In honor of a hunky, but completely miscast Jake Gyllenhaal descending into the role of a Persian Prince – let’s chat about inappropriate Hollywood casting! Apologies to Oded Fehr for the machine overlooking you! But let’s look deeper into this…. and have a chat!
Hiring the exact opposite of a race to play a role is often hilarious, if not completely disgusting and insulting! This post is meant to touch on the LIGHTER side of this phenomenon, making light of historically, hysterically, woefully inaccurate casting decisions. The problem here when separating the fact from the fiction, and the “YES – that really is racist,” from the “But that is one of the best roles in film history”, is not to let yourself get too emotionally charged on either side. Yes we need to have a massive, introspective, humbling discussion about race on a national level – something which is ongoing and happening more and more each year. Yes these are just silly roles. But it’s all part of the cultural heritage that is passed down to our children, and it’s vital to note the ways in which we have changed, and some of the ways we are still the same…. and where we go from here.
Some of these roles became such “great” roles simply because the actor behind them stole the show (likely with it’s assumptive stereotypes) while other choices were just painfully overacted and lacking any depth *other* than the blatant racism extending behind it. When you get off-type characters to fill the role of a race, the least nuanced will turn to good-ole, idiotic stereotypes to bolster their hollow performance of a shallow role written with no real intent or respect. This happened much more often in the past, of course; as our world opens up to other cultures, more immigration, & sharing of people across all walks of business & life, it is certainly less pronounced. But it’s still there, sometimes painfully glaring back at us. It isn’t always as innocuous as a Brit or Aussie playing a person from the Bronx (like Toni Collette’s *great* turn as a struggling mom in Sixth Sense) – but they are all interesting and worth noting in their own right. Let’s look at some of the more egregious errors.
All this, has, of course, produced some of the most epic moments of film history. I will be including a couple scenes from my favorite actors, films, or moments… but won’t dwell too long on others. Pardon that, but let me know whom I forgot, or what you think. As I said I would focus on the lighter side, I am not delving into DW Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, but if you are interested in that debate I suggest you rent and watch his “Broken Blossoms” which cast a white man as an Asian, nowhere near as big a deal as on an screen inter-racial romance in 1919. DW Griffith always proclaimed BoaN was *not* racist – he was not filtering his personal views so much as relating popular sentiment. Again… that is not where I want to go with this. That’s some heavy, thoughtful, interesting stuff. I promised ALL OF YOU that this blog would never be interesting, and I am not about to start now.
I can’t even get into the Cartoon world, because… wow. There was a lot of racism over there…. even Disney has been highlighted. That’s not even talking about Song of the South.
Song of the South — Disneys Racist Movie!
Speaking of cartoons, however, provides a nice segue into quite the cartoonish role…. one of the most wildly racist of all time, and also unforgettable strictly because of said racism! Mickey Rooney, take it away, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s:
And he isn’t the only miscast white person as Asian –
The Conqueror demonstrated what was surely some of the worst casting of all time, with The Duke himself as Genghis Khan:
Or, as my friend Alex Chen reminded me – Marlon Brando in Tea House of the August Moon:
We have wildly miscast actors in roles of American Indians, of course:
Burt Lancaster as Massai in Apache (1954)
Mr. Mike Bertolina reminded me of another… The Searchers with Henry Brandon as the Chief. White man intoning “How” in that way might not be the most sensitive of ways to celebrate the people we stole this country from.
Edward G. Robinson as the Pharaoh in The Ten Commandments – I mean… ….. WOT?
There are a couple roles that I suffer, attempting to overlook the campy and playful aspect of the typecast, as it’s less about an Indian as much as it is about an outsider with a good heart that does everything wrong….
Peter Sellers as Hrundi V. Bakshi in Blake Edwards’ “The Party”, a role, albeit not very PC, filled with some of the greatest physical acting and comedy of all time. My friend Mr. Mike Bertolina, Fluffer extraordinaire (I will take that out if you prefer, sir – people might not remember that joke), also mentioned the fact is that Hrundi was the *only* sane, “real” person in the film. That’s a salient point – it was lampooning the endless, fickle shallowness of Hollywood, and was very much an inside hit job of its time.
A role I cannot suffer, however, is Fisher Stevens… well, in anything at all. But Fisher Stevens hollow-ly riffing off Sellers in Short Circuit I & Short Circuit II. His first performance was so mesmerizing, they had to run the racism into the ground in a part II. Seriously? Ugh.
Charlton Heston as a Mexican in Touch of Evil (BTW – both the Party and Touch of Evil had scores done by Henry Mancini. They are EPIC… and both wonderful in their own right. Check them out!)
And you think it’s just the white people, eh?
We got us some wonderful, if not curious, roles from some other comedic greats:
Eddie Murphy as the Old Jewish guy takes the cake, from Coming to America
As well as the horrendous “White Chicks” that I blindly call horrendous, while loving the Wayans’, because I haven’t seen it. Egads why would we?
This is one simple post, with no intent or real thought behind it…. but this struck me one early Easter Sunday morning as potential fodder for interesting reading…. and as I am quite terrible at formatting my blog and somewhat tired of fighting with it… that’s my segue out of here. What did I forget?
2018 edit: All of John Hughes’ stereotypes, etc.
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