Would You Like a Side of a White British Guy With That?

Certain new movies this year have managed to royally piss me off. I don’t even have to watch some of them to come yea close to bashing my head against a movie screen. Now, you might well tell me, “You could be going apeshit over poverty or crappy education or corrupt politicians. Why get so flustered over movies?” The answer: sheer lack of shit-giving when it comes to casting, not only in a field that I am planning on working in, but in a field that has a lot of influence over a mind-boggling number of people. (Just think how many people must see these big Hollywood movies. And think of the messages that even the subtlest artistic choices can send to all of these people.)

Now, this is not to say that the movie stars are necessarily bad at what they do. Whether or not that is the case is an issue for another time. Where our concern lies is the sheer whitewashing of very explicitly non-white characters.

Most recently, of course, The Lone Ranger came out, starring the very, very caucasian Johnny Depp as the very, very Native American Tonto. Excuse me? What? Where did that come from? Evidently he has barely enough Native American blood to count as, er… something. (Seriously, when I say barely, I mean barely. Y’know, his great grandma was very something-or-other, ’cause, y’know, she grew up, like, very something-or-other.) Sorry, sonny. You’re white, and it shows.

Yeah, bud… are you even trying to be racially/ethnically sensitive? (source)

But you know what? I can almost tolerate Lone Ranger, if only because shortly after its release, it was panned as an overly-polished piece of crap.

It’s another movie – one that has plenty of people drooling lakes over it, despite its whitewashing of one of sci-fi’s most classic characters – that really disturbs me. Star Trek Into Darkness. Benedict Cumberbatch, who ranks high on the “very, very caucasian” scale, plays one of Star Trek’s most popular – and least white – villains: Khan Noonien Singh, an explicitly Indian man, who is supposed to be one of a select bunch of genetically perfect (or near perfect) human beings.

Cumberbatch is lauded by many for an incredible performance, but to be honest, it would have been just as easy for director J.J. Abrams to find an equally good actor who has a little more color to him than a sheet of printer paper. I’m ashamed to say that the original series of Star Trek – an extremely low-budget television show made during the 1960s – did a much better casting job for Khan with Ricardo Montalban, who wasn’t even from the same continent as India (he was Mexican). At least his appearance didn’t scream “Whitey McWhiteypants” as soon as he popped onto the screen. Is J.J. Abrams saying that today, in the 21st century, we can’t even do half as well as the 1960s, when it was a frakking big deal that Uhura was black and Chekov was Russian?

And I can tell you right now that it is easy as eating popcorn to find people of all ethnicities who are also excellent actors looking for work. My last two short film projects looked proportionally more diverse than both of J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek movies combined. And let’s not forget that…

1. I had barely any budget. I paid my cast and crew on both sets by feeding them and helping them with their own projects. Seriously. No cash, no checks. Just food and a little I’ll-help-you-if-you-help-me. J.J. Abrams had way more mula to spend on paying the actor who would be the perfect fit.
2. This low budget meant that I didn’t get any help from a casting director (which, I can assure you, J.J. Abrams had). This means that I did all my own networking and advertising for auditions, as well as helping friends cast their own films. Abrams was able to cast a wider net because he had the help of people – namely casting directors – who already had access to a huge network of actors.
3. You know what else Abrams had the budget to do? Search for actors outside of the city where he was living in at the time.

So, in short, J.J. Abrams had no excuse for casting a white boy as a very, very not white boy. And you know what makes it even worse? I said it before, and I’ll say it again – Khan is supposed to be a genetically superior human being. So what are we telling ourselves by turning him into Marty McWhite? Certainly not that darker skin is a superior trait to have.

It is a director’s responsibility – J.J. Abrams for Star Trek and Gore Verbinski (of Pirates of the Caribbean fame) for Lone Ranger – to judge all traits of an actor before making the final casting decision. Not just whether the actor has the right kind of talent, but whether (s)he can fit the part physically. You’re not going to cast Michael Cera as a wrestler or a mob boss in a film unless you’re going for slapstick. And no sane person would cast Mickey Rourke as an awkward, gangly teenager. Say what you want about their acting abilities, but those casting choices just wouldn’t make sense. Am I right, folks?

So sure, both Johnny Depp and Benedict Cumberbatch may be skilled at their craft, but no matter what great actors they are, they can’t all of a sudden stop being middle-aged white British guys. So why, in this day and age, did already big-name directors of already big-name movies with casts already consisting of other big-name actors (e.g. Helena Bonham-Carter in Lone Ranger, Chris Pine in Star Trek) feel the need to whitewash clearly non-white characters?

Sometimes, I’m afraid of taking up a career in film. I can’t help but think that I’ll be stepping into an environment that tells me, “Only white, cisgendered men are supposed to be badass. And sometimes sexy white girls.” Is that the culture that I want to be surrounded by? Is that what I want to help perpetuate?