Ridley Scott has come under fire for casting White and Black actors in the place of Asians in his new film The Martian. This is the second time that Scott has been accused of 'whitewashing'. His last film Exodus: Gods and Kings was largely criticized for casting white actors in the roles of Moses and Ramses as well as their wives who should be Egyptian.
Scott has claimed that he would not have been able to make the films in the first place had he not had big names attached to the movies, in these cases Christian Bale, Joel Edgerton, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Mackenzie Davis. But it seems a feeble excuse even if true.
There is already a problem with a lack of roles in Hollywood movies for anybody who is not white so it is really awful when the small amount of roles for people of colour are taken away from them.
The problem seems only to be growing. Pan has come under fire for casting Rooney Mara as a Native American - Tiger Lily, and it was announced recently that Scarlett Johansson would be cast as an Asian role in the Ghost in the Shell.
Frankly both the directors and actors (especially those with big names already) should know better, I look forward to a time where more roles are written for different races and we can see some more diverse films.
“This feelgood movie, which has attracted Oscar buzz, shouldn’t get any awards for casting,” said Guy A0ki, MANAA founding president, in an open letter released on Thursday. The anger focuses on the character of Mindy Park, who is described as Korean-American in the book and played by white actor Mackenzie Davis, and Dr Venkat Kapoor, an Asian-Indian character who is a Hindu yet embodied by black actor Chiwetel Ejiofor and renamed Vincent.
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