Hollywood Racism

I've been complaining a lot lately, outside of the blogosphere, about the ridiculous racism that pervades Hollywood. My biggest complaint has been the treatment of Asian actors and actresses. It's disgusting.

As one example, take 21. The movie starring Jim Sturgess as math whiz kid and Kevin Spacey as the evil professor. There was one Asian actor in the movie, when the entire cast should have been Asian. Hollywood completely white-washed the cast in order to "appeal to a wider audience." Why can't Asians appeal to a wider audience? The same reason why we have such adjective phrases as "Black Directors" and "Black Cinema." Anything outside of a white writer and director is shoved off into its own genre, not taken as seriously as real (white) cinema.

Take as another example, Forbidden Kingdom. It had two large Asian stars, Jet Li and Jackie Chan. You would think they could sell a movie on their own, but Hollywood didn't think so. The real star of the movie was a white kid and Chan and Li were only his helpers on his quest. Seriously?

And the latest in this disgusting trend is DragonBall Evolution. Every character is Asian, except Goku. Goku, the main character, the one everybody associates with DragonBall is played by another white kid!

Now, this is in no way meant to hate on the actors, or their skin pigment. I just find it absurd that Hollywood will hire a white person when it would be more coherent to hire an Asian (or another minority) because we won't go see a movie with a minority starring unless they have a white person in it too.

This is seen much less with black actors, but note that the biggest black stars either started in "black movies" (Taye Diggs) or were playing second fiddle to a white star (Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, etc). The only black actor I can think of that didn't have this problem was Will Smith. His first starring role was in an all-black cast.

Also, note that with Asians, even when they are starring in a movie, they're partnered with someone. Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lee Evans, and Owen Wilson. Jet Li and Aaliyah, DMX, Morgan Freeman, and Jason Statham. Also note that basically the only movies they've been in without a partner are the ones they made through Hong Kong. Fearless, Hero, and Once Upon a Time in China are the movies most known by Jet Li where he is the main star, but those are all Chinese. The same with Jackie Chan. One may think that Rumble in the Bronx was a Hollywood movie, but it was not.