Should White Actors Play Non-White Characters?

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 3:58 pm

The LA Times writes about what writer Chris Lee calls a “whitewash,” with all major parts in two high-budget, high-profile films set in the Mideast played by Caucasian performers.

None of its principle cast members are of Iranian, Middle Eastern or Muslim descent. And playing Dastan, the hero and titular heir to the Persian throne in the $200-million tent-pole film, is none other than Hancock Park’s own Swedish-Jewish-American prince, Jake Gyllenhaal.

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In addition to Gyllenhaal and British actress Gemma Arterton’s portrayal of Iranian characters in the swords-and-sandals action epic “Prince of Persia,” Paramount has come under attack for its live-action adaptation of the Nickelodeon animated series ” Avatar: The Last Airbender.” Directed by “Sixth Sense” auteur M. Night Shyamalan, “The Last Airbender” (as the movie is called to distinguish it from a certain James Cameron-directed 3-D blockbuster) has enraged some of the show’s aficionados by casting white actors in three of four principal roles — characters that fans of the original property insist are Asian and Native American.

And with just weeks until the movie’s July 2 release — after a year-and-a-half-long letter-writing campaign to the film’s producers and a correspondence with Paramount President Adam Goodman to underscore the importance of casting Asian actors in designated Asian roles — members of the Media Action Network for Asian Americans and an organization called Racebending are urging fans to boycott “Airbender.”

Hollywood has a long, disgraceful history of casting actors in roles of other races. Marlon Brando, Alec Guinness, and Mickey Rooney played Japanese men and Katherine Hepburn and John Wayne played Chinese characters. Apparently believing that any non-American could play any non-white part, Mexican-born Ricardo Montalban played a Native American and a Japanese man and Puerto Rican Rita Moreno played a Thai character. This goes back a long way — centuries of white actors have played Othello in blackface. And of course in Shakespeare’s day, all parts we played by men and boys, which is one reason he created female characters who disguised themselves as men. It goes back to the earliest movies as well. One of the first superstars was Rudolph Valentino, who appeared as “The Sheik.” Peter Lorre played detective Mr. Moto and Warner Oland played detective Charlie Chan.
On one hand, I am in favor of race- and gender- and disability-blind) casting and would like to see more parts opened up to a wider range of actors. I disagree with a recent piece in Newsweek that has provoked a lot of controversy because it suggested that openly gay actors could not be believable as heterosexual romantic lead characters. But the purpose of a more open approach to casting should be to be more inclusive, not less. Part of what made the animated series that inspired “The Last Airbender” popular was its Asian characters and its themes based on East Asian fables and animation styles. Its director, Shyamalan, is an American of Indian heritage. Yet apparently even he must be swayed by Hollywood prejudice that assumes that despite the world market for films, audiences will be more likely to pay to see white stars.

Shrek Sells Out

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 12:01 pm

I loved the new Shrek Forever After movie. But I was very sorry to see that the lovable big green ogre is not just living happily ever after over in Far Far Away. He is all over the mall selling everything from credit cards and breakfast cereal to junk food and greeting cards to kids and their families. It even includes “limited edition “Ogre Green” filled Twinkies.”
The press release from Dreamworks, explains that Shrek has a wide range of “partners.”
This is of course just another way to help make more money for the studio. But it is detrimental to the integrity of the product itself to commercialize it this way and it is particularly regrettable when it is attached to products that are unhealthy for children.

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What I Read

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 8:29 am

The Atlantic Monthly’s website has a daily feature called “What I Read.” They invite people to tell them about their sources of information and news. If you’d like to read about my “media diet” take a look. And yes, the part about my parents is, if anything, understatement.
Also: I’m a finalist for a journalism award for my commentary on outrageous pay for corporate executives.

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Media Appearances

Dear John

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 8:00 am

Nicholas Sparks writes the equivalent of comfort food, high-carb, low-nutrition, but sometimes it hits the spot. His stories usually feature relationships that are not just true and deep and loving but healing. And then, like ripping off a band-aid, he tears it asunder, but in a manner that demonstrates just how true and deep and loving and healing the relationship was but how ennobling as well. And there is usually some object of deep metaphoric and sentimental value.

