Why Won’t Hollywood Cast Asian Actors? - The New York Times

"Why is the erasure of Asians still an acceptable practice in Hollywood? It’s not that people don’t notice: Just last year, Emma Stone played a Chinese-Hawaiian character named Allison Ng in Cameron Crowe’s critically derided “Aloha.” While that film incited similar outrage (and tepid box office interest), no national conversation about racist casting policies took place.



Obviously, Asian-Americans are not the only victims of Hollywood’s continuing penchant for whitewashing. Films like “Pan” and “The Lone Ranger” featured white actors playing Native Americans, while “Gods of Egypt” and “Exodus: Gods and Kings” continue the long tradition of Caucasians playing Egyptians.



In all these cases, the filmmakers fall back on the same tired arguments. Often, they insist that movies with minorities in lead roles are gambles. When doing press for “Exodus,” the director Ridley Scott said: “I can’t mount a film of this budget" and announce that “my lead actor is Mohammad so-and-so from such-and-such.”



When the screenwriter Max Landis took to YouTube to explain the “Ghost in the Shell” casting, he used a similar argument. “There are no A-list female Asian celebrities right now on an international level,” he said, admonishing viewers for “not understanding how the industry works.”



Mr. Landis’s argument closely tracks a statement by the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. In a leaked email exchange with studio heads, he complained about the difficulty of adapting “Flash Boys,” Michael Lewis’s book about the Wall Street executive Bradley Katsuyama, because “there aren’t any Asian movie stars.”



Hollywood seems untroubled by these arguments. It’s not about race, they say; the only color they see is green: The reason Asian-American actors are not cast to front these films is because not any of them have a box office track record.



But they’re wrong. If minorities are box office risks, what accounts for the success of the “Fast and Furious” franchise, which presented a broadly diverse team, behind and in front of the camera? Over seven movies it has grossed nearly $4 billion worldwide. In fact, a recent study by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that films with diverse leads not only resulted in higher box office numbers but also higher returns of investment for studios and producers.



And Hollywood’s argument is circular: If Asian-Americans — and other minority actors more broadly — are not even allowed to be in a movie, how can they build the necessary box office clout in the first place? To make matters worse, instead of trying to use their lofty positions in the industry to push for change, Hollywood players like Mr. Landis and Mr. Sorkin take the easy, cynical path.





Why Won’t Hollywood Cast Asian Actors? - The New York Times