One of the many major traits of Biased Media is Whitewashing, which is not only shown in major motion pictures but also on television shows, even on the news. Whitewashing is a term that now has also come to refer to the entertainment industry's attempt at making ethnic characters more appealing to the white, money-spending masses by making exotic characters less ethnic and more "white”. This has sparked quite a controversy, while people protest about it; some Hollywood actors/producers/filmmakers would either defend it or apologize for it. This isn't new- this has been going on for many, many years and it has to be addressed. An article called “Whitewashing was One of Hollywood’s Worst Habits- So Why is it Still Happening?” by Amanda Scherker, which has explained for many, many decades that Hollywood has casted white actors in diverse roles for a number of films. Not just articles have stated this but also a statistic from professors Dr. Stacy L. Smith, Marc Choueiti, & Dr. Katherine Pieper at the University of Southern California, who stated that Latino actors have comprise of just 4% of lead roles in films, which the fact alone is pretty troubling. It also states: Across 100 top-grossing films of 2012, only 10.8% of speaking characters are Black, 4.2% are Hispanic, 5% are Asian, and 3.6% are from other (or mixed race) ethnicities. Just over three quarters of all speaking characters are White (76.3%). These trends are relatively stable, as little deviation is observed across the 5-year sample. These numbers show that the even still the Number One Popular Films are still whitewashed.
So why does whitewashing actually matter in our society? Well, for starters when it comes to portraying a character on screen, it is no longer giving an accurate portrayal of said character on screen, it’s only about hiring white actors to play those characters just so that the studio can make a lot of money at the box office and make a profit. In a PBS documentary called “Beyond the Color Lines”, Henry Louis Gates Jr. sits down with big time Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, a producer who produced JFK, Fight Club, and 12 Years a Slave, who explains why there has been whitewashing in Hollywood. He answers that films nowadays are only being made as business instead of “art”, which is how it used to be. He adds that one of the reasons that whitewashing occurs is in the form of another question: ‘Does it bring in money?’ The executives and studios usually hire white actors over diverse actors because it seems like it would appeal to a wider audience. He would give an example being that if you would put in an African-American actress in front of the film Panic Room instead of Jodie Foster, it would be a smaller movie. This gives off the point that Hollywood has a “color-code”, as some people put it. When it comes to the news, it is also whitewashed as well. A “fact-checker” website called Punditfact.com, which fact checks all news stations and releases whether their statements were mostly true or false. CNN is at 18% when their statements are false and 82% of their statements are mostly true. When it comes to Fox News however, a news station that is known for being very conservative and one-sided on many issues, it shows that the statements Fox News made that are false are over 60%- the highest false statements of any news station. When Michael Brown, an African-American teen, who was killed at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson, a white man, Fox News was the only station who claimed that the results of the report are “promoting unfair criticism” toward Wilson. Also, it was revealed that racist e-mails were found throughout the police department, and Megan Kelly of Fox News said that this “was unfair to accuse the entire police department over a few e-mails.” According to a Gallup poll in 2013, studies have shown that Fox News is still the most watched news station in America, despite that their audience numbers have been dropping. However, in another study by researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University, it shows that Fox News viewers are the least informed of all viewers. The study explained “The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 out of 4 domestic questions correctly- a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all.” It also states that people usually get 1.6-1.8 of 4 correct are the ones who don’t watch Fox News, and people who don’t watch news at all get 1.22 out of 4. If Fox News viewers have watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or listened to NPR, they would’ve been at 1.42-1.51. This all matters because, as Fox News being the most watched news station in America, and that they have a reputation of being biased time after time after time, and that their viewers are the least informed of all viewers- this shows that people should care more since the media is biased and their stories are whitewashed. People should care that whitewashing occurs because it’s not only in movies or in television shows, but it also happens on the news. This gives off the vibe that the media is no longer credible.
