There’s been a lot of talk on my dash about how to avoid whitewashing in edits recently and I’m very glad about that. But it’s got me to wondering –
– tv shows, movies, whole lighting departments, cameras, they’re not immune to whitewashing either. Lemme find an example…Freema Agyeman. Here she is in a Doctor Who promo photo:
And here she is in a photoshoot (I don’t know who for) around the same time:
Her skin’s been made a lot lighter. (Here’s a pic from the same photoshoot, same thing.) So basically…
….what are your responsibilities as a graphic/gif/icon maker if your subject is already whitewashed?
After the backlash surrounding Johansson’s role in the film, producers reportedly attempted to quell the controversy with an old standby Hollywood uses to fix a lot of problems: CGI.
According to multiple independent sources close to the project, Paramount and DreamWorks commissioned visual effects tests that would’ve altered Scarlett Johansson in post-production to “shift her ethnicity” and make the Caucasian actress appear more Asian in the film.
“a lot of people are upset that we chose a white actress to play a Japanese woman in a Japanese franchise that takes place in Japan.
perhaps digitally altering her appearance to look like a Japanese woman post-production would make more sense than hiring an actual Japanese actress?
I’ve never realised this blatant racism before and I’m shocked and disgusted by everything I read in this post. I’ve even read one of the series mentioned, and even though the covers of the ones I read are different to the ones in the post, they too didn’t feature the protagonist in the ethnicity they are in the books. I’m only realising this now a few years after reading them. Clearly, I’m so used to seeing white characters on book covers, I take no notice if they represent the actual protagonist.
This is also because I’m white and saturated with white-modelled covers. If a book featuring a white protagonist had a black model on the front, I have no doubt I’d think ‘Whose that on the front? Because that can’t be the protagonist – they’re not white’. But when it’s actually, physically, the other way round, I didn’t notice for three books. That’s ridiculous and proves to me how unconsciously-privileged I am as a white reader.
I can’t believe some publishers in the 21st century think this is an okay thing to do. These publishers are actually saying if you’re not Caucasian then you don’t deserve to be fully represented on a book cover even if the protagonist is not white. That is a horrible message to send to anyone and something that needs to change immediately. You deserve to be represented on a book cover whatever your race. Representation needs to be on the inside and the outside of the book.
I wonder if TAG’s take on The Hood technically counts as whitewashing. He’s lost his Asian features and accent, but he started off as a slightly dubious 60s ‘oriental’ stereotype anyway so…well, what do you think?
(He’s still uncle to the now dark-skinned Kayo, but I definitely don’t think ‘Malaysian’ when looking at his new design.)
To those who say that whitewashing in Hollywood isn’t a thing:
Irene from the movie Drive was Latina in the original novel, and her name was Irina. Carey Mulligan, a white woman, was cast in the part without an audition.
The movie A Beautiful Mind is based on a true story. In real life, however, Alicia Nash, John Nash’s wife, is from El Salvador. She was portrayed in the film by Jennifer Connolly, a white woman.
30 Days of Night was based on a comic book miniseries. In the comics, however, the main character, Eben Olemaun, is an Inuit man. Futhermore, the town of Barrow, Alaska is described as being 57% Native American, 22% White, and yet in the movie, only one Inuit character was featured. You can’t tell me that all of those Caucasian extras were hired on acting ability, they don’t even talk.
The movie 21 is based on a true story, in which most of the participants of the casino scam were Asian-American. In the movie, however, the main characters were white, and the Asian-American characters were poorly developed and badly written.
They cast a white kid as Goku in Dragonball.Seriously. That happened.
Dastan from Prince of Persia should have been, shocking, a Persian guy. Or, more specifically, probably Iranian. He was instead portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is white. Nobody in the movie was actually Middle Eastern, if I’m not mistaken, and the movie took place in the middle of the goddamn Persian Empire, where there probably weren’t a whole lot of white people walking around. Just sayin’.
In Isaac Marion’s book Warm Bodies, Nora was half-Ethiopian. In the movie, she’s white.
Every single person in the goddamn The Last Airbender movie should have been Asian. The entire series was based on Asian mythologies, borrowed heavily from Asian culture, and should have been immensely culturally diverse. Instead, all of the main characters were white, except for the villains. The characters who hailed from the Fire Nation, particularly Prince Zuko, Commander Zhao, and General Iroh, were portrayed by Indian people.
Katniss Everdeen, Gale Hawthorne, and a large portion of the other inhabitants of the Seam were described as being “olive-skinned, black-haired, and gray-eyed.” Katniss and Seeder, the Tribute from District 11, were described in the books as having similar skin tones, and Seeder was portrayed in the movie as a black woman. Even then, the casting call sent out for Katniss sought out a Caucasian actress. They didn’t even consider women that actually fit the description of Katniss from the books.
But, I mean, the best actor always wins out, right? Whitewashing is a myth, right, it doesn’t actually happen.
Meanwhile,
Angel Coulby, a black woman, was heavily criticized for portraying Guinevere in Merlin, a character traditionally played by a white woman. She did audition for this part.
Donald Glover, a black man, received ridiculous amounts of scrutiny and negative attention for being linked to the part of Peter Parker, a traditionally white character.
But it’s their talent that matters, right?
Nobody’s criticizing Benedict Cumberbatch, especially not after learning that he was basically duped into accepting the part of Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness. Dude’s crazy talented. He’ll probably win an Oscar for something or another eventually.
The crazy talented Indian actor who could have played Khan, a Northern Indian character, and received mainstream exposure and a possible launchpad for his career, however? He won’t.
Why couldn’t they have kept Space Sherlock as John Harrison? Here’s how simple this is: it’s an alternate timeline. In the original timeline, Khan was the one woken up. In the new Abrams timeline, Harrison was woken up. Maybe John Harrison was Khan’s First Officer, I don’t know. Not like that would go with the theme or anything. It’s assumed that all 73 of those bozos are equally as strong and evil. Then when Spock ring a ding dings up Spock Prime, Nimoy can be like “I don’t know a John Harrison but that does sound an awful lot like this dude we know named Khan…”
= BIG REVEAL. Boom.
This.
I saw someone else comment that, if Harrison had been Khan’s second in command, part of the villain’s motivation could have been to awaken Khan. Khan could have been the unseen, epic legend the villain mentions (plus whatever Spock prime wanted to say). It would still be problematic (since Khan wouldn’t be seen and thus a white character would take the place of a character of color) but at least Khan wouldn’t be whitewashed. I think that storyline could have been fascinating.
