Whitewashing in Hollywood

By now most of us are familiar with the term whitewashing. But for the very little who are not, it is referred to the phenomenon of when a previously character of colour (any race that is not white) is played by a white person. Such as what happened with Prince of Persia, the Egyptians Leads in Exodus, Aang, Sokka and Katara from the Last Airbender – to mention a few. The most recent of these outrages were the result of Scarlet Johansson playing the role of Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell.

This has been going on in Hollywood for a long time. White characters have always been considered the default. Yet now, once white characters – like Iris West – are being portrayed by non-white actors, so why is that not a cause for an outrage? 

To put it simply, Hollywood has rarely been a diverse world, despite the fact that USA does harbour people of various races and cultures. Whether we're admitting to it or not, media is the starting point of trends and what we want to achieve. When a power tool like the media is homogenised by a single race that is what we start to consider as the norm. When we see European beauty standards being solely appreciated, that's what we hail as superior. Furthermore, certain races only playing certain characters – black actors playing thugs, East Asian-American actors playing the exotic/spiritual guide – strengthens stereotypes surrounding these races. Especially, when only white actors get to play diverse roles. There's also the issue where white actors are called for most casting, while actors of colour find it difficult to land acting jobs.

However as previously mentioned, non-white actors have also been cast in the part of white characters. As much as it would be preferable for more diverse characters to be created rather than changing the old, established ones – it's given fact that it's difficult to break the status quo. Spiderman is still more famous than Ms. Marvel. So regardless of Kamala Khan being a great character, the black Spiderman – Miles Morales – will be more popular. 

Moreover, in certain cases casting a white actor in a non-white role becomes breaching of the culture from which the story originates. Such is the case for Ghost in the Shell which is at its core a Japanese story, whose context lies within the politics of Japan. It is not a story that can be westernized and thus Scarlet Johansson playing the lead becomes difficult to accept.

Despite all of the outrage, Hollywood won't change overnight. In addition to that, portraying five non-white characters in a movie instead of two won't ultimately change people's perception. Yet, it has become a cause for concern as movies are art, and art is the reflection of a society. So, it doesn't make sense to leave out a large portion of society when creating it.

Fatimah Akhtar is a food and fiction enthusiast with a soft spot for bulldogs. Redirect all your complaints, queries, and feedbacks to her at fatimahaakhtar@gmail.com