Writing Asians and other people of colour out of their stories is not in anyone’s interestAnna May Wong,a woman so desirable that her gardenia perfume and lipstick traces were immortalised in These silly Things, could not kiss. To be precise, and she could not kiss a white man. Anti-miscegenation laws and the outright racism of 1930s Hollywood – one studio deemed her “too Chinese to play a Chinese” consigned the Asian-American actor to supporting roles. Directors preferred white actors in ill-judged eyeliner.
Things have improved,but not as much as one might hope. These days the problem is not (usually) yellowface but the inverse problem: “whitewashing”. Asian roles are recast as white, or white characters are written into the heart of Asian stories. So a Tibetan character is rewritten as Celtic and played by Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange, or while Scarlett Johansson plays a role initially called Major Motoko Kusanagi in an adaptation of the seminal Japanese anime Ghost in the Shell. Matt Damon takes the lead in The mighty Wall,a fantasy adventure set in medieval China. It has become noteworthy that Disney actually wants a Chinese actor to star in its live-action film approximately the legendary Chinese warrior Hua Mulan. Related: Correcting Yellowface: Asian American blogger reworks film images – in pictures Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com