Entertainment

The Whitewashing of Allison Ng: ‘Aloha’ Isn’t Alone in Casting White Actors in Asian Roles

Published

11 years ago

June 2, 2015

Oakland Post

Benedict Cumberbatch, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson (Paramount Pictures/Columbia Pictures/AP/Jordan Strauss)

Like Cumberbatch as Khan and ScarJo in “Ghost in the Shell,” Emma Stone isn’t Asian, just playing one on film

(Salon) – During the ‘00s – the aughts — it used to be that blockbuster summer films popped an Asian guy into its cast (“we ought to have an Asian guy”) and made sure he was dead before the final credits. (“We ought to have a Meaningful Death here. Let’s kill him off!”) I called this guy the Expendable Asian Crewmember, in reference to the security officer in the ‘60s television version of “Star Trek,” the red-shirted extra fans referred to as the “Expendable Crewmember” because he was sure to get phasered into oblivion after beaming down onto the hostile planet. Now that we’re halfway through the teen years of our 21st century, Hollywood has developed a kinder, gentler way of making sure that only white heroes are left standing by the end: it tells you the character is Asian, but casts a blindingly white actor to play him/her/them.

Apparently, when film producers are presented with the problem of casting a bankable Asian male, the first actor that springs to mind is Benedict Cumberbatch. When he is unavailable, the next best option is … Tilda Swinton? A woman who did a very good job playing an archangel named Gabriel and even better job playing a vampire is now in talks to play a male Tibetan mystic to round out her “androgynous immortal” portfolio.

This latest batch of white actors playing Asian characters is different from the (formerly heinous, insultingly clumsy) attempts at yellowface, blackface, and redface that used to plague Hollywood, because no attempt has been made to change the appearance of their features. The history of the most racist yellowface castings is well-trodden ground: Mickey Rooney as a Japanese neighbor, Marlon Brando as a Japanese interpreter, John Wayne as Genghis Khan — that kind of obvious yellowface makes Millennial eyeballs burn from the cinematic Sriracha being squirted into them. Nowadays, pancake makeup and cheap prosthetics are far too crude. Today’s sophisticated viewers are postmodern, and the burn is far more subtle. Polite people are not supposed to notice that the radiant white actor playing a person of color is, in fact, not a person of color. And if you do notice? Well, making a big deal out that actor’s blonde whiteness means you’re bigot. (Heck, you might even be a thug.) If Tilda tells you earnestly that she is playing an Asian male and you respond in confusion, “You don’t look Tibetan,” then you’re the troll unable to accept all forms of identity, race and gender included, as a cri de coeur of self-determination.

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Arts and Culture

COMMENTARY: Black Music is the Sound of Black Freedom: Let Us Reclaim Both This Juneteenth

Black Music Month started when Black Music Association members Ed Wright, Kenny Gamble and his wife, journalist and radio host Dyanna Williams were able to persuade President Jimmy Carter to establish the observation on June 7, 1979.

Published

15 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Oakland Post

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) is thought of as the godfather of blues music, especially Delta blues. The 29 songs recorded by him during his short life have been of massive inspiration to guitarists and musicians over the last 80 years. Public domain photo.

By Wanda Ravernell

Black Music Month and Juneteenth are inextricably linked – Black music is the sound of our freedom.

From the plaintive moans of the enslaved Africans’ ‘sorrow songs,’ to the fields of Civil War battle where Black soldiers picked up abandoned bugles, to the upright piano played in juke joints on Saturday night and churches come Sunday morning, our ancestors’ innovation in the face of want, fear, degradation, and hopelessness has yielded genres of music imitated ’round the world.

In 2000, Congress made it official. In 2009, Pres. Barack Obama changed the name to African American Music Heritage Month and in 2023, Pres. Joe Biden changed it back to Black Music Month, two years after he declared Juneteenth a national holiday, the result of a movement led by Opal Lee.

Our ancestors battle for freedom over these last 400 years and the music that allowed them expression of their humanity deserved to be honored.

But we may be losing sight of the value of their sacrifices.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Faith That the Dark past Has Taught Us…’

Along with the long-known exploitation of Black musicians whose recordings were stolen by record companies, the commercialization of Juneteenth feels like another kind of theft.

I had never heard of Juneteenth until I moved to the Bay Area from my hometown of Philadelphia. I didn’t know it was one of many freedom festivals celebrated by descendants of enslaved people in the United States.

Emancipation Day was Jan. 1 in Pennsylvania, April 16 in Wash., D.C., May 20 in Florida, and Aug. 8 in Kentucky. But Juneteenth, June 19, has the most renown, known in Texas as the ‘colored peoples’ Fourth of July.’

It was marked by parades, beauty pageants, rodeos, backyard barbecues and church picnics.

Yes, church.

The formerly enslaved began the day praying in thanks for their freedom just as they had prayed for Jubilee – the day of freedom – when they had chains on their feet and hands. They ‘testified’ about their past suffering and how they had managed to overcome.

And they sang.

Although, we will not hold it this year, Omnira Institute’s Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance recalled this part of Juneteenth with prayers in the languages of the African captives. In the middle of the ceremony, a soloist would lead us in singing “Many Thousand Gone” while we took turns reciting portions of the Emancipation Proclamation, the news of freedom that took more than two years to reach Texas – two months after the Civil War ended.

“Many Thousand Gone” was famously recorded by Black luminary Paul Robeson in 1947:

“No more auction block for me,

No more, no more

No more auction black for me

Many thousand gone.”

Other verses refer to the ‘pint of salt’ and the ‘driver’s lash,’ the realities of enslavement that they had survived.

‘Sing a Song Full of the Hope That the Present has Brought Us’

All of the genres of African American music have at their root songs like that, the essence being, as Stevie Wonder, wrote, “the joy inside our pain.” So Black music is not just music. It is our story, our history, our very strength.

During the Civil Rights Movement, which peaked 100 years after slavery ended, the people testified that it was the freedom songs – based on spirituals – that gave them the heart to march, face attack dogs, fire hoses, beatings, and shootouts with vigilantes.

The music reminded them that power was in the people. That music, our music, can do so again. We don’t have to accept the commodification of the products of our culture.

The power of those songs is showing a resurgence across the South as we battle again for the right to self-determination through the ballot box.

Those songs are the voices of our ancestors, voices forged in their blood, their sweat, their tears, joy and, above all, faith. Those songs, those prayers live in our blood and our very breath.

This Juneteenth, let us reclaim those holy voices expressed in Black music for ourselves. It is our birthright. It can neither be bought nor sold. No more. Never again.

Wanda Ravernell is the executive director of Omnira Institute, sponsor for 18 years of the Juneteenth Ritual of Remembrance and Oakland’s 11^th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival, which will take place on Sept. 12.