Hollywood vs. Race

A few days ago I happened to be logging onto my yahoo account to read  my emails and such when I noticed a photo gallery having been published on their main page, the title? Prince of What? About ethnic characters being played by white people.

Now, the photo album didn’t necessarily pick on the entire film, having only shown one photo of the sexy man, but it picked a battle with me that I am not too fond of. The album also talked about the upcoming film Avatar: The Last Airbender stating that it was based in Asia, had martial arts, and the lead isn’t Asian. It continued on like this choosing movies where the characters were originally, or in real life, were of another race and replaced by white actors. Now…this is where I come in to slap people silly.

The man who brought up Jake’s obvious non-Persian decent was a blogger named Jehanzeb Dar who stated to the Associated Press,

“This part really needed to go to someone who’s Persian […] It’s not only insulting to Persians, it’s also insulting to white people. It’s saying white people can’t enjoy movies unless the protagonist is white.”

Psh. Whatever. It is insulting to have some guy complain about something that honestly will not garner that much attention. I appreciate his concerns, but really look at your film facts before you go huffing and puffing.

Lets start by making a list of characters of race and ethnicity and the actor that portrayed them as well as their own diverse selves:

Mr. Miyagi, Karate Kid, Japanese, played by Pat Morita
Malcolm X, Malcolm X, African-American, Denzel Washington
Jamal, Slumdog Millionaire, Indian, Dev Patel (Indian decent)
Frida, Frida, Hispanic, Salma Hayek
Hu Li, Rush Hour 2, Chinese, Ziyi Zhang
Lady Sarah, Australia, Australian, Nicole Kidman
Damien, The Wind that Shakes the Barley, Irish, Cillian Murphy
Elizabeth, Pride and Prejudice, English, Keira Knightley
Toughest Pawnee, Dances with Wolves, Native American, Wes Studi
François, Oceans 12, French, Vincent Cassel
Hans, Inglorious Bastards, German, Christoph Waltz

That is just a taste of those who portrayed characters of an ethnicity or race. Don’t tell me Hollywood is not diverse, don’t tell me American’s cannot watch films that feature actors who are only white. Granted if you go by the color of their skin there are a few white people, but you are talking ethnicity…all of them are ethnically diverse. Despite two films that didn’t fair so well at the box office, you can look up these people, along with many more actors, and see that they are of ethnic decent, that they portray characters of their said decent, and America watches.

If you want to talk about race and ethnicity you also need to take a look at Hollywood and see who is a good actor, who can put butts in theater seats, and whether or not a story revolves around race or ethnicity. Prince of Persia isn’t just about a Persian, in fact I don’t think it has anything to do with the film itself, save its name and the main leads being a Prince and Princess. The film is about stopping a man from destroying the world, not about the practices of being a Prince in Persia.

If anyone has a bone to pick, it should be the American’s allowing English actors to portray American’s. But…we don’t. Why? Because it is a stupid argument! We go to see films based on many things, not because of race. We go because of the story, the suspension of disbelief and reality, the actors, the director, the cool scenes we have seen on television or in trailers. Only you, Mr. Dar, are freaking out for no reason. I’d understand your gripe if there weren’t any diversity in Hollywood, but there is! It is a melting pot! That is why it is Hollywood. Going back to the hay day of silent films there were many actors such as Rudolph Valentino who was Italian and Lupe Velez who was Mexican. Even in the 1950’s you had English actor Cary Grant, Belgian Audrey Hepburn, the Swedish Ingrid Bergman…the list is very long.

I will state that during the 1950’s you had white actors portraying Asians. John Wayne portrayed Genghis Khan, but what Asian actors were available to portray him back then? Also, you have Peter Sellers portraying many Asians making fun of them not using continents, being loud and unruly, but you have to understand the times where it was all based on propaganda, and playing on American’s views of Asians.

Please, next time you want to state something that is incorrect, do your research. America loves films for the entertainment value, not the diversity.

But please don’t take my opinion as stating Hollywood hasn’t screwed up elsewhere. I have to admit I hate it when a film is located in, for example, Japan and they speak English. Memoirs of a Geisha is a prime example. There were a few Japanese characters, but mostly they were Chinese and spoke English. But I will say Clint Eastwood finally broke this problem with his film Letters from Iwo Jima, all actors were Japanese and they spoke their native language. That was awesome.