In another thread (about the video series of Anita Sarkeesian) a discussion about whitewashing popped up. And I thought this topic is rich and broad enough to explore it in its own thread.

There are many examples about whitewashing in the movie industry. This is when a character that existed as something other than white in history, in another medium or in another movie even, and than is recast as white. Recently we also see more and more the reverse practice of white characters being portrayed by someone who is not white. This actually exists in any direction - white to asian, indian to latin, everything goes. Or does it? I think there is a hypocracy around race swapping that rubs me the wrong way.

There is the general public reception. And there is the receptions of outlets, journalists and actual critics. I think in both kinds of receptions race swapping that is not whitewashing is seen much more favourably than whitewashing. Even though the double standards in the general public reception are not as great since it seems no matter in which direction movies swap races, the general public will complain. But it will complain louder about whitewashing than any other sort of race swapping. Big outlets on the other hand would mostly jump on the opportunity to complain about whitewashing specifically and not condemn, but even praise swapping from white to any other race. A recent counter example to that would be the horrible reception of this Cleopatra documentary series.

This is a complicated topic with much to consider: is it more okay, if an actor looks the part, even though he/she is of different ethnicity? Is it okay anyway, no matter in which direction you swap races? Is it actually more okay to swap from white to other races, because for so many years the movie industry in Hollywood was so dominated by white actors? What is with historical figures, have they a different status to somebody fictional when it comes to race swapping? Does a movies age influence, how bad/okay race swapping was/is? Should we consider how faithful the whole project is to what came before? (project = move, show, game (cannot think of an example in a game), etc)

Please share your thoughts on this. Examples are very welcome. The discussion can also encompass race representation in media in general. But the main topic is swapping. As per this forums guidelines, please stay respectful. If you could additionally stay fun and not get too serious, that would be great. I will try to keep that in mind as well. (If any mod thinks this thread is better suited for another category other than movies and tv, please feel free to change that.)

IMO it shouldn't be done, just leave characters as they originally were. I would make an exception where it's needed for immersion purposes though. eg. movies set in foreign countries. Assuming it's a Hollywood production it's going to be mostly in English, so if it's set in a non-English speaking country then using actors of the correct nationality but having them all just speaking English would be incredibly weird. So changing some for American/English/Australian etc. actors to justify the use of English language does make sense. I'd prefer they didn't even do that, but what are the chances Hollywood does a 100% foreign language/cast film?

My view varies depending on the type of character and the surrounding context. Most of the time I don't think it should matter what race the actor is for the role and I feel like we should try to move towards colour blindness rather than colour fetishisation, but alas our social betters seem to want the opposite. One of the exceptions for me would be historical characters in docudrama productions - especially culturally significant ones - and that's partly why I think there was a bigger backlash to Cleopatra or Anne Boleyn(!) being black. Another part is I think there's an element of racial animus from the creators of these types of productions, which is subconsciously picked up on by some of the public, which then produces a backlash, which is in some ways actually desired by the creators because they feel it justifies their original motives.

The bigger issue is I feel like the entertainment industry and Hollywood goes about its quota-based diversity efforts (read: pandering) the wrong way. Take something like Rings of Power. I'm not a huge LotR guy, but from what I gather, in Tolkien's lore the different groups of people are very homogeneous (makes sense for a fantasy setting with limited means of transportation), but there are vast regions populated by non-white races. Why not write the show so that one of the main storyline strands takes place in one or more of these regions, and/or focusing on characters from those other races? Same with Wheel of Time - the little isolated backwater village at the start is so diverse that it made me chuckle. They obviously casted via diversity checklist but without any thought or explanation as to how that would work within the world that had been created by someone much more talented than themselves. It's so low effort and, because of that, it breaks immersion.

I'm much more familiar with Asimov's Foundation, because the original novel series is a favourite of mine. There's a lot of race (and gender) swapping for the show, but it's generally done better than the previous two examples and is worked into the series' universe rather than feeling completely divorced from it. Just a shame the 'adaptation' as a whole is an abomination.

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Edit - Ka-Pi's post reminded me of Bullet Train. Man I was so annoyed by how few Japanese people there were in that film. I know there's a (very lazy) brief explanation given as to all of the tickets being bought up by whatever his name is, but come on...

Redheads are my fave and Hollywood has gotten rid of them. True natural redheads are a minority but don't tell Hollywood that.

As a wise man once said: "My view varies depending on the type of character and the surrounding context. Most of the time I don't think it should matter what race the actor is for the role and I feel like we should try to move towards colour blindness rather than colour fetishisation"

However, as another wise man once said: "Redheads are my fave and Hollywood has gotten rid of them."

I guess what im trying to say is: It depends.

I really just think it depends on how it's handled. I don't think changing a characters race is inherently bad in most context. I think it only is bad when looking at, say, historical moments where the context is sensitive. For example, don't make Martin Luther King Jr white or Hitler a practicing Jew. That would be a direct insult to the historical context and what those people represent.

When dealing with race, pick the best actor for the role first. Base it off the personality and character traits that the actor can accomplish because that is what is important first and foremost. Then consider things like looks. If there are two characters that are equally as qualified but one looks like the character and the other doesn't, then try going for the one that looks the part.

Personally, I find hypocrisy ridiculous. I don't care the reason for the hypocrisy. Just do the characters justice and the movie will turn out good.

My take is:

If a character needs to be a specific race to make sense, then they should be that race. You can't tell a story about asian people by having them all be white people. You can't tell a story about black people in America, if there are no black people.

Sequels or prequels should retain the race of the person.

If we're talking about a remake or a new adaptation, then it doesn't matter. The Little Mermaid has no obligation to be white. They're a fictional mermaid, and it makes no sense to apply cultural requirements to something that doesn't exist. There are plenty of stories where they are covering the same kind of material with creative liberties. The Lion King was heavily inspired by Hamlet. No one has issues that a very similar story was told by lions, instead of medieval Europeans. On that note, plenty of Shakespeare's work has been adapted for other countries, other time periods and other races, etc.  Yet strangely no one seems to care about those kinds of adaptations even if those changes potentially break the narrative. 

Rings of Power, I know that middle earth is intended to be Europe, but black people canonically do exist in that space. There are people (Haradrim) who are supposed to be brown skinned who are present in the Lord of the Rings books. This is also a world where there is magic and shapeshifters, so I feel like it's doubly silly to hold up that standard.

At the end of the day though, I would say the primary issue with "white washing" isn't that a character is played by someone of the "wrong race". It's the fact that there frequently weren't many non-white actors in the first place. Like plenty of Indians looked up to Apu to some extent, because at the time there were so few Indian characters in media; and yet he was played by a white guy.

If we lived in a society where it was pretty normal for Indian, black, white characters to all play each other and any talented black or asian or white actor got the best roles, I think there would be substantially less issue. But we don't. 

It's basically a non-issue to me. Others have already said it. Who cares what race the Little mermaid is? But everyone cares what race Hitler, MLK, Pocahontas, and other real life, culturally significant figures were. So, people that are casting these productions should put away their checklists and put on their common sense.

I don't watch a lot of movies, but in general, I'm not in favour of changing things when there's already an established way and the change doesn't make sense. Changing the colour of a character doesn't usually make sense because that's generally not possible. If it's a reimagining of some sort, it might make sense, but even then, I would question how much it makes sense to change the colour of a character. I don't mind introducing new characters of different colours (as long as it makes sense in the setting, of course), but changing colours of existing characters is prone to rubbing me the wrong way.