Dear Hollywood Whitewashers: Ken Petrie (Ni’ihau)

This announcement came a while back, but I got busy with other write-ups and didn’t have a chance to comment on it until now.  Back in May, the film Ni’ihau, starring white actor Zach McGowan, was announced.  Since I’m talking about it here, it’s no surprise that his character shouldn’t be white.  The film is in fact about Ben Kanahele, a Native Hawaiian.  Also?  He was a real person.

Not that this is the first time a white actor has been cast to play a whitewashed portrayal of a real-life person of color (see also, Jim Sturgess in 21, Ben Affleck in Argo, Jennifer Connolly in A Beautiful Mind.)  But how long is this going to keep happening?  Ben Kanahele received a Medal of Merit and a Purple Heart for his bravery after the events of Pearl Harbor.  Do you know how many real-life Native Hawaiian heroes have had their stories told onscreen?  I’d wager it’s astoundingly few, if any.

Producer Ken Petrie, in talking about the project, said, “There is a weight to be shouldered [in any true story], and the material requires the utmost care and authenticity.”  And that staggers me.  How on earth can someone tout “the utmost care and authenticity” to the real history at the same time that they’re changing the hero’s race to yet another Some White Dude?  (I don’t wanna get too “Zach McGown who?”, but seriously.  I know this guy from a recurring role on the most recent season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., but I didn’t realize that from his picture in articles about the movie – I had to read a mention of it in an article and go, “Oh, that’s where I’ve seen him!”)

The other thing to keep in mind here is that Ben Kanahele was lauded for his actions combating a downed Japanese pilot after the attack, and while there’s been no word on who’s going to play the pilot, we all know the producers aren’t going to decide that his race is irrelevant to his character and change it.  So, we’re going to get a story about a heroic white guy fighting an enemy brown guy – awesome.  Not that the real story itself wouldn’t have dealt heavily with the villain’s nationality, considering the obvious of the attack on Pearl Harbor, but the whole microcosm of America vs. Japan looks very different when the American hero is reimagined as a white man instead of the Native Hawaiian man he was. 

Doesn’t this movie care that it’s taking away a community’s hero?  (I know, I know – of course it doesn’t.)  A real person who did an important thing, who protected his people and stood for his country, and this movie wants to refashion him to fit its own carbon-copy shape.  And its producer wants to come forward and talk about authenticity?  Are you seriously kidding me with this?