What are the controversies surrounding whitewashing and how does it affect racially diverse groups? Well, there are in fact a lot of controversies surrounding whitewashing. In the most recent Academy Awards, a “hastag” was circulating around the web going by “#OscarsSoWhite”. The reason for this is that this is the 5th time in thirty years where the nominations list featured exclusively white actors. According to a study, between 1927 and 2012 of the Academy Awards- 91% of men who have won “Best Actor” have been white, and only 9% have been people of color. The same goes with women who have won “Best Actress”, 99% have been white while only 1% have been people of color- in this case Halle Berry. With these kind of statistics, it makes the Academy look racist. Other controversies are not with award ceremonies, but with the films themselves. One would be that Johnny Depp was casted in the 2013 film The Lone Ranger, he was casted as the Native American character Tonto. Another controversy would be the Best Picture winning film Argo- that Ben Affleck was casted to play as Tony Mendez, a Latino CIA officer, for which Hispanics and critics have criticized his casting. In an interview Mexican-American actor/director Edward James Olmos gave his piece and considered the casting choice to be a “mistake” and that “Affleck had no sense of the cultural dynamic of the character he was playing.” However, despite the criticisms from Hispanics, the real Tony Mendez actually was unconcerned about the casting of Affleck, since he doesn’t identify as Hispanic as said on NBC Latino. Another controversy was M. Night Shyamalan’s critically panned film The Last Airbender, which had a controversy over its casting since the movie was originally based off the anime show. Because of casting white actors in place for other diverse characters, the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans urged a boycott for the film, which was the first time in the organization’s 18-year history. Also, Michael Le of Racebending.com, a fan-site boycotting the film, said "To take this incredibly loved children's series, and really distort not only the ethnicity of the individual characters but the message of acceptance and cultural diversity that the original series advocated, is a huge blow," from an article on Today Movies. Not only have the Asian-American community have responded to this controversy, but also so have non-Asian-Americans who are fans of the show protested the film. Roger Ebert, a prestigious film critic, stated in his “Answer Man Q&A” that he was very critical against the casting of the film; he said “The original series Avatar: The Last Airbender was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts.” He also gave the film half a star out of four stars. The upcoming film Stonewall leaves out the LGBT community based off the trailer by not including trans-women and drag queens who are actually part of the originally movement, not just white straight people. The trailer for the film has received much criticism that the Gay-Straight Alliance Network called for petition for the film. Since then, the petition now has over 24,100 signatures. When it comes to controversy in the news, once again- Fox News is the one station to show bias against non-white groups. Professor Robert Entman of media & public affairs at George Washington University stated a few media trends by Fox News, such as “Blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to appear as lawbreakers in the news - particularly when the news is focusing on violent crime”. With a few shows and movies showing that Mexicans are violent law breakers who cross the border, Fox News takes this as a fact. Even Donald Trump states it in his presidential announcement that Mexicans are “bringing crime, drugs and they’re rapists.” This of course has cause a major controversy in the Latino community. This has caused such a controversy that Latinos have demanded that NBC to drop Donald Trump. In response, many businesses have dropped their business ties with Trump because of his biased comments, yet Fox still supports him. Mexicans in Mexico have even made Donald Trump piñatas. Another controversy that Fox News is involved in that involves another country is that Fox News’ “terror expert” Steve Emerson said that the U.K.’s city of Birmingham to be entirely populated by Muslims, saying "In Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in.” While the Prime Minister replied by saying that what Emerson said was not true. People online even made fun of Fox News by making up their own hilarious factoids by using the hastag “FoxNewsFacts”. Fox News is famous with controversies by biased media and whitewashing.
Now, with whitewashing being a major issue, what exactly are movie executives doing about it? It’s basically a split. Some producers believe that a A-list white cast would get the film attention and money. On the other side, many executives argue that diversely cast movies do a lot better at the box office. An example would be that Lenny Kravitz, an African American, was casted in The Hunger Games films to portray as Cinna. From some readers, they criticized the casting choice because they didn’t expect the character to be of dark skin. Others liked the casting choice. However, in the book series, the character was described as having dark brown skin- making it accurate. After the film’s release, the film grossed over $691.2 million on a $78 million budget, earning the studio $613.2 million in profit according to Box Office Mojo. With 58.8% of the gross was domestic while 41.2% was foreign, this proves that a diverse cast brings in money. On the other hand, the newly released film Pan, which is the origin story of Peter Pan, has Rooney Mara, a white actress, play as Tiger Lily. The film so far has grossed $44.3 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. The movie has flopped and the studios have lost $105.7 million on this film. People have criticized the film’s casting, so that might have been the factor of the film’s loss of money. Another film that has a change in cast was Fantastic Four, which has Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/Human Torch. When it was announced that Jordan was casted to play as the Human Torch, it received criticism on why an African-American to play a white character. However, in a Ultimate Marvel comic series of the Fantastic Four, Johnny Storm is actually an African American and Sue Storm is adopted into the Storm family. While the film did poorly with critics and fans alike, the performances were in fact praised and the film did earn $166.6 million worldwide with a $120 million budget. So despite that it was a bad film, but featured a diverse cast, the film did make money. When it comes to whitewashing in big summer Hollywood blockbuster films, people have criticized that there have been no diverse superheroes onscreen, despite they exist. So, DC Studios and Warner Bros. executives have diversified their cast in upcoming DC films such as: Jimmy Olsen is now played by a woman, Jenny Olsen. Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress, was casted as Wonder Woman. The biggest news for a diverse superhero was that they’re going to introduce Cyborg, an African-American superhero, onscreen for the first time in history. The news of DC comics are brining a diverse cast in their future films, rival comic studios Marvel Studios have taken this into account by casting Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, who is also making a first time appearance onscreen.
