to cover up their accused “whitewashing” by saying that they’re always “looking for ways to change” the stories and that the original Ancient One in the comics is “stereotypical”, but what made this statement even worse was when they said “They [portrayal of character] don’t hold up to what would work today.”
Marvel basically said that an asian man teaching the ways of asian culture to a white man isn’t “right,” and that the “right” way in today’s society would to be to have a white woman teaching a white man the ways of asian culture. Do you see why this is a problem?
Donna Dickens from UPROXX puts it in perspective by saying “To say the only way to remove the stereotype of “otherness” from the Ancient One is to make him white is just whitewashing under the guise of progressiveness, that actors of Asian descent are inherently “othered” regardless of how a role is written.”
Another example would be the whitewashing of Tiger Lily in “Pan.” Warner Bros aimed at expressing the world of races and cultures we live in, but failed miserably by casting all-white leads. A petition titled “Warner Bros: Stop Casting White Actors to Play People of Color” speaks out against Warner Bros failed goal and says “it stars Mara and two white guys - Hugh Jackman and Garrett Hedlund. Not so multiracial after all, Warner Bros.”
Even Rooney Mara, the white actress casted as the Native American Tiger Lily, spoke out about this issue, saying “Do I think all of the four main people in the film should have been white with blonde hair and blue eyes? No. I think there should have been some diversity somewhere.”
There is an extensive list of whitewashing examples here.
So why does Hollywood keep doing this if it’s obviously wrong and a big issue?
Professors Harry M Benshoff and Sean Griffin offer an explanation in their book America on Film.
"Even today many white viewers choose not to see films starring non-white actors or films set in minority ethnic environments, allegedly because they feel they cannot identify with the characters. Because of that fact, Hollywood tends to spend more money on white stars in white movies, and far less money on non-white actors in overtly racial or ethnic properties. The very structure of classical Hollywood narrative form encourages all spectators, regardless of their actual color, to identify with white protagonists."
So, in retrospect, Hollywood whitewashes to please the majority, who are white people, and makes money off of the fact that some white people are presumably uncomfortable with minorities, using racism to their advantage. Talk about dirty money, right?
