Support NeoGAF

[Captain Zyrain]

Why would they spell out "Twenty One" which is a 1991 movie, and not just say "21" which is the 2008 movie?

I do not like this list, I do not.

But then again I actually like the Love Guru.. so I'm probably all kinds of wrong.

 

[TDLink]

I feel like including Cloud Atlas and Tropic Thunder on here is kind of missing the point.

Speed Racer failing also had nothing to do with whitewashing and it's kind of arguable that movie is whitewashing anyways unless you want to argue the American adaptation of "Speed Racer" in general is white washing "Mach Go Go Go". But the setting always seemed pretty quintessentially American.

Edge of Tomorrow also I feel defies being defined as "White Washing" due to being an adaptation about American soldiers. Simply being adapted from Japanese source material doesn't inherently mean white washing is going on. The thing these other movies that actually whitewashed did is say, make a movie about Egypt and then have it star entirely white people. It's not the same thing.

 

[JC Lately]

Budget was $150 mil according to wiki. BO was over $300 mil what the fuckkkk people.

I watched it when it was free on Amazon Prime. It was fucking terrible. Never watched the show, but I was interested in an M. Night trainwreck. It delivered.

150 million? On what?!

 

[Wood Man]

The white washing in Tropic Thunder:

 

[Skellig Gra]

there's literally a black main character, i think

Played by Robert downy jr.

There actually was a black guy in the cast who was playing up to the stereotypical rapper role. Ya'll need to drink some of that Booty Sweat.

 

[Figboy79]

Man, I love Tropic Thunder. This article has now made me want to watch it again for the dozenth time.


The whole point of RDJ's character was to mock whitewashing in Hollywood, as well as taking the piss out of method actors who take it too far. Hilarious character and execution. I don't really think it should have been on this list. There was never a Lincoln Osiris role that wasn't RDJ in blackface. Now, I'm usually super sensitive to white washing and Hollywood's treatment of minorities, but Tropic Thunder isn't an offender. I think it was smart, funny satire of the industry as a whole, and the Kirk Lazarus character was great.

Holy shit, that came out in 2008! I remember seeing it in the theatrer with my fiancé and friends. I didn't even realize it released so long ago. On a related note, I can't be the only one that thought that the opening of the movie, with the war sequence was shot legitimately well? Some damn good cinematography and musical score for what ultimately turned out to be a movie within a movie.

 

[phoisgood495]

This list is cherry picked to make their point, there are many other movies that have replaced non-white characters with white actors that are not included in this list The Martian comes to mind first for me. It's also not the determining factor for most of these failures, as most of them just weren't good movies at all regardless of being whitewashed.

Edit:
I also think that white-washing is a dumb decision, but I don't think it led to the failure of any of these movies except possibly GiTS, and Cloud Atlas. Also to those of you saying the white makeup was better than the yellow-face in Cloud Atlas need to rewatch the movie, because the makeup they used on Doona Bae was TERRIBLE when they tried to make her look white. I personally would have just rather had them not try, and just have us suspend disbelief over their perceived race especially in the future arc where race would likely have been much more fluid anyways.

 

[Goo]

Khan portrait from original series episode is Indian

Has never been played by an Indian actor. Into Darkness would have been a great opportunity.

 

[LionPride]

Gonna hedge my bets that most of those movies didn't lose money because of whitewashing

 

[shinra-bansho]

I want more diversity in films and more opportunities in lead roles for minorities.

But these are really just not very good movies. And I doubt that's attributable to whitewashing.

 

[valeo]

Correlation does not imply causation..

 

[Previous]

I'm confused by the inclusion or Star Trek and Tropic Thunder on this list.

Dr. Noonian Soong (Data's creator) doesn't sound like a "white" name, yet he was played by Brent Spiner in TNG, I've never heard any controversy about that.

 

[Not]

I'm confused by the inclusion or Star Trek and Tropic Thunder on this list.

Dr. Noonian Soong (Data's creator) doesn't sound like a "white" name, yet he was played by Brent Spiner in TNG, I've never heard any controversy about that.

Yeah, I've always found that weird. They wanted Data's creator to be Asian but then retroactively decided that he made Data in his own image, and Data's played by a Caucasian actor...

