The Cringiest Examples of Whitewashing in Movies
Hollywood Really Needs to Knock It Off with the Whitewashing…
This whole thing started when I thought I would try to pull together a list of the 10 cringiest examples of whitewashing in movies. Turns out that it’s impossible to narrow it down to just 10 since I was able to turn up hundreds of instances before I forced myself to stop. So, I’ve decided to shine a light on just what an epidemic this problematic practice has become. For those of you that don’t know, whitewashing is typically when a character of color is instead made white in the adaptation. Now for these examples, I specifically focused on when a white actor was cast to play a person of color. That being said, I am not going to include “white saviors” (a phrase I dislike, since I believe that people with power and privilege should help the oppressed whenever they can) or characters that were always intended to be white, such as Matt Damon in The Great Wall (director Yimou Zhang stated that the character was always meant to be white and anyone who saw the film knows that he’s meant to be a foil rather than a savior). Don’t worry, because I still found lots of examples of whitewashing that will make your skin crawl from the cringe.
Jade Tan in Dragon Seed
Turns out whitewashing isn’t exclusively used for just actors. Even actresses got in on it back in the day. Katherine Hepburn took a turn playing the Japanese character Jade Tan in Dragon Seed back in the 1940s. It was a time when the idea of anyone who wasn’t white on-screen was still considered almost taboo, but that didn’t stop Hollywood from pumping out films with characters of color. The make-up used to make Hepburn appear Asian bordered on being pure nightmare fuel, and even now my brain still screams out at how unnatural it looks. She’s the worst example in the film by far, but the entire cast is filled with white folks making Dragon Seed a really uncomfortable movie to watch these days.
Massai in Apache
>Sigh< Look, if actors has to resort to make-up or effects to change the color of their skin, they probably aren’t an appropriate choice for a role (with the exception of blue, red, purple, green… You get the idea). There would never be an instance in which casting Burt Lancaster as the lead in a film called Apache was a good idea (even in the 50s). Yeah, it was a different time, and Massai was supposed to be a good character instead of a stereotype, but why not cast a Native American in the role? You know there were plenty of them working in Hollywood back then since they were the bad guys in half the Westerns in those days. Fortunately, we’re moving away from the practice of letting the oppressors play the oppressed in movies.
Sakini in The Teahouse of the August Moon
“Yellowface” was (and still is) one of the biggest examples of whitewashing in Hollywood. I stumbled upon dozens of instances in which a white actor was cast to play an Asian character. Fortunately (and I use the term loosely), a lot of instances didn’t involve actors trying to look Asian for the roles. Sakini is not one of those instances. Since The Teahouse of the August Moon was in black and white, Marlon Brando didn’t exactly slap a ton of make-up for the part. However, he did make sure to squint and speak in broken English thoughout, which is still pretty bad. At least Brando had the decency to express regret for his performance.
King Mongkut of Siam in The King and I
Hey, I like Yul Brynner. He was one of the greatest cinematic gunslingers of all time thanks to a thousand-yard stare that could turn your blood to ice in your veins. However, if you think he looks like anything other than white you need to get your eyes checked (the guy was from Russia for God’s sake). That didn’t stop this adaptation of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical from slapping some make-up on Brynner and calling him the King of Siam (modern-day Thailand). Look, I like musicals just as much as the next guy (probably more than the next guy, you get the point though), but this is still a really cringy example of whitewashing.