GROUP 4:
Whitewashing in Hollywood

“In the Background” — Research Section

• “Why Are There So Few Asians In Hollywood? | Decoded (2018)

  • “There aren’t enough Asian stars” (2:24).

• “Ghost in the Shell’s whitewashing: does Hollywood have an Asian problem?” | The Guardian (2017)

  • “‘Erasure is not the answer to stereotypes,’ says Keith Chow, editor of The Nerds of Color blog” (9).

• “Whitewashing Yellow Futures in Ex Machina, Cloud Atlas and Advantageous: Gender, Labor, and Technology in Sci-fi” | Leilani Nishime (2017)

  • “Yellowface performance served a function beyond reinforcing racial distinctions. It also allowed audiences to treat Asian people and cultures as consumable signs, detached from history and power” (11).

• Perils of Hollywood Whitewashing?: A review of 'Ghost in the Shell' movie

  • “This movie, originally a Japanese manga and later an animated film in 1995, earned cult popularity, including in the United States” (4).

• 10 Telling Details from ‘Ghost In The Shell’ Comics that Reveal Motoko Was Actually Whitewashed | Geeks

  • “In the early pages of the Ghost in the Shell manga, we find Motoko sitting cross-legged like the Buddha on a rock outside an establishment somewhere in the quiet Japanese countryside. I don’t know about you, True Believer, but I don’t happen to know any women of Western heritage who will sit cross-legged like Buddha watchin’ cherry blossoms spiral to the ground while drinking Junmai Ginjo saké. I mean, sure, they could. But that manga hasn’t been written yet. Therefore, culturally speaking, this just seems like a very Japanese thing.”

• Yellowface, Whitewashing, and the History of White People Playing Asian Characters | Teen Vogue

  • “The earliest practitioners of yellowface sought to transform white actors into Asian characters using skin-darkening pigments and makeshift contraptions of tape and rubber bands. The look would be combined with an over-the-top performance that included exaggerated accents and other physical tics. Yellowface was considered a bona fide technique mastered by skilled makeup artists, and instructions were published in technical manuals as recently as 1995’s The Complete Make-up Artist by Penny Delamar.”

• Insight: Hollywood ‘Whitewashing’

  • “In a business that makes money and want people that look like you, you’re only gonna feed into what’s given to you.”

• "Whitewashing at its finest!"

  • “Katharine Hepburn portrayed a Chinese woman in Dragon Seed.” (00:37)

• "Hollywood's whitewashing problem..."

• Examples of Hollywood's Whitewashing

  • “If there’s a Black Ariel, why can’t there be a white Tiara?” (0:00)

• Watching Mean Girls for the hundredth time & never knew the Vietnamese girl said “Nigga, Please”

  • “Không dám đâu mày” —> “Please, no way.” (1:11:00)

• Constance Wu And Ming-Na Wen Protest Hollywood's Whitewashing Of "Ghost In The Shell"

  • “Both Wu, who has been vocal about the lack of opportunities for Asian-American actors, and Wen urged the audience to speak out about the racism that’s still prevalent in Hollywood. “The whitewashing will just continue and continue if [white filmmakers] become comfortable,” said Wen. (Paragraph 5).

• "Black Panther" and the Importance of Racial Socialization | Psychology Today

“A few days after the movie release, a friend (who is a Black woman and mother of two Black children) shared on social media how she rearranged her son’s schedule to see the film, stating, “I needed him to see himself.” (Paragraph 2).