When you compare whitewashing (casting white people in roles designed for people of color) to other kinds of “color-blind” casting, one thing that’s readily apparent as different is that white-washing has a deep and ugly history that the other kind doesn’t. Early Hollywood was entirely segregated with people of color not offered any starring roles at all. Instead, there were caricatures- white people in grotesque makeup acting as a parody of people of color. The scars of this still persist today with white people73% of the roles in Hollywood.
Regardless of where you stand on the whitewashing topic, it’s good to educate yourself on the history of the practice. It can help lend insight to why people are so passionate about the issue. So let’s look at whitewashed roles through the years and see how things have changed…or how they haven’t, in many ways.
I’ve previously covered some whitewashed films inanother article, so I’ll be skipping over those for this list.
The Thief of Baghdad (1924)
The Thief of Baghdad was a 1924 silent swashbuckling film starring Douglad Fairbanks as the titular theif, Ahmed. The story is set in Baghdad, but the majority of the cast is white. One of the few exceptions in Anna May Wong, who would later become the first Asian American actress to gain international fame. She has a very small role here, though, as a “treacherous Mongol slave”. Being relegated to these sorts of stereotypical roles is what would frustrate Wong enough that she would leave Hollywood for quite some time, traveling the play circuit in Europe instead. She even noted that all the Chinese roles in Hollywood were being taken by non-Chinese people.
The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu (1929) and The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)
The Fu Manchu film series is one of the most infamous cases of “yellowface” where white people are done up in makeup to look like stereotypical caricatures of Asians. Fu Manchu is one of the most famous “yellow peril” villains of the era. The “yellow peril” villains represent Asians as inhuman, monstrous deviants who preyed on white women. Fu Manchu takes the “monstrous” appearance to the next level.
The white men (Warner Orland in The Mysterious and Boris Karloff in The Mask) who played Fu Manchu made themselves up to look positively demonic, with pointed ears, taped back eyes, a vampire-ish widows peak and gnarled fingernails. The message was clear- the Chinese were considered inhuman.
This was met with protest even in the era it was filmed. The Chinese embassy in DC lodged an official complaint against The Mask of Fu Manchu for its racism, singling out Manchu’s demands to “kill the white man and take his women” as particularly bad.
Charlie Chan Carries On (1931)
Charlie Chan as a character was meant to counteract the “yellow peril” stereotypes by portraying a Chinese man in a heroic role- but he has still been noted to be an extremely stereotypical character, as he is subservient, non-sexual and non-threatening.
In early films, Chan was played by Japanese men and later a Korean man (both back then and today they are often treated as interchangeable) and his role was made much smaller compared to the source material. Racial slurs were lobbed at these men in official reviews and they received unfavorable feedback.
The producers then opted to have Warner Olan slap on some makeup and become Chan in Carries On, and he got much bigger roles compared to his Asian-American compatriots and a sixteen picture deal out of it.
The Good Earth (1937)
The Good Earth is a film about struggling Chinese farmers with all the main characters played by white people. The leads, Wang Lung and O-Lan, are played by Paul Muni and Luise Rainer. Rainer won the Academy Award for best actress for her performance. An actual Chinese-American actress has yet to win an Academy Award.
Dragon Seed (1944)
Dragon Seed was a war drama film starring Katherine Hepburn as the Chinese woman Jade. The movie was essentially a demonstration of two racial stereotypes- the cartoonishly brute-ish savage Japanese forces invade the simple-minded, overly passive Chinese village and plucky Katherine Hepburn, oppressed by her culture, wants to fight back. The white actors are done up in faux-Asian prosthetics that are especially bad, making them unable to really even move their foreheads, really.
Apache (1954)
Apache was a Western film about the last surviving Apache warrior being captured and forcibly sent to a reservation. There’s a lot of irony in telling a tale of the tragic oppression of the “last Apache warrior” by white people and then casting a white person to play him, but that irony was missed by the producers. Burt Lancaster was slathered in brown makeup and given the role.
Othello (1965)
Stuart Burge’s 1965 production of Othello starred Laurence Olivier in blackface. Blackface had thankfully finally started going out of style in Hollywood at the point, but despite that, Olivier caked on some awful looking grayish-brown makeup and adopted a ridiculous accent to be the star of a movie involving a black man struggling with prejudice. This was not received well by many contemporary critics, with columnist Inez Robb comparing it to Al Jolson’s roles and saying “I was certainly in tune with the gentleman sitting next to me asking “When does he sing Mammy?”
Short Circuit (1986)
Actor Aziz Ansari notes that the first time he ever saw an Indian character in an American movie was 1988’s Short Circuit 2. He was elated to see this, only to be brutally disappointed when he discovered it was played by Fisher Stevens, a white guy in brownface and staged accent, who went and did yoga to study “becoming Indian”. Ansari’s article on the subject and whitewashing in general is an interesting read.
Wanted (2008)
The 2008 movie Wanted was an adaptation of a comic book by Mark Millar. The character played by Angelina Jolie, Fox, was originally African-American and based on Halle Berry.
The King of Fighters (2010)
In this 2010 movie based off the game The King of Fighters, white Sean Faris played the main character Kyo Kusanagi. That basically speaks for itself. They really do love whitewashing characters named Kusanagi.
The Lone Ranger (2013)
In this film, Johnny Depp played the Native American character Tonto. Depp claimed possible extremely distant Native American ancestry in response to criticism. The film was both a commercial and critical flop. Even outside the whitewashing, the portrayal of Native Americans received some criticism.
Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)
The 2013 Star Trek movie had the Sikh man Khan played by white Bendict Cumberbatch. It should be noted that Khan was not correctly ethnically cast even in the original movie. He was played by Mexican actor Ricardo Montalbán. However it was Gene Roddenberry’s original intention that Khan- a genetically engineered composite of the strength of humanity- not be the typical Aryan eugenic ideal.
Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Edge of Tomorrow was a movie based on Hiroshi Sakuzara’s novel All You Need is Kill. The protagonist Keiji Kiriya was changed to William Cage, who was played by Tom Cruise. In addition to this, a Brazillian-Japanese character and a Native American female character were both changed to white men. Despite the big-name star, the film didn’t get great box-office reception.
Gods of Egypt (2016)
The Gods of Egypt movie was meant to be set in Egypt and based on Egyptian mythology- yet every major character besides Chadwick Boseman’s was white. Unusually, the studio actually apologized for this. The apology did not stop the film from flopping at the box office.
Dr. Strange (2016)
The film Dr. Strange is another Cumberbatch-helmed movie. The white Tilda Swinton was cast as “The Ancient One”, a Tibetan in the comics.
Screeenwriter C. Robert Cargill was perhaps the first movie writer to officially gripe about “social justice warriors” as he responded to the criticism of the casting by throwing around that appellation. He also claimed it would offend China to acknowledge Tibet as a place, though there have been responses to this citing logic holes in that argument. Many prominent figures have also rebutted this argument, including George Takei.
Every Bible Film
From Passion of the Christ
It is well-established by now that Jesus would, as a citizen of Israel, be Middle-Eastern. But part of the cultural consciousness that paints him and the others in the Bible as white despite the historical inaccuracy of that is definitely due to the fact Jesus is cast as white in pretty much every movie. Among the multitude of examples is King of Kings (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), The Last Temptation of Christ (1985) and The Passion of the Christ (2004).