Racial Bias in Hollywood aka Racebending

[Geist X]

Hollywood has this thing where they believe that if the star actor isn't White the film will flop. The director of Independence Day had to fight tooth and nail with the Studio to cast Will Smith as the lead. To their great surprise the movie was a commercial success.

Most of the time when characters have their ethnicity changed to White by (modern)Hollywood, it was in a story where their ethnic identity is not a central part of their character. I mean honestly. Making Goku White or Aang White isn't the same as having an all White female cast for the Joy-Luck Club. Or having White guys play The Five Heart Beats. Most of the time when (modern) Hollywood White-washes a character it's in an instance where their ethnicity is not salient to them.

So why does it piss people off? Two reasons. The first is because minorities don't get a lot of chances to shine in Hollywood movies, and people don't like seeing the already sparse roles being taken away. Most of the time people who say it's not a big issue, don't understand the full implications and affects of an ethnic group not being portrayed in the media positively. The second reason is that (modern)Hollywood rarely if ever take a classically White character and replace them with a non-White. Off the top of my head, I can think of three instances, and two of them are Marvel movies.

Anyways, long story short...Hollywood Studio execs feel that being as reductive as possible will always bring in the most revenue. It's not going to change anytime soon. Until the revolution takes place, there are plenty of great Indie movies worth supporting.

[Xephon0930]

Hollywood has this thing where they believe that if the star actor isn't White the film will flop. The director of Independence Day had to fight tooth and nail with the Studio to cast Will Smith as the lead. To their great surprise the movie was a commercial success.

Most of the time when characters have their ethnicity changed to White by (modern)Hollywood, it was in a story where their ethnic identity is not a central part of their character. I mean honestly. Making Goku White or Aang White isn't the same as having an all White female cast for the Joy-Luck Club. Or having White guys play The Five Heart Beats. Most of the time when (modern) Hollywood White-washes a character it's in an instance where their ethnicity is not salient to them.

So why does it piss people off? Two reasons. The first is because minorities don't get a lot of chances to shine in Hollywood movies, and people don't like seeing the already sparse roles being taken away. Most of the time people who say it's not a big issue, don't understand the full implications and affects of an ethnic group not being portrayed in the media positively. The second reason is that (modern)Hollywood rarely if ever take a classically White character and replace them with a non-White. Off the top of my head, I can think of three instances, and two of them are Marvel movies.

Anyways, long story short...Hollywood Studio execs feel that being as reductive as possible will always bring in the most revenue. It's not going to change anytime soon. Until the revolution takes place, there are plenty of great Indie movies worth supporting.

And granted,I will fight tooth and nail to basically flip the film industry like Hideaki Anno did for anime with Neon Genesis Evangelion. It's on my To-Do List. And yes I do agree 100% of what you said.

Basically,to paraphrase from Liam Neeson in Taken,"I will tear down the Hollywood sign if it means making a serious change in the industry."

[ShadowYin-Yang]

Whitewashing needs to stop. I know they love their money but they need to look at something called Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. What do these 2 have? People of color in main roles and white people (though with Asian influence, the fire nations are extremely pale in comparison to the others) in the villain roles. Not only that, they pulled a James Cameron move and created some of the best developed female characters in fiction to date. Did these 2 cartoons flop? No!

I know they're frickin afraid that people won't watch if it's not a white person on screen, but they also have to realize the story and just how good the movie is, is power. Who is in the main role almost doesn't matter (depending on the subject of the film). You know How to Train Your Dragon? That didn't get a lot of advertising but through word of mouth, that movie was highly successful and guess what? It was a good movie!

We're in 2012! If you know you suck at making movies, I can sorta understand because they probably know they're going to screw it up(if we're lucky), but for the people that know what they're doing should really be portraying people of color and women in a more positive light already. You don't need to rely on white people and fan service to get an audience! You should be using your NAME as a reason to draw in an audience! Show you can create a great film and you're good.
Yeah I know, explosions seem to be good right now b/c people have no attention spans these days and that's probably why we're doomed...

As for the adaptation of Akira, it is still whitewashing even if you move the location to the United States because your'e deliberately doing that just to have an excuse to cast white people! But it still doesn't make sense b/c under that logic, it's like saying Asians don't exist in the United States which they obviously do among other people of color. The argument also doesn't work because last I checked, the villain that was casted is Asian!

Also, whitewashers, as well as 4kids, use the term "Americanize" or "We're making it totally American." THEY'RE IDIOTS! Americanizing doesn't mean erasing people of color like they don't exist! I take 'Americanizing' as putting characters in an American culture and NOT erasing existing culture in characters' background and/or erasing their nationality!

Also, there was a movie called Red Tails I believe that Hollywood didn't want to fun because the main characters were ALL African American. So the director had to fun it BY HIMSELF. Has Hollywood admit they're racist/sexist yet? Because at least they're honest if they did which is slightly better than lying AND being racist(and sexist).

[Kei]

As for the adaptation of Akira, it is still whitewashing even if you move the location to the United States because your'e deliberately doing that just to have an excuse to cast white people! But it still doesn't make sense b/c under that logic, it's like saying Asians don't exist in the United States which they obviously do among other people of color. The argument also doesn't work because last I checked, the villain that was casted is Asian!

It doesn't really make sense for people to speak English in foreign countries. I think that's where the decision to relocate the setting to an English speaking area typically is.

[Sukisho]

Most of the time when characters have their ethnicity changed to White by (modern)Hollywood, it was in a story where their ethnic identity is not a central part of their character. I mean honestly. Making Goku White or Aang White isn't the same as having an all White female cast for the Joy-Luck Club. Or having White guys play The Five Heart Beats. Most of the time when (modern) Hollywood White-washes a character it's in an instance where their ethnicity is not salient to them.

Goku shouldn't really be in peoples minds as part of this anyway considering his character is an Alien not an Asian, so being White fits him perfectly well.

Also, whitewashers, as well as 4kids, use the term "Americanize" or "We're making it totally American." THEY'RE IDIOTS! Americanizing doesn't mean erasing people of color like they don't exist! I take 'Americanizing' as putting characters in an American culture and NOT erasing existing culture in characters' background and/or erasing their nationality!

Well the case of 4kids, they add in our culture but to do so they change the content entirely. Erasing people of color though isn't really part of their "Americanizing" sense, that's more to avoid possible lawsuits cause of racism and such. Which when you look at that doesn't really make sense since they are just removing one race and replacing it with another, so that's still racism :/

[Xephon0930]

Well using that reasoning,Goku should also have purple skin. I kid. It's just that in times like this,I wish that the creator(in this case Akira Toriyama)would decide who to cast and basically make it a Word of God in terms of casting the main role in these kind of films. If Akira wants Goku to be Asian,then Hollywood should follow or else no license,if Akira wants him to be white,then at least get a guy with some black hair and then we'll shut up then. I personally kind of wish that the creators of these franchises have almost absolute power in terms of licensing and can pull the plug on a project like adapted films if they deem the product being a shit stain to the franchise.