August 15th, 2009
So. Taken from everyone.
Ask me for my fan-related Top Five anything. Like, any fan-type thing I'm familiar with. Favorite moments, fics, characters, whatever.
The people and their cultures: POC and the movies by
the_future_modernes. About the white-washing going on in Hollywood. MUST READ.
Oh. And.
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The Examiner’s Ed Moy inquires Does Hollywood ‘white-wash’ the casting of Asian characters in movies? Then he proves it…
After doing some research, I discovered that “The Last Airbender” wasn’t the only recent movie that cast white actors in roles that were originally created as Asian characters.
For example, the character of Kyo Kusanagi will be played by Sean Farris in an upcoming live-action feature based on the video game “King of Fighters”.
There’s also the casting of Jake Gyllenhaal as Prince Dastan in “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” along with a British actress Gemma Arterton playing his love-interest Tamina. The movie was also based on a popular video game.
And then there’s the recent announcement that Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are starring in a live-action version of the Japanese anime “Akira.”
And finally, there’s the casting of Keanu Reeves as Spike Spiegel in the live-action adaptation of “Cowboy Bebop.” (Although, I do admit that I think Keanu Reeves looks similar to the character.)
This all of course pales in comparison to the fact that last year, the producers of the movie “21″ took poetic license in rewriting actual Asian American card playing MIT students as white characters.
The movie “21″ was based on the best-selling book “Bringing Down the House”, about a real-life team of mostly Asian American students led by an Asian American professor John Chang and his teaching cohorts. (To read about the real “21″ students and their professor click here.) MORE