Characters of Color Who Were Almost Whitewashed & the Worst Cases of Hollywood that were
‘I’ll make it for $40 million if you can get Denzel Washington, 35 if you can get Wesley Snipes, and 20 if you can get Laurence Fishburne.’ Whitewashing has long been an issue in Hollywood, from the days when directors put actors in blackface in yellowface to more recent roles when characters of color are erased altogether. And though whitewashing hasn’t gone away completely, with recent scandals following Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell and Emma Stone in Aloha , there has been a huge cry from audiences to let characters of color be played by actors of that same ethnicity. Should Arab Princess Jasmine be played by an Indian actress? No way, but when a ‘Hellboy’ actor gives up a role that had been reconceived for him, it sets a dangerous creative precedent that impacts Hollywood and could even stunt efforts toward inclusion. The cry has been so loud that when the news that fan-favorite characters, like Lara Jean Covey in Netflix’s To...