It's not like TNG didn't make strange decisions sometimes tho

 

[Skellig Gra]

I'm confused by the inclusion or Star Trek and Tropic Thunder on this list.

Dr. Noonian Soong (Data's creator) doesn't sound like a "white" name, yet he was played by Brent Spiner in TNG, I've never heard any controversy about that.

Data isn't really white tho. I mean Spiner is obviously but they put face paint on him to remove the look of any pigment.

 

[Figboy79]

I want more diversity in films and more opportunities in lead roles for minorities.

But these are really just not very good movies. And I doubt that's attributable to whitewashing.

Agreed.

Most of these movies were just bad movies. They would have been bad with non-white actors as well. A bad movie is a bad movie. A good movie can be good with any talented cast. I'm also bummed that most Hollywood shortlists almost never include minority actors and actresses.

Having an actual Indian actor playing Khan would have been really fucking cool. Like Aamir Khan. Irony of his actual last name being Khan aside, he's really good, has presence, and it could have really been a vehicle to open him up to western audiences. I'm not sure if he's fluent in English, but I don't think he'd have to be. I really actually like Into Darkness, but I'd have loved to have finally seen an Indian Khan.

 

[Tunesmith]

Hollywood accounting taught me none of these movies would've made any money regardless of their casting.

 

[Airola]

Looking at that list I'm not sure if them not being whitewashed would've changed a thing. Pretty much all of them just seem to be not that good movies in general. The jokes in The Love Guru wouldn't be any better if they had someone else playing the parts.

 

[jetsetrez]

A lot of those examples are factually profitable, from a purely box office perspective. Some as profitable as 250m. This article is kind of ridiculous. A lot of those example seem to be either taking the perspective of just domestic box office, rather than understanding the movie business is global (kind of ironic considering the message), or are using marketing costs as a way to say a movie isn't profitable to fit their message. Star Trek Into Darkness made 467m on 190m budget. Edge of Tomorrow made 370m on a 178m budget. Tropic Thunder made 188m on 92m budget. Frankly, most of these I looked up made twice as much or more than their budget. I mean, yeah, marketing costs, but unless they can show me the actual profit/loss numbers, I can't imagine all of those took losses, especially with retail sales and licensing. And if they did, it had nothing to do with the race of the characters, and everything to do with ridiculous marketing budgets and bad financial planning. If 250m profit isn't good enough, you're not running a smart business.

Even Ghost in the Shell is technically profitable from a box office point of view. It obviously didn't live up to expectations (which were ridiculous to begin with for such a niche story), but it has made 153m on a budget of 110m, and I'm sure retail sales will contribute a decent bit more. I don't know if that will make it profitable after marketing, but it's no Speed Racer or Lone Ranger.

 

[wandering]

Also to those of you saying the white makeup was better than the yellow-face in Cloud Atlas need to rewatch the movie, because the makeup they used on Doona Bae was TERRIBLE when they tried to make her look white. I personally would have just rather had them not try, and just have us suspend disbelief over their perceived race especially in the future arc where race would likely have been much more fluid anyways.

Bruv are you really going to tell me that this looks quality

 

[LionPride]

Hollywood accounting taught me none of these movies would've made any money regardless of their casting.

Shit my eyes taught me that

 

[Hazmat]

Odd to include The Lone Ranger, which (while a flop) undoubtedly made more money from casting Johnny Depp than it would have made with a Native American actor. It's just a shitty movie.

 

[Zelenogorsk]

I don't think Edge of Tomorrow should be on the list in the first place, and since the article is about how whitewashing isn't profitable and Edge of Tomorrow had a positive profit margin (albeit a small one) I think leaving it off the list would actually help make their point.

That list reminds me of the time my dad convinced me to sit down with him and watch The Lone Ranger because "it's actually really great." What a waste of two and a half hours.

 

[phoisgood495]

Bruv are you really going to tell me that this looks quality

No that looks like shit, and so did the whiteface. The makeup was laughably bad, and that along with their hamfisted attempt to bring the dialect changes from the book in the far future arc turned the movie into a comedy for me, and that's the true true.