Statistics, reports, boycotting, petitions and many more have all been called upon against whitewashing, that has been going on for many, many decades. People haven’t looked twice when movies have whitewashed diverse roles right in front of them. There is an old cliché that the only color Hollywood executives see is money green. If Hollywood continues the trend of making movies and casting white actors over diverse roles for just money, then what is the point of making an accurate film? When the truth of it is that diversifying a cast in a film brings in talent of diverse groups and it also brings in more money worldwide when it shows that the cast is diverse. If biased media and whitewashing doesn’t concern people when it comes to the big screen or television shows, then maybe with news stations since it brings in the question of whether or not they are biased. If news stations are biased and making whitewashing statements, then what is still credible and not just one-sided? Biased media/whitewashing has been around for many years- how much longer are people going to tolerate it?
References
Andrist, Lester. (2015) What Is Whitewashing and Why Does it Matter?
http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/blog/what-is-whitewashing
Dante. (2013) Interview with Edward James Olmos
http://www.latinrapper.com/edward-james-olmos-interview-5-4-2013.html
Ebert, Roger. (2010) Answer Man: The Last Airbender Casting
http://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man
Huffington Post. (2012) Study Finds Fox News Viewers Least Informed Of All Viewers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/fox-news-less-informed-new-study_n_1538914.html
Rico, Jack. (2013) Argo’s Real Tony Mendez: “I’m Not Hispanic”
http://nbclatino.com/2013/01/10/argos-real-tony-mendez-im-not-hispanic/
Rothkopf, Joanna. (2015) Fox News’ pathetic Ferguson whitewash: Racist emails don’t matter because racist emails are everywhere
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/10/megyn_kellys_pathetic_ferguson_whitewash_racist_emails_dont_matter_because_racist_emails_are_everywhere/
Saad, Lydia. (2013) TV Is Americans' Main Source of News
http://www.gallup.com/poll/163412/americans-main-source-news.aspx
Schou, Solvej. (2015) Roland Emmerich’s ‘Stonewall’ Finds Controversy
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/movies/roland-emmerichs-stonewall-finds-controversy.html?_r=0
Solomon, Daina Beth. (2010) In protest against ‘The Last Airbender,’ fans find empowerment
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/in-protest-against-the-last-airbender-fans-find-empowerment/
So why does whitewashing actually matter in our society? Well, for starters when it comes to portraying a character on screen, it is no longer giving an accurate portrayal of said character on screen, it’s only about hiring white actors to play those characters just so that the studio can make a lot of money at the box office and make a profit. In a PBS documentary called “Beyond the Color Lines”, Henry Louis Gates Jr. sits down with big time Hollywood producer Arnon Milchan, a producer who produced JFK, Fight Club, and 12 Years a Slave, who explains why there has been whitewashing in Hollywood. He answers that films nowadays are only being made as business instead of “art”, which is how it used to be. He adds that one of the reasons that whitewashing occurs is in the form of another question: ‘Does it bring in money?’ The executives and studios usually hire white actors over diverse actors because it seems like it would appeal to a wider audience. He would give an example being that if you would put in an African-American actress in front of the film Panic Room instead of Jodie Foster, it would be a smaller movie. This gives off the point that Hollywood has a “color-code”, as some people put it. When it comes to the news, it is also whitewashed as well. A “fact-checker” website called Punditfact.com, which fact checks all news stations and releases whether their statements were mostly true or false. CNN is at 18% when their statements are false and 82% of their statements are mostly true. When it comes to Fox News however, a news station that is known for being very conservative and one-sided on many issues, it shows that the statements Fox News made that are false are over 60%- the highest false statements of any news station. When Michael Brown, an African-American teen, who was killed at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson, a white man, Fox News was the only station who claimed that the results of the report are “promoting unfair criticism” toward Wilson. Also, it was revealed that racist e-mails were found throughout the police department, and Megan Kelly of Fox News said that this “was unfair to accuse the entire police department over a few e-mails.” According to a Gallup poll in 2013, studies have shown that Fox News is still the most watched news station in America, despite that their audience numbers have been dropping. However, in another study by researchers at Fairleigh Dickinson University, it shows that Fox News viewers are the least informed of all viewers. The study explained “The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 out of 4 domestic questions correctly- a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all.” It also states that people usually get 1.6-1.8 of 4 correct are the ones who don’t watch Fox News, and people who don’t watch news at all get 1.22 out of 4. If Fox News viewers have watched The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or listened to NPR, they would’ve been at 1.42-1.51. This all matters because, as Fox News being the most watched news station in America, and that they have a reputation of being biased time after time after time, and that their viewers are the least informed of all viewers- this shows that people should care more since the media is biased and their stories are whitewashed. People should care that whitewashing occurs because it’s not only in movies or in television shows, but it also happens on the news. This gives off the vibe that the media is no longer credible.
