Asian-American Actors Are Fighting for Visibility.
36 replies, posted
[URL="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/movies/asian-american-actors-are-fighting-for-visibility-they-will-not-be-ignored.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1"]SOURCE[/URL]
[QUOTE]When [URL="http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/1477057/Constance-Wu?inline=nyt-per"]Constance Wu[/URL] landed the part of Jessica Huang, the Chinese-American matriarch on the ABC sitcom “Fresh Off the Boat,” she didn’t realize just how significant the role would turn out to be. As she developed her part, Ms. Wu heard the same dismal fact repeated over and over again: It had been 20 years since a show featuring a predominantly Asian-American cast had aired on television. ABC’s previous offering, the 1994 Margaret Cho vehicle “All-American Girl,” was canceled after one season.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE]In the past year, Ms. Wu and a number of other Asian-American actors have emerged as fierce advocates for their own visibility — and frank critics of their industry. The issue has crystallized in a word — “whitewashing” — that calls out Hollywood for taking Asian roles and stories and filling them with white actors.[/QUOTE]
Yeah a lot of focus on diversity in the film industry seems to be entirely on black people and are sort of just leaving asians in the dark entirely. I think the best example is the 2016 Oscars, where the outrage against the lack of black nominations was the largest in history, but then Ali G made that asian joke during his appearance and people just laughed at it and didn't care.
Black actors definitely deserve more recognition when it comes to awards etc. for their roles, but I think a more important issue to tackle is the fact that no ethnicity besides white and black people are given pretty much any thought, besides the occasional sidekick/worthless team member role.
Yeah, I honestly can't blame them. Asian representation in Western media is pretty shit for the most part. What makes it worse is that not only are roles scarce for them, the ones they do get most of the time are awfully typecasted. Like I seriously can't imagine hard it is to be an Asian-American actor and actually managing to get a role which isn't just a doctor, a computer geek, or a kung-fu fighter.
At the same time, while there still is a terribly long way to go, it does seem like the situation is starting to get better. You have shows like Fresh Off The Boat, Agents of Shield, and Hawaii Five-0, featuring Asian actors in prominent and non-stereotypical roles.
Despite all this though, I believe that in regards to representation, there is still a lot more which can be done, and I can only hope that there will be more opportunities for them in the near future.
Since Asian-American in this context seems also to include Indian and Pakistani individuals, I have to say that those have even worse representation than East Asian actors.
They can't see?
America is largely black and white but Hispanics have been making up a massive percent of the population recently, it's surprising how little coverage they get. Certainly more than Asian-Americans do. But Hell, in California (Where Holywood is located!) Hispanics are looking to overtake white people in population soon (That or they already have.). There definitely is egrigrious cases of white washing in Hollywood, the best example I can think of is North African but that Gods of Egypt movie; I looked at the trailer and I was thinking "why are these people all white?" It certainly makes sense to have white [I]characters[/I], Hellenism plays a very large role in Classical Egypt. But I just look at a movie shot and see an entire crowd of white people. Like, what?
[QUOTE=Pantz Master;50391985]They can't see?[/QUOTE]
haha cause asians have small eyes right?? ur so funny xd
[QUOTE=Lysander32;50391993] Hellenism plays a very large role in Classical Egypt[/QUOTE]
That's the thing though, these "Gods of Egypt" are of the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt. The Ptolemies were Hellenic through and through, praising the Greek gods, not those of the older Egyptians.
Remember that the only major member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually practice local traditions was Cleopatra, and she didn't last all that long.
The reason why a lot of Asian-American actors are upset is because they're always shoved off into the same roles. Either kooky, comedic side jokes, older wiser individuals, or someone that gets offed by a creature or something.
They're almost never the love interest, or a protagonist, or in any serious role that doesn't stereotype the everloving shit out of them.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;50392039]haha cause asians have small eyes right?? ur so funny xd[/QUOTE]
I thought thats what the OP was going for with that title.
Regardless this goes to a larger issue that is not talked about. Asians are rarely discussed when it comes to oppression of minorities.
[QUOTE=Zillamaster55;50392054]That's the thing though, these "Gods of Egypt" are of the Old and Middle Kingdoms of Egypt. The Ptolemies were Hellenic through and through, praising the Greek gods, not those of the older Egyptians.
Remember that the only major member of the Ptolemaic dynasty to actually practice local traditions was Cleopatra, and she didn't last all that long.
The reason why a lot of Asian-American actors are upset is because they're always shoved off into the same roles. Either kooky, comedic side jokes, older wiser individuals, or someone that gets offed by a creature or something.
They're almost never the love interest, or a protagonist, or in any serious role that doesn't stereotype the everloving shit out of them.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I've definitely seen that with Asian American actors. It's gotten way better with black actors, although there's still some missteps. Like that Ghost Busters movie trailer, I saw the black woman come up and when she's like "I KNOW New York" I was thinking "Oh, of course she's the streetsmart one." Asian Americans have had a much harder time escaping their type cast roles than African Americans.
[QUOTE=Pantz Master;50392065]I thought thats what the OP was going for with that title.
Regardless this goes to a larger issue that is not talked about. Asians are rarely discussed when it comes to oppression of minorities.[/QUOTE]
Well, it was the title of the article as published by NY Times. Anyway that was a bit more sardonic than it had to be so I apologise.
I mean what is the Asian-American community really going to get out of a lead role in the next Spiderman movie, or the next sitcom? I think the problem here is of continually overvaluing profit-driving industries as mediums for these issues to be resolved in.
