Is whitewashing a two way street?
I was recently watching this video about whitewashing in films, and it started me on a chain of thoughts that I'm slightly confused about. I'd like to get some alternative viewpoints on the matter, to hopefully clear up some issues I'm having.
In this video, the person presenting the opinion goes on to define whitewashing as:
[...] when Hollywood takes a character who is a person of colour in the source material, and casts a white actor for the final portrayal we see on screen.
This definition is good, and I agree with it. I can also clearly see how "Whitewashing" is a problem. However, later on in the video she says:
But this thing some people like to call "Blackwashing", is not a problem. It's not even a thing.
This is what I have trouble agreeing with. If we take the definition provided for whitewashing as a good source, how can "blackwashing" not be the opposite, where a person of colour plays a traditionally white character?
She provides some examples from comic book movies, such as Nick Fury from the MCU. I think that Samuel L. Jackson does a great performance as Fury in all the MCU films; I wouldn't cast any other actor for the part. However, I do have a problem accepting that "Whitewashing" is a problem, but "Blackwashing" is not. Logically, would not either one or both of these be a problem? I'd love to hear what everyone thinks about this, as I'm pretty clearly confused myself.
Not necessarily. I think it depends on your definition of "problem" in this particular case. If you limit the scope of the issue to just "replacing the race of a character with a non-traditional one" then, sure, logically both ways appear equally "problematic". But there are far more important factors at play that make whitewashing much more of a problem, IMO. Under-representation of minorities in Hollywood productions being a huge one and the current power structure of the Hollywood upper echelon making those casting decisions being another. Both of which have far reaching negative social implications.
With that in mind, can you see how a predominantly (or even entirely) white studio executive team deciding to replace all the asian characters in a movie with white actors (e.g. The Last Airbender) is far more of a "problem" than the reverse role replacement occurring?
Thank you, this is a great consideration! I hadn't really approached it in that way, that clears it up quite a bit.
I do understand your point and you have some valid arguments. I do agree that whitewashing is real, but we have to consider what I think is a major issue in the cinema industry: it was founded and is owned maily by white people (I'm talking about Hollywood and the European movie industry). For decades movies were made by white people for white people. If I recall correctly Geoge Romero's Night of the Living Dead was the first major movie in which the main protagonist was a black actor but the script did not specified the race of the main protagonist. We're talking of 1968 and cinematography was invented 70 years before that movie!
I do think that if the script demands a certain race for a certain role that should be it, but if the script doesn't care the casting shouldn't either. I mean, a great example of this concept is the 1979 Alien, directed by Ridley Scott: none of the characters in the script had a specific gender, they only had surnames.
About Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell I think that the production company wanted to lure people who didn't know anything about Ghost in the Shell into watching the movie only because Johansson was in it. A famous actor or actress can make more people watch the movie instead of a no-one. More views means more money, the ultimate goal of any producer. This is really the focus of whitewashing in my opinion.
Prince of Persia (2010) is set in ancient Persia and the prince was portayed by Jake Gyllenhaal. Other than the videogame fans, who whould have watched it if the star of the movie was an unkown persian guy? And this movie also because of Gyllenhaal and the whitewashing, became the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time. Any Hollywood movie must make money, it is the first and only reason any script can become a movie. If you want to watch movies without this state of mind I suggest the Sundance festival and the overall indie production companies that often create masterpicies that do not make as much money as they should.
I'm at work and can't watch the video, so I apologize in advance if I'm restating something already their.
So my two-cents is basically, blackwashing can be a thing, but is not really an issue. And I believe when it's brought up, it's making a point that no one disagrees with. Specifically, no one ever said "white roles are NEVER taken by minority actors". When people talk about whitewashing they are say "there is an under-representation of minority actors and minority roles".
Personally, I think the reason we don't talking about "Blackwashing" or recognize it is because "it's not a problem". And what I mean by that is, 1) it happens so rarely, 2) it generally doesn't affect the story/character, and 3) we're generally talking about Hollywood.
Starting with my first point, having white (or white passing) actors win auditions for non-white roles happens as an expectation. The default is white. Generally white actors can audition for pretty much any role, where the visible minority actors generally audition for minority roles.