 

[old manatee]

Still mad at MCU stans for supporting Dr. Strange.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

Tropic Thunder on that list is straight jokes

 

[Figboy79]

A lot of those examples are factually profitable, from a purely box office perspective. Some as profitable as 250m. This article is kind of ridiculous. A lot of those example seem to be either taking the perspective of just domestic box office, rather than understanding the movie business is global (kind of ironic considering the message), or are using marketing costs as a way to say a movie isn't profitable to fit their message. Star Trek Into Darkness made 467m on 190m budget. Edge of Tomorrow made 370m on a 178m budget. Tropic Thunder made 188m on 92m budget. Frankly, most of these I looked up made twice as much or more than their budget. I mean, yeah, marketing costs, but unless they can show me the actual profit/loss numbers, I can't imagine all of those took losses, especially with retail sales and licensing. And if they did, it had nothing to do with the race of the characters, and everything to do with ridiculous marketing budgets and bad financial planning. If 250m profit isn't good enough, you're not running a smart business.

Even Ghost in the Shell is technically profitable from a box office point of view. It obviously didn't live up to expectations (which were ridiculous to begin with for such a niche story), but it has made 153m on a budget of 110m, and I'm sure retail sales will contribute a decent bit more. I don't know if that will make it profitable after marketing, but it's no Speed Racer or Lone Ranger.

Don't forget to add marketing to the total cost of the film. Usually, marketing is about half the cost of the movie.

For example, a movie with a budget of $150 million will have a marketing budget of about $75 million, bringing the total cost of the picture to $225 million. Depending on how ambitious the studio wants to be with marketing, they may spend even more than half on marketing. I admit I don't know much about it, but I'm just repeating what one of my old co-workers who used to do accounting for FOX and Sony and some other movie studios would tell me about how much they'd spend on films. Not to mention the fees they have to pay to overseas theater chains and tax laws or whatnot. They get an even smaller cut of the pie for movies that release in foreign markets.

i.e., the movie costs $150 mill to make, $75 mill to market, makes $200 million domestic, and another $200 mill foreign, the studio probably only really broke even as far as turning a profit once all of the other costs are deducted from the take. It's why so many studios are chasing billion dollar box office returns; it gives them a pretty good safety net as far as profit is concerned. A $200 million budgeted movie with a $100 million marketing budget that grosses $1 billion worldwide makes them very comfortable. The same film grossing $500 million worldwide not so much, despite that being an insane amount of money.

You'd think studios would just try and budget their movies more reasonably, but yeah, that's not happening.

I remember reading that Sony was pretty happy with one of their all black cast movies because it had a $5 million budget, minimal marketing budget, but grossed $30+ mill. Kind of like Get Out. $4.5 million budget, but grossed $183 million worldwide? Shit, that's a monster success. I guarantee more than their projections were for the film's B.O. returns. I'm guessing the best champagne was popped that night.

 

[kirblar]

There actually was a black guy in the cast who was playing up to the stereotypical rapper role. Ya'll need to drink some of that Booty Sweat.

Yes, that ever-stereotypical

Spoiler

black closeted gay guy

 

[Wiped89]

I really don't get this whole thing about "whitewashing". Like the supposed furore around Doctor Strange. I thought the Ancient One was played brilliantly by the actress they chose, and it is a great Marvel film.

There are a lot of people who think the next Bond might be black, Idris Elba. That's cool, but are we going to call that blackwashing? No. Because that would be horrible. It's just the person who might fit the role best.

It has to be okay both ways or not okay both ways.

 

[Version 3.0]

Why all the confusion about Tropic Thunder? Remember, there are two films of that name. The one starring Stiller, Downey, Jr., and Jack Black did not have whitewashing. The one starring Speedman, Lazarus, and Portnoy did (Lazarus, an Australian, played a black character). And it was a massive failure, didn't even get completed.

 

[blakep267]

I don't know if you can really say that The Love Guru would have been saved if Mike Myers had written it to be less 'culturally inexplicable', whatever that means.

The love guru would've been a hit if it released in 1997( the same time as Austin powers). I remember watching it and thinking, I would've Thor guy this was funny when I was 9 or 10 in the late 90's. Myers just didn't learn to switch up his comedic style to go with the times

 

[parrotbeak]

Why all the confusion about Tropic Thunder? Remember, there are two films of that name. The one starring Stiller, Downey, Jr., and Jack Black did not have whitewashing. The one starring Speedman, Lazarus, and Portnoy did (Lazarus, an Australian, played a black character). And it was a massive failure, didn't even get completed.