What are the controversies surrounding whitewashing and how does it affect racially diverse groups? Well, there are in fact a lot of controversies surrounding whitewashing. In the most recent Academy Awards, a “hastag” was circulating around the web going by “#OscarsSoWhite”. The reason for this is that this is the 5th time in thirty years where the nominations list featured exclusively white actors. According to a study, between 1927 and 2012 of the Academy Awards- 91% of men who have won “Best Actor” have been white, and only 9% have been people of color. The same goes with women who have won “Best Actress”, 99% have been white while only 1% have been people of color- in this case Halle Berry. With these kind of statistics, it makes the Academy look racist. Other controversies are not with award ceremonies, but with the films themselves. One would be that Johnny Depp was casted in the 2013 film The Lone Ranger, he was casted as the Native American character Tonto. Another controversy would be the Best Picture winning film Argo- that Ben Affleck was casted to play as Tony Mendez, a Latino CIA officer, for which Hispanics and critics have criticized his casting. In an interview Mexican-American actor/director Edward James Olmos gave his piece and considered the casting choice to be a “mistake” and that “Affleck had no sense of the cultural dynamic of the character he was playing.” However, despite the criticisms from Hispanics, the real Tony Mendez actually was unconcerned about the casting of Affleck, since he doesn’t identify as Hispanic as said on NBC Latino. Another controversy was M. Night Shyamalan’s critically panned film The Last Airbender, which had a controversy over its casting since the movie was originally based off the anime show. Because of casting white actors in place for other diverse characters, the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans urged a boycott for the film, which was the first time in the organization’s 18-year history. Also, Michael Le of Racebending.com, a fan-site boycotting the film, said "To take this incredibly loved children's series, and really distort not only the ethnicity of the individual characters but the message of acceptance and cultural diversity that the original series advocated, is a huge blow," from an article on Today Movies. Not only have the Asian-American community have responded to this controversy, but also so have non-Asian-Americans who are fans of the show protested the film. Roger Ebert, a prestigious film critic, stated in his “Answer Man Q&A” that he was very critical against the casting of the film; he said “The original series Avatar: The Last Airbender was highly regarded and popular for three seasons on Nickelodeon. Its fans take it for granted that its heroes are Asian. Why would Paramount and Shyamalan go out of their way to offend these fans? There are many young Asian actors capable of playing the parts.” He also gave the film half a star out of four stars. The upcoming film Stonewall leaves out the LGBT community based off the trailer by not including trans-women and drag queens who are actually part of the originally movement, not just white straight people. The trailer for the film has received much criticism that the Gay-Straight Alliance Network called for petition for the film. Since then, the petition now has over 24,100 signatures. When it comes to controversy in the news, once again- Fox News is the one station to show bias against non-white groups. Professor Robert Entman of media & public affairs at George Washington University stated a few media trends by Fox News, such as “Blacks and Latinos are more likely than whites to appear as lawbreakers in the news - particularly when the news is focusing on violent crime”. With a few shows and movies showing that Mexicans are violent law breakers who cross the border, Fox News takes this as a fact. Even Donald Trump states it in his presidential announcement that Mexicans are “bringing crime, drugs and they’re rapists.” This of course has cause a major controversy in the Latino community. This has caused such a controversy that Latinos have demanded that NBC to drop Donald Trump. In response, many businesses have dropped their business ties with Trump because of his biased comments, yet Fox still supports him. Mexicans in Mexico have even made Donald Trump piñatas. Another controversy that Fox News is involved in that involves another country is that Fox News’ “terror expert” Steve Emerson said that the U.K.’s city of Birmingham to be entirely populated by Muslims, saying "In Britain, it's not just no-go zones, there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don't go in.” While the Prime Minister replied by saying that what Emerson said was not true. People online even made fun of Fox News by making up their own hilarious factoids by using the hastag “FoxNewsFacts”. Fox News is famous with controversies by biased media and whitewashing.
