Asian Actresses in Hollywood

Mina Youn

Media 384

Prof. Cacoili

March 25, 2017

Asian Actresses in Hollywood

As an Asian American, it is still shocking to see the lack of Asian roles and actors in Hollywood in 2017. In as essay, I would like to examine why Asian roles are so limited, particularly female roles and their stereotypes, the whitewashing of Hollywood, and see how new movements in recent social media have changed how the world sees Asian American actors.

Many more Asian Americans have started to speak up about these issues using social media as a platform to broadcast their dissatisfaction. George Takei is an amazing example of an Asian American actor who uses his celebrity status to speak up about the whitewashing of Hollywood on social media. Over the recent years, Twitter has been caught in a whirlwind of hashtags pinpointing out the racism of the film industry, with tags such as, #OscarsSoWhite and even more recently, Asian Americans have used #StarringJohnCo and #StarringConstanceWu, photoshopping them onto movie posters of white roles, expressing a collective desire to see these two actors as main leads.

I would like to examine how Asian women roles have changed over time, how they have not changed over time and how Asian actresses are treated in the casting process and how Asian female roles are continuously whitewashed in Hollywood movies, using examples such as: Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in a Shell and Emma Stone in Aloha.

For some initial research, I have found some articles:

1. Asian-American Actors Are Fighting for Visibility. They Will Not Be Ignored.
2. What It’s Really Like to Work in Hollywood* (*If you’re not a straight white man.)
3. CineMata's Movie Madness: #Whiterose: Identity, Secrecy and BD Wong
4. I STARTED A VIRAL HASHTAG FOR MORE ASIAN REPRESENTATION

Ultimately, my goal will be to show why it is so important to have Asian American representation in Hollywood and media. I would like to show that tokenism continues today, with maybe one Asian actor in an ensemble cast, usually male. And, finally, I would like to be part of the recent movement in shedding light on these issues by posting my essay on all my social media platforms, including my blog, Facebook and Twitter to bring more awareness, and possibly inspire aspiring Asian actors and actresses to try to get their foot in the door. Hopefully, this is start a dialogue within my peers to start critically thinking for the whitewashing, racist and sexist issues of Hollywood.