I can't believe it made 2% profit considering how many people were killed while making it. Plus all those unused explosion shots.

 

[Poor GRIMES]

I really don't get this whole thing about "whitewashing". Like the supposed furore around Doctor Strange. I thought the Ancient One was played brilliantly by the actress they chose, and it is a great Marvel film.

There are a lot of people who think the next Bond might be black, Idris Elba. That's cool, but are we going to call that blackwashing? No. Because that would be horrible. It's just the person who might fit the role best.

It has to be okay both ways or not okay both ways.

No.

You can't deal with these in absolutes. If you go with that logic of not allowing PoC take roles in franchise films and merely fall back on historically White leading roles, then you'll never see PoC be represented in Hollywood in blockbuster roles.

 

[zma1013]

Edge of Tomorrow would have did better if it had better marketing, specifically the name. It's generic and forgettable which is why they essentially made it invisible for dvd/bluray and put a much better name in big giant letters "LIVE DIE REPEAT"

 

[old manatee]

I really don't get this whole thing about "whitewashing". Like the supposed furore around Doctor Strange. I thought the Ancient One was played brilliantly by the actress they chose, and it is a great Marvel film.

There are a lot of people who think the next Bond might be black, Idris Elba. That's cool, but are we going to call that blackwashing? No. Because that would be horrible. It's just the person who might fit the role best.

It has to be okay both ways or not okay both ways.

Asian Americans have been almost completely pushed out of starring roles in Hollywood movies. It's a thing.

 

[Just_myles]

I see what they were trying to do with Cloud Atlas. I wouldn't call that whitewashing. They even did cross gender.

Based Mahvel doh. Stay winning homie.

 

[parrotbeak]

A lot of these movies would have been really bad anyway. There's multiple problems going on here. Not giving AAs the chance, assuming white stars will save shitty movies, and making shitty movies in the first place.

The Last Airbender made money?

 

[Seductivpancakes]

It's just the person who might fit the role best.

I bet this will be the same excuse people will use if the movie was set in China during the Three Kingdoms period.

 

[deadscreensky]

I feel like this is reaching.

The list isn't even following its own rules. Plenty of these are "remakes that effectively relocate the narrative into a new setting or situation". (It also complains about the upcoming Death Note remake, which from little we know seems to be doing that too.) The article is a neat idea, but they could have done a much better job.

 

[Wiped89]

Asian Americans have been almost completely pushed out of starring roles in Hollywood movies. It's a thing.

Can you give any examples? I'd like to know more about it if it is a thing.

 

[LionPride]

I really don't get this whole thing about "whitewashing". Like the supposed furore around Doctor Strange. I thought the Ancient One was played brilliantly by the actress they chose, and it is a great Marvel film.

There are a lot of people who think the next Bond might be black, Idris Elba. That's cool, but are we going to call that blackwashing? No. Because that would be horrible. It's just the person who might fit the role best.

It has to be okay both ways or not okay both ways.

What? No. So, whitewashing is when white people are cast in roles that are/should be Asian, black, hispanic, etc. Such as when a white male is cast in a role with the name of Oscar Hernandez or some shit. Do they really need that role? Or could that go to an actual Hispanic/Latino actor, a minority that it underrepresented?

 

[Angelus Errare]

Can you give any examples? I'd like to know more about it if it is a thing.

Name the last big box office Asian American actor/actress and when their last blockbuster movie came out.

 

[LionPride]

Can you give any examples? I'd like to know more about it if it is a thing.

Who was the last big name Asian actor in America?

 

[Desmond]

Name the last big box office Asian American actor/actress and when their last blockbuster movie came out.

Who was the last big name Asian actor in America?

Unfortunately doesn't that problem lie with the fact that noone is writing roles with Asians in mind? That's the problem with Hollywood. I'm not even American so I have no idea though. That's just how I see it from the outside.

 

[WormBoi]

I wouldn't associate 'white washing' with the lack of success, they were just terrible movies.

 

[Skellig Gra]

Who was the last big name Asian actor in America?

Asian actor or Asian American actor

 

[phoisgood495]

Can you give any examples? I'd like to know more about it if it is a thing.