Now, with whitewashing being a major issue, what exactly are movie executives doing about it? It’s basically a split. Some producers believe that a A-list white cast would get the film attention and money. On the other side, many executives argue that diversely cast movies do a lot better at the box office. An example would be that Lenny Kravitz, an African American, was casted in The Hunger Games films to portray as Cinna. From some readers, they criticized the casting choice because they didn’t expect the character to be of dark skin. Others liked the casting choice. However, in the book series, the character was described as having dark brown skin- making it accurate. After the film’s release, the film grossed over $691.2 million on a $78 million budget, earning the studio $613.2 million in profit according to Box Office Mojo. With 58.8% of the gross was domestic while 41.2% was foreign, this proves that a diverse cast brings in money. On the other hand, the newly released film Pan, which is the origin story of Peter Pan, has Rooney Mara, a white actress, play as Tiger Lily. The film so far has grossed $44.3 million worldwide on a $150 million budget. The movie has flopped and the studios have lost $105.7 million on this film. People have criticized the film’s casting, so that might have been the factor of the film’s loss of money. Another film that has a change in cast was Fantastic Four, which has Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm/Human Torch. When it was announced that Jordan was casted to play as the Human Torch, it received criticism on why an African-American to play a white character. However, in a Ultimate Marvel comic series of the Fantastic Four, Johnny Storm is actually an African American and Sue Storm is adopted into the Storm family. While the film did poorly with critics and fans alike, the performances were in fact praised and the film did earn $166.6 million worldwide with a $120 million budget. So despite that it was a bad film, but featured a diverse cast, the film did make money. When it comes to whitewashing in big summer Hollywood blockbuster films, people have criticized that there have been no diverse superheroes onscreen, despite they exist. So, DC Studios and Warner Bros. executives have diversified their cast in upcoming DC films such as: Jimmy Olsen is now played by a woman, Jenny Olsen. Gal Gadot, an Israeli actress, was casted as Wonder Woman. The biggest news for a diverse superhero was that they’re going to introduce Cyborg, an African-American superhero, onscreen for the first time in history. The news of DC comics are brining a diverse cast in their future films, rival comic studios Marvel Studios have taken this into account by casting Chadwick Boseman as Black Panther, who is also making a first time appearance onscreen.
Statistics, reports, boycotting, petitions and many more have all been called upon against whitewashing, that has been going on for many, many decades. People haven’t looked twice when movies have whitewashed diverse roles right in front of them. There is an old cliché that the only color Hollywood executives see is money green. If Hollywood continues the trend of making movies and casting white actors over diverse roles for just money, then what is the point of making an accurate film? When the truth of it is that diversifying a cast in a film brings in talent of diverse groups and it also brings in more money worldwide when it shows that the cast is diverse. If biased media and whitewashing doesn’t concern people when it comes to the big screen or television shows, then maybe with news stations since it brings in the question of whether or not they are biased. If news stations are biased and making whitewashing statements, then what is still credible and not just one-sided? Biased media/whitewashing has been around for many years- how much longer are people going to tolerate it?
References
Andrist, Lester. (2015) What Is Whitewashing and Why Does it Matter?
http://www.thesociologicalcinema.com/blog/what-is-whitewashing
Dante. (2013) Interview with Edward James Olmos
http://www.latinrapper.com/edward-james-olmos-interview-5-4-2013.html
Ebert, Roger. (2010) Answer Man: The Last Airbender Casting
http://www.rogerebert.com/answer-man
Huffington Post. (2012) Study Finds Fox News Viewers Least Informed Of All Viewers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/23/fox-news-less-informed-new-study_n_1538914.html
Rico, Jack. (2013) Argo’s Real Tony Mendez: “I’m Not Hispanic”
http://nbclatino.com/2013/01/10/argos-real-tony-mendez-im-not-hispanic/
Rothkopf, Joanna. (2015) Fox News’ pathetic Ferguson whitewash: Racist emails don’t matter because racist emails are everywhere
http://www.salon.com/2015/03/10/megyn_kellys_pathetic_ferguson_whitewash_racist_emails_dont_matter_because_racist_emails_are_everywhere/
Saad, Lydia. (2013) TV Is Americans' Main Source of News
http://www.gallup.com/poll/163412/americans-main-source-news.aspx
Schou, Solvej. (2015) Roland Emmerich’s ‘Stonewall’ Finds Controversy
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/movies/roland-emmerichs-stonewall-finds-controversy.html?_r=0
Solomon, Daina Beth. (2010) In protest against ‘The Last Airbender,’ fans find empowerment
http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies/in-protest-against-the-last-airbender-fans-find-empowerment/