Examples Of Whitewashing
Introduction
Whitewashing: “a casting practice in the film industry of the United States, in which white actors are cast in historically non-white character roles” (Wikipedia, 2017). Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Goku in Dragon ball: Evolution, and Light Yagami in Death Note are great examples that present the current state of the film industry. Many character’s ethnicity is ignored and replaced with Caucasian actors. In fact, it is almost impossible to see the Person of Colours (POC) as a leading role in the film industry of North America. There are few reasons that explain the occurrences of this issue. As such, producers believe presenting Caucasian actors in a film is a way to maximize profit from customers, however, it is hard to ignore the strong stand of institutional racism. This brings up a simple, yet difficult question: Is it ethical to present a false image to the audience due to an influence of the whitewashed film market?
Contrasting Perspective of Stakeholders: Profit, Ethics, or Neither
Stakeholder analysis is an important tool to utilize as it considers different viewpoints of stakeholders and the …show more content…
All three protagonists were whitewashed while the villain remained Asians. As voice against whitewashing is as loud as it has ever been, casting decisions received a significant amount of backlash. In fact, an advocacy group for equality in the media noted that The Last Airbender “began with casting calls indicating a preference for white actors for leads; people of colour for villains, secondary characters and backgrounds extras” (Scherker, 2014). From this, it is apparent that there is a clear discrimination during the casting process. This can not be clearer when Caucasians are given chances to audition for POC roles while POC are not even given a single opportunity for the audition? This is a clear discrimination, which is an extremely unethical part in the film
Whitewashing: “a casting practice in the film industry of the United States, in which white actors are cast in historically non-white character roles” (Wikipedia, 2017). Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Goku in Dragon ball: Evolution, and Light Yagami in Death Note are great examples that present the current state of the film industry. Many character’s ethnicity is ignored and replaced with Caucasian actors. In fact, it is almost impossible to see the Person of Colours (POC) as a leading role in the film industry of North America. There are few reasons that explain the occurrences of this issue. As such, producers believe presenting Caucasian actors in a film is a way to maximize profit from customers, however, it is hard to ignore the strong stand of institutional racism. This brings up a simple, yet difficult question: Is it ethical to present a false image to the audience due to an influence of the whitewashed film market?
Contrasting Perspective of Stakeholders: Profit, Ethics, or Neither
Stakeholder analysis is an important tool to utilize as it considers different viewpoints of stakeholders and the …show more content…
All three protagonists were whitewashed while the villain remained Asians. As voice against whitewashing is as loud as it has ever been, casting decisions received a significant amount of backlash. In fact, an advocacy group for equality in the media noted that The Last Airbender “began with casting calls indicating a preference for white actors for leads; people of colour for villains, secondary characters and backgrounds extras” (Scherker, 2014). From this, it is apparent that there is a clear discrimination during the casting process. This can not be clearer when Caucasians are given chances to audition for POC roles while POC are not even given a single opportunity for the audition? This is a clear discrimination, which is an extremely unethical part in the film