It all started with this suave badass Sessue Hayakawa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sessue_Hayakawa

The TL;DR is he was so attractive and enigmatic that he caused a legitimate Yellow scare that asian actors would cause all the white women to elope with Asian men. So we enacted laws that disallowed him to be portrayed as a romantic interest.

This then led to Hollywood giving only comedic or villainous roles to Asian actors, and that progressed into the nerdy or silent kung-fu master type roles that we typically see Asian actors in today.

It also isn't just explicitly replacing Asian characters with white actors, it's a problem where Asian actors are often overlooked for a leading role and/or must be backed up by a white/black actor as the true "Main character". I don't necessarily think it's as big of a problem as is being let on, but there is definitely a real perceived bias that Asian actors cannot carry a movie in the industry outside of one or two huge names such as Jackie Chan or Jet Li. Even then they're always pretty typecast.

Some examples:
- Bruce Lee was passed over for the starring role in Kung Fu for David Carradine (This is just a crime against nature that we were deprived of this potential greatness).

- The Last Samurai was Tom Cruise... I mean seriously?

- Keanu Reeves in 47 ronin he was originally a small role, but then hollywood execs reworked the film to make him a main character, which led to the movie bombing at the box office.

- The Martian: Venkat Kapoor was played by Chiwetel Ejiofor when the character was clearly intended to be Indian.

 

[Heshinsi]

There's a character with the last name of Park who is supposed to be Korean who is white in the film, and there was a character with the last name of Kapoor played by an African American. There's some weird racebending in that movie.

The actor is British.

 

[LionPride]

Unfortunately doesn't that problem lie with the fact that noone is writing roles with Asians in mind? That's the problem with Hollywood. I'm not even American so I have no idea though. That's just how I see it from the outside.

Then the question becomes why are white people the ones that people have in mind all the time? If the role has nothing to do with race, why not a minority?

Asian actor or Asian American actor

Either

 

[ArgyleReptile]

Have different actors in the roles? The book manages to get across the reincarnation aspect without being able to identify them being the same person visually, so a film should be able to do it as well.

From what I understand, the main characters in the book had birthmarks that kept showing up in their different lives right? They showed it in the movie as well as I recall.

I'm pretty sure most would be able to put two and two together, even with different actors.

 

[TDLink]

Asian actor or Asian American actor

James Wan, Justin Lin, and Ang Lee are all pretty popular Asian directors in America, of course they aren't American born so I'm guessing that doesn't count for you.

There could be many more absolutely, but these few (and a couple others) have been penetrating into Hollywood.

In terms of Actors it's a bigger issue. It's not so much Asian Americans are being pushed aside, it's more that they aren't even considered. This is a snake eating its own tail problem because very few Asian actors get into films in the first place, so the pool casting directors are looking at is already self-selectively small because there aren't many Asian Americans who have "proven themselves" to be in films. The few Asian actors who have gained some presence are usually in TV and there's still a dumb separation between "TV Actor" and "Film Actor" a lot of the time. That separation has been continually weakening but it hasn't completely evaporated yet. And it's still a lot tougher for a TV Actor to break through into Film than for a Film actor to decide to want to do a TV show.

All that aside you also have writers in general not writing many parts for Asian Americans, or the roles they do write that could be for any race aren't seen as roles that Asians can fit (for various reasons).

Not saying any of that is -right-, just that is how the system is currently working. Which, yes, makes it very hard to be an actor if you're of Asian descent, especially in films. It's not as simple as Executives saying "We don't want any Asians".

Naturally, they could always go with unknown actors, but there's a big aversion to that 90% of the time regardless of race. The other 10% they do specifically try to find unknown actors (or relatively unknown ones at least) because they don't want someone who has been seen before...but it's kind of rare. Notable example of it happening recently is The Force Awakens, of course.

A few up and coming Asian actors to watch for:

Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy 2)
Kelly Marie Tran (Star Wars: The Last Jedi)
Riz Ahmed (The Night Of)
Jamie Chung (Once Upon A Time/Gotham/New X-Men show)
Steven Yeun (The Walking Dead)
Benedict Wong (Marco Polo/Doctor Strange)


Those aren't all of them, but there could of course be a lot more.