For my second point, from what I've noticed, black actors taking traditional white roles generally don't affect the story or characterization. Nick Fury can be anyone, since his race doesn't affect the progression of the story. But often times when a white actor takes a minorities role, it needs to be explained. For example, Ghost in a Shell. Or it's just out of place, like The Last Airbender.
For my third point, Hollywood defaults white. Think any high school movie/show, and everyone is white, except for some minority that is "an exchange student" or "family owns the local Chinese restaurant". Now compare that to what you see in real life. I would argue (with obvious exceptions) that what we see on screen is a lot less diverse than what we see in real life in US and Canada.
Edit: moved last paragraph up to read better...hopefully.
Sure it does, Spiderman is white, he is white in the source material and comes from a white middle class family. It might not matter to some people, but to fans of spider man it would matter. There is no reason not to have other back superheros and there is no reason to change the race of an existing one.
Is it though? 62% of the American population is White/Caucasian and 12% of the American population is Black. So it stands to reason that there would be far more white actors because they make up the majority of the population. The majority of roles going to white actors is not a race issue and has never been in this century, it's a reflection of demographics.
oh, my bad. I misread that last point. nvm.
So let's go over the definitions.
Whitewashing: Casting a white person in place of a non-white character.
Blackwashing or Colorwashing: Casting a colored person in place of a white character.
Now, I personally don't fully agree with those definitions. They sound like they're one instance of this happening. The concept of whitewashing is multiple colored characters being played by white people. The 'problem' aspect of it is that it's something that repeatedly happens. If suddenly the balance tips so that most characters on screen are non-white, then we might have a colorwashing problem.
Thanks for the comment. Still a bit confused, so I was hoping you could clear something up. You said:
Personally, I would dislike it if even one character in a film was whitewashed, as it takes away an artistic perspective that person most likely not going to have. Would you agree with this?
Yes.
Along with this, I think we should also consider if a character's race is directly relevant/mentioned. A book adaptation where skin color is never mentioned? Cast whoever you want. An ancient sorcerer residing in an eastern nation that is very deliberately depicted in other medium as Asian? Cast somebody that's Asian.
The commentary I've been exposed to has these points to make about white washing and colorwashing:
White washing often occurs in the context of a white player being cast into a role which is essentially a person of color. That is to say into a role where the experience and identity of a person of color is a defining aspect of that character.
Color washing most often occurs when a person of color is placed in a role where white identity and experience is not part of the character.
The reason why one is problematic at the other isn't has to do with norms and appropriation. In the case of white washing a white player undermines the identity of the character and takes away a role which may not be very common (particularly w/r/t to asians which are almost never in movies except as negatively troped tokens). This goes both ways and the converse is absolutely true, and imo, as undesirable. It's just not nearly prevalent to give much attention to. At this point the racist trend is still more powerful than the reverse racist counter-trend.
Colorwashing however confronts the notion that a white person is the "default" race for an American movie character. This also happens with gender.
For instance, people got all shitty about the Ghostbuster re-boot being women, some of color. Setting aside the fact the movie wasn't that great, color and gender washing the ghostbusters was not problematic because there is no aspect of any of their characters that signaled that they should be played by men except for a few hetero-romantic scenes.
In summary, yeah it's a two-way street but one side is a 12-lane multimodal industrial corridor with trains and boats full of problems and the other side is a bike lane with the new Ghostbusters riding a 4 person tandem with a flat tire.
I agree with you that on a per-actor basis they should be considered equal. But I think that white-washing in movies is usually an industry-wide issue rather than a major problem for any particular film. If people get upset about Ghost in the Shell they're probably upset about Hollywood as a whole.
I would be curious to see the statistics, though. Properly weighted to the pool of actors Hollywood has, does "color-washing" happen much less than "white-washing"? Or do we just complain about the later more?
Honestly among the stable of American female action actors Scarlett Johansenn is on of my faves to watch since Catwoman/Nightfire-era Halle Barre.
Is that however because she's suited to it or because of the black widow fight choreo? I actually cannot say.