TV and cinema are industries that play it safe, and the American culture industry doesn't resound as deeply in Asian-American communities because they're not as penetrable. Asian-Americans have made their way of life in the US through by being "high-performing" families but also by being conservative in that sense, for lack of a less judgmental term. And yet there are many great artists who broke that mold. The problem, in my opinion, is pointing at big television studios and film outfits and wondering why they aren't fair when they are economic agents and will produce whatever - gold or garbage - and have no intrinsic commitment to right or wrong. Asian Americans are prolific in the arts in the US, from Cho to Amy Tan, and just like every other community these people only get out to the general public in school because our only other system for raising these issues to universal awareness is designed to dredge shit into your living room.
i'unno Glenn is kinda cool
kind of overblown in a way,
yes there aren't many visible asian actors, at the same time there really aren't that many asian americans outside of the west coast, and where there are they usually are in tight communities.
like it or not, most of the US has a very low asian american population, i'd rather see movies written with asian parts in mind instead of casting asians as whites or whites as asians but if you're making a movie about life in iowa, you aren't painting it right if you have a rainbow cast of people.
i think the idea that asians are typecast as kung-fu people is also a bit absurd, that was true in the 60s but theres plenty of movies that have come out with asian actors in them as "normal" people, and movies like star trek where they can explain having a diverse cast have had diverse casts (well at the very least, the JJ trek has, older trek is a bit iffy)
productions getting pressured to include every single minority into their films for the sake of "diversity" is why we're getting things like ghostbusters 2016
maybe focus on being good actors instead of using your race or gender to get an award
[QUOTE=upsideonion;50393028]productions getting pressured to include every single minority into their films for the sake of "diversity" is why we're getting things like ghostbusters 2016[/QUOTE]
not really? the 2016 ghostbusters director has been working with that cast for a while now. he wasn't pressured into it
[QUOTE=upsideonion;50393028]productions getting pressured to include every single minority into their films for the sake of "diversity" is why we're getting things like ghostbusters 2016[/QUOTE]
Depends where you're from. To me, all white with token black character casts are unrealistic since I'm from San Francisco Bay. Here most people are some type of asian(including Indians and middle easterners) or a type of latino. All white casts are extremely unrealistic to me because if you're from here, no joke, the only groups of friends like that are probably the hicks that hang out in the walmart parking lot at night. If you don't have any non-white friends, it's because you have no friends.
[QUOTE=upsideonion;50393028]productions getting pressured to include every single minority into their films for the sake of "diversity" is why we're getting things like ghostbusters 2016[/QUOTE]
oh no that was sony being retarded. i have no problem with women being in a movie, i do have a problem with literally recasting every role as a woman just for the sake of having every role be a woman, suddenly ghostbusters goes from being a dark comedy to being a funny giddy comedy.
ghostbusters only works when its dark comedy, the cast is great but they are not the kind of actors for dark
[QUOTE=Melnek;50393090]maybe focus on being good actors instead of using your race or gender to get an award[/QUOTE]
yeah that's totally how the entertainment industry works
[editline]25th May 2016[/editline]
a perfect meritocracy
How many Caucasian-Japanese actors are primary stars in Japanese cinema?
[QUOTE=Thlis;50393567]How many Caucasian-Japanese actors are primary stars in Japanese cinema?[/QUOTE]
why does that matter? are we basing our standards off of theirs?
[QUOTE=Melnek;50393090]maybe focus on being good actors instead of using your race or gender to get an award[/QUOTE]
this would only work if these actors were getting roles in the first place.
it's a perpetual cycle of
"we don't think this person is good enough because s/he hasn't been in many roles"
"we don't get many roles to show how good we are"
[QUOTE=Zukriuchen;50393617]why does that matter? are we basing our standards off of theirs?[/QUOTE]
It's more what exactly do you expect when countries have different amounts of people?
I don't see people complaining about Bollywood lacking Japanese/Chinese/Korean stars.
[QUOTE=Thlis;50393687]It's more what exactly do you expect when countries have different amounts of people?
I don't see people complaining about Bollywood lacking Japanese/Chinese/Korean stars.[/QUOTE]
did you know america is quite literally the melting pot when it comes to culture and race???
[QUOTE=BeardyDuck;50393706]did you know america is quite literally the melting pot when it comes to culture and race???[/QUOTE]
So, if we are to assume that this "lack of asian-american actors" is due to discrimination, you are fine with that discrimination so long as the films aren't made in America?
[QUOTE=Thlis;50393687]It's more what exactly do you expect when countries have different amounts of people?
I don't see people complaining about Bollywood lacking Japanese/Chinese/Korean stars.[/QUOTE]
people in western societies who watch western cinema are focusing more on the western industry?
wow, crazy
[QUOTE=Thlis;50393718]So, if we are to assume that this "lack of asian-american actors" is due to discrimination, you are fine with that discrimination so long as the films aren't made in America?[/QUOTE]
[quote]The issue has crystallized in a word — “whitewashing” — that calls out Hollywood for taking Asian roles and stories and filling them with white actors.[/quote]
this isn't exactly an america-only problem.
the attack on titan live action movie got a ton of flak from japanese people because they only cast japanese people, when the story predominately features white europeans, and only 1 or 2 characters actually being asian.
[QUOTE=Melnek;50393090]maybe focus on being good actors instead of using your race or gender to get an award[/QUOTE]
Did you have to try, or does such drivel come naturally to you? Like it or not, what you just said is that the only reason actors for major roles are predominately white is because asians are all terrible actors. And I couldn't come up with an idea more retarded if I tried.
[QUOTE=Kommodore;50393554]yeah that's totally how the entertainment industry works
[editline]25th May 2016[/editline]
a perfect meritocracy[/QUOTE]
well sort of
in that whoever makes the most money gets the job
that isn't to say the person that makes the most money is the best actor
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