How the culture is changing, why it’s changing, when or if it will change again are questions people in Hollywood should be asking themselves right now. New generations are coming of age in a world that is not politically correct enough for them and Hollywood should be prepared for this. There will be a lot more policing of casting choices and Twitter activism that push towards a more diverse and full spectrum depiction of the human experience. Though white people maintain a slim majority in both the American population and ticket buyers that is changing fast.
So when Cameron Crowe innocently based a character in Aloha on a real-life red-headed islander who doesn’t look the least bit Hawaiian it sent a shitstorm through social networks shaming him for that “racist” decision. Does anyone really think Cameron Crowe is a racist? I don’t think so. I hope not. But does it illustrate how little people want to accept the continual Hollywood whitewashing of minorities? Yes. Again, Hollywood is on notice.
Crowe offered this apology on his site:
Thank you so much for all the impassioned comments regarding the casting of the wonderful Emma Stone in the part of Allison Ng. I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice. As far back as 2007, Captain Allison Ng was written to be a super-proud ¼ Hawaiian who was frustrated that, by all outward appearances, she looked nothing like one. A half-Chinese father was meant to show the surprising mix of cultures often prevalent in Hawaii. Extremely proud of her unlikely heritage, she feels personally compelled to over-explain every chance she gets. The character was based on a real-life, red-headed local who did just that.
I actually know the writer Lisa See quite well. Her paternal great-grandfather was Chinese yet so much of what she writes about is the Chinese experience both in China and here in the US. She has red hair and doesn’t look Asian. So for me it wouldn’t be hard to swallow Emma Stone as a character named Allison Ng. On the other hand, I do understand the continual complaints of Hollywood’s choice to always cast a white person in place of any character of color and this would have been an opportunity to actually hire an Asian actor.
Add to that the ongoing depiction of Hawaii on film with stories about only white characters. Sure, that ensures they make more money but it also ensures a shitstorm of controversy. So it just depends on what they want to do with the many opportunities to have it both ways — cast a bunch of white actors, make money, while also paying closer attention to the ways they obliterate or erase minorities in film overall, and suffer the inevitable backlash. My two cents.
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Chad Michael Murray isn’t actually 1/4 Asian. It’s a weird internet rumor.
Lisa See is 1/8th Asian. But Emma Stone’s character is 1/4 Chinese and 1/4 Hawaiian, so that’s a lot more.
^
THIS is such an excellent point.
For the record, the population of Hawaii is
38.6% Asian
24.7% White
23.6% from two or more races
10.0% Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islanders
8.9% Hispanic/Latino
1.6% Black or African American
1.2% from some other race
0.3% Native American and Alaska Native
Population of the Aloha trailer:
80% White Male
28% White Female
1% Hawaiian
1% Alec Baldwin
oh look, here’s some diversity in the Aloha trailer: RIGHT HERE.
I feel like some of the focus on Emma Stone’s character misses the point a little bit. It’s the unbearable whiteness of the film as a whole — not jut the realism of one character’s appearance — that’s the problem.
If Emma Stone had been cast as a red haired hapa in a film that featured a racially diverse main cast, I think we would have a different conversation. We still might want to ask whether any hapa actresses were available for the role, but there wouldn’t be the wholesale rejection that we’re seeing now. But if you make every other (major) character whiter than the new fallen snow, then you don’t really deserve the benefit of the doubt in the same way.
I’m biracial and don’t look ‘Asian’ at all, and I still find this incredibly problematic. Should we cast all mixed-race characters going forward with white actors because some hapas can pass?
I think this is good. Yes, we need more minority voices to tell cinematic stories, but we all need the white dudes in charge to recognize whenever they fuck up and how they can do better in the future. We all living in the same world here, together.
If I were a casting director, this problem could have been so easy avoided.
https://twitter.com/filmystic/status/606179302493810688/photo/1
I’m glad that Crowe is acknowledging that this perhaps wasn’t the greatest choice, but I don’t buy the “she looks white though” argument. Plenty of Asian people – especially in, for example, Hawaii – aren’t obviously “Asian-looking”, usually because they have mixed heritage. I’m certain it wouldn’t take terribly long to find some actress who is biracial-Asian but looks pretty white – Hailee Steinfeld pops to mind, though she might be a little young for the role – so why just go and cast Emma Stone? This is obviously a problem in and of itself, but as I understand it (not having seen the movie), her character is significant in part due to her heritage, so the entire thing sort of reeks of yellowface-sans-makeup.
Now, obviously, in a perfect world, anyone of any race could play any character of any race and there’d be no problem because it’s acting, but we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where white actors get more opportunities by default, so taking away clear casting opportunities from non-white/mixed race actors by giving them to white actors is decidedly unfair.