I’m not
looking at a specific movie or TV show today, or the unconvincing comments made
about it by an executive/director/actor/etc.
Instead, I’m speaking more generally to white celebrities who work in
Hollywood – the Scarlett Johannsons, Christian Bales, and Rooney Maras, yes,
but also the stars who have yet to place themselves on the wrong side of a
whitewashing scandal.
And yes,
what I’m going to say ought to apply
to all white actors – however, I think a major part of this problem stems from
A-listers, so we’ll start there. White
Hollywood stars, you’re what movies want.
We all know that. Plenty of
whitewashing defenses talk about money, about how you need a star to open a
movie, about how there aren’t any bankable Asian, Native American, South Asian,
Middle Eastern, or Latino stars of color, about how the only reasonable thing to
do is to cast one of you to make their movie work. Never mind that the box office has shown that
big-name stars in whitewashed movies don’t necessarily bring in big bucks, and
that recent films with strong PoC casts – like Get Out or The Fate of the Furious
– have raked in the dough. Despite fan
outcries, monetary evidence, and countless thinkpieces, studios continue to
insist you’re the winning ingredient to make a movie a success.
And you
know what that means? It means you have
the power here. You’re not the only ones
taking whitewashed parts, but you’re the ones the producers are looking for,
the ones they’re holding up as the justification for not casting an actor of
color – who wouldn’t want Emma Stone
in their movie, or Russell Crowe, or Ben Affleck? That means this sytem, this practice, is
built on you, and that means you have the ability to play a huge role in
shutting it down.
How? You say no.
All of you. You get offered a
role based on a true story or a previously-written work, you do a quick Google
search on your prospective character to make sure they’re white. You get sent an original script, you note
cultural identifiers for your prospective character and see if anything
suggests – or outright states – that they’re not white. And if anything you find tells you that your
prospective character was supposed to be or currently is a person of color, you say no.
Now, you
might say, “But it’s a great role.”
That’s true, but that doesn’t mean it’s a role you should be taking,
certainly not one you should be taking from an actor who almost never gets the
opportunity to even try our for a great role.
You might say, “Without me, the project won’t get made.” That may be true, but if it’s a question
between doing it wrong or not doing it at all, I’d prefer the latter – I’d
rather wait until Hollywood is prepared to do it justice. You might say, “But I really believe in this
project.” Then support it in other ways;
maybe get involved as a producer and use your name and influence to help ensure
that it gets done right.
Imagine
how powerful that would be, if all of you stood together on this, if every time
a studio came looking for a white celebrity to play their whitewashed starring
role, all of you went to ground, taking your fame and your box-office draw with
you. If they had no option of a white
A-lister who would take their role. I’m
not saying it’ll change overnight, because Hollywood attitudes about race are still
deeply entrenched, and for a while, they’ll court lesser-known and unknown
white actors for these parts, actors who don’t feel they can afford to turn
down juicy roles. But if whitewashing
the roles with someone of your caliber doesn’t guarantee box-office gold, then
these actors won’t even fare as well as that, and eventually, Hollywood will
finally start to get the message that this practice isn’t financially sound,
realizing that the only way to make these projects is to make them right. Not to mention, your position and influence
may help these lesser-known actors find the resolve they need to turn down
these parts as well – even though it would be a greater financial/career loss
for them, they might look to you and say, “Well, Jake Gyllenhaal was offered
the role, and he turned it down.” Or, “Jennifer
Lawrence wouldn’t do it.” Send a message
that “this is not how we do things,” and others will start to follow. Isn’t that
something you’d like to be a part of?
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