Ladies, prepare your hankies.

This time, the author of “The Notebook,” “Message in a Bottle,” “Nights in Rodanthe,” “A Walk to Remember” and this spring’s “The Last Song” (starring Miley Cyrus) gives us John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried of “Mamma Mia!” and “Big Love”). She is a kind-hearted girl and he is a special forces soldier with some anger issues. They have some soft-focus moments on the beach in Charleston while he is on leave and she is on spring vacation. She is considerate to his socially impaired father (Richard Jenkins) and he is understanding with her autistic neighbor. Two weeks later, they are very much in love, and agree to write as he completes his last year of service, as they look forward to being together as soon as it is over. But 9/11 changes everything. As Richard Lovelace wrote almost 400 years ago, “I could not love thee, dear, so much/Loved I not honor more.” As wrenching as it is for both of them, they know his place is with his team, defending freedom.

But then, she writes a “Dear John” letter telling him that she is engaged. He is wounded, recovers, and returns to battle. When he finally sees her again, he learns that her choice was not what he thought.

Director Lasse HallstrÃ¶m (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape,” “The Cider House Rules,” “My Life as a Dog”) keeps things from getting too syrupy and Tatum and Seyfried have a sweet, easy connection. Henry Thomas (the kid from “E.T”) has warmth and humor as the single father of the autistic boy. Richard Jenkins does what he can in the underwritten role of John’s father, whose reserve and awkwardness may be attributable to an autism spectrum disorder. We’re on the side of these undeniably decent and very pretty people. But there is nothing they can do to make the last third of the film feel emotionally or narratively believable. If at the end of the movie, you ask whether there was any other reason for a character not to provide more information much earlier and the only answer is that they had to find a way to fill the last 40 minutes of screen time, that is not going to work. And the sweetness of the original connection is dissolved in what feels like a trick.

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Based on a book Date movie Romance

The Road

Posted on May 25, 2010 at 8:00 am

The most terrifying moment we ever experience is the realization that we are responsible for the life of the perfect being who has turned us from people into parents. We want more than anything to keep them safe and teach them everything they need to survive, even though we know how impossible it is to do both at once. “The Road,” based on the acclaimed novel by Cormac McCarthy (No Country for Old Men) takes that conflict to the extreme with an archetypal father and son (just known as “Man” and “Boy”) and on a post-apocalyptic journey.

We do not know what the cataclysmic event was. We do not know if it was a natural disaster or the result of some kind of attack. But the world as we know it has ended. Sometimes the Man (Viggo Mortensen) goes back to the before in his dreams, of the night before his son was born, the last night when life still held possibilities. Since that day, everything is wiped out, including plants and animals. It is always cold. There is nothing to eat. Almost everyone has died or committed suicide. Those that are left are either predators or prey.

Stripped down to essentials, the Man has just one occupation — protecting the Boy, physically and psychically. As all parents must, he tries to help his son make sense of the world around him, teaching him enough about treachery and danger to be safe but teaching him enough about hope and honor to be “the good guys.” The Man tells his son that he must always carry the fire and by that he means both the literal fire that keeps them alive in the eternal winter and the spirit of optimism and humanity that is as important to the fate of the world as their ability to find something to eat.

As they go toward the coast, for no other reason than that it might be better than where they are and because it gives them a goal, they have encounters that are sad, strange, and scary. They find a somehow-overlooked relic of the past, a can of Coke, as exotic and inexplicable for the Boy as a shard of Sumerian pottery might be to us. When they find the house the Man grew up in, the markings his parents made to measure his growth are still there, a symbol of stability and care. When he tells the Boy that this is the fireplace mantel where they used to hang their stockings, he realizes that memory has any no connection to the Boy’s entire lifetime of scrounging, moving, and staying away from desperate packs of people who might as well be zombies for all of the humanity they have retained.

Wrenching, elegiac, but ultimately inspiring, this is a film that knows how to hold onto its own fire. By stripping away everything but the essentials, it makes us ask ourselves about the compromises we make, the consequences of our choices, and the value of the things that we so often think are worth striving for.

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Based on a book Drama