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Is it truly white-washing if it is a foreign remake.....

posted 9 years ago by itsknotfair
6 replies | jump to latest

Is it truly white-washing if it is a foreign remake of something that has already been adapted in it's native land?

I ask this, because plenty of american movies have been remade in foreign areas, and the characters re-cast as a more common race to that area...

Some examples:
Saidoweizu (2009)
Is it Asian-washing that these were not still white actors playing the focal characters in the Japanese adaptation?

Wo zhi nv ren xin (2011) Chinese adaptation, with non-white Chinese actors...

Just read the first paragraph for the Indian film Heyy Babyy for crying out loud...

Heyy Babyy is a 2007 Hindi romantic comedy film starring Akshay Kumar, Vidya Balan, Fardeen Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Juanna Sanghvi and Boman Irani. It is a remake of the 1990 Malayalam movie Thoovalsparsham which itself is an adaptation of 1987 American film Three Men and a Baby which inturn was based on the 1985 French movie Three Men and a Cradle, which was first remade into a Tollywood film Chinnari Muddula Papa (1990). It is the first full-length feature film directed by Sajid Khan. It released on 24 August 2007 to a good response.

I could literally list hundreds of examples, but I won't wast your time.

Now, please look at this chart highlighting the American population by race for the years 1980-2000: http://www.censusscope.org/us/s55/chart_race.html
and an updated one for 2000-2010: http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/us-population-by-race.html

The point is this, in the case of a foreign remake, I think we can agree that adapting the race along with the setting, is not just an American or "white" thing. And yes, there is an under-representation of Asian-American roles in American movies... but it can't be denied that the largest population in the U.S. is white, and not blaming Japanese people for not casting another ethnicity in their films or remakes of foreign films but finding a problem only with it in the happening U.S. is problematic in it's own way.

I do suggest that if they want to have white characters in this adaptation, they at least alter the names to better represent that.

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[–] Thenewnexus 9 years ago

There are plenty of Asian American actors so there is no reason to whitewash the movie.

Changing the names is still whitewashing. Speed racer is a whitewash film and it used the names from the English Dub,lots of dubs in the 90s and early 200s changed the names of the characters

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[–] itsknotfair 9 years ago

So, why replace the race of the actors in foreign remakes of american films? In fact, that is far more common of an problem if we are strictly comparing numbers, so why isn't that an issue?

What's your favorite scary movie?

[–] itsknotfair 9 years ago

In the case of movies like this, the idea is to make it a huge blockbuster, and when casting you not only consider who does best for the roll, but who will bring in the best audience. In the case here, with Nat Wolf being cast, not only does he have the necessary recognition within the ideal demographic (specifically, tweens and teens who spend the most money on these kind of things. These are the people who go to Hot Topic and buy the licensed merchandise.) but he might also be one of the few popular enough actors who can portray the sensibility and aesthetic the director is going for-regardless of race.

If it was still set in Japan, yeah there would be more of a problem...Or if the race/gender/orientation etc. of a character was 100% crucial to the storyline... but this is not the Japanese version of Death Note we're talking about here either, this is the American one, and why make an American version at all if the only cultural change is language? That is what dubs and subtitles are for.

It is just as racist to call it white-washing to change the race of characters to the race of the largest population in the movie's new location as it is to "white-wash" to begin with... But, it's only considered racist when it's done in the U.S., and it's only problematic where it concerns white people. No one is complaining when China or India casts their more common race in their remakes of foreign films, because it makes creative and demographic sense, but only when you take white people out of the equation.

When you make a foreign remake, you are adapting not only the characters and the plot, but you are making necessary cultural changes to bring it to the new location and audience, and sometimes that includes changing the background of the characters in the process.

There are plenty of Asian American actors so there is no reason to whitewash the movie.

Yes, but are there plenty of well-known, popular Asian American actors, who also have to fit the roll, and have experience to fork on a feature film?

Changing the names is still whitewashing. Speed racer is a whitewash film and it used the names from the English Dub,lots of dubs in the 90s and early 200s changed the names of the characters

Why is it white-washing? Please, list the specific criteria and reasons it is not okay in a remake? This is an adaptation (synonyms: alteration · modification · redesign · remodeling), not an exact replica.

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[–] Thenewnexus 9 years ago

You are Joking right? Nat Wolff is not that known he has starred in one theatrical movie,everything else is either indie films or supporting roles. If Wolff is being trusted with this than Asian American actor should get the same chance known or not.

You say the casting would be a problem if it was set in Japan,the Thing is there are Asian Americans in American so yeah the casting is still bad. Whats wrong with Having Asian Americans star in this Movie and speaking English in Japan? Nobody complains when movies are made in English and the movies takes place in a country were English is not the main language. Whats the problem?

As for the remakes in other countries,not a valid complaint there is no diversity in those countries,but there are is in America so thats why the casting in this movie is not ok

Class is Pain 101. Your instructor is Casey Jones

[–] thenmadewild 8 years ago

I think this is a complicated issue, but my feeling would be that, yes, it is technically whitewashing because they are taking originally Japanese characters and making them white, HOWEVER, I don't think it's the truly harmful kind of whitewashing.

If the goal is simply to take a story that was originally Japanese, but has nothing in it that necessitates it being Japanese, and move it to a different setting, that's not a huge problem I think. Whitewashing becomes a problem when directors try to put white actors into stories/ settings/ characters that are obviously not meant to have white people in them. Avatar: The Last Airbender was a good example of this. That entire series was based in Asian history and mythology, so you can't take that story and remove it from its Asian roots. It's not possible. Casting white people in such a story therefore is insulting to Asian people and culture, because you're taking something that came from their culture and pretending it's yours.

Death Note doesn't have the same kind of Asian cultural elements aside from the Shinigami, who could easily be replaced with something from western mythology like 'reapers' or some such, without the story really losing anything. The Shinigami in Death Note are essentially just a plot device to set off the main story, which is a pretty cross-cultural one: the story of a dissatisfied high school kid acquiring the means to become a mass murderer without getting caught.

If they try to keep the characters as having Japanese surnames though, I'd take issue with that. They shouldn't do that because that would indeed be insulting to Japanese people. Those names are not cross-cultural, they are Japanese and should not be applied to white characters.

Just my take on it.

[–] itsknotfair 8 years ago

Thank you, that was really the root of my point, you put it much better than I did I think.
Aside from the fact that it hails from Japan, there is nothing about this story that is intrinsically Japanese, especially when adapted to a western culture. I do think that keeping the character's obviously ethnic names when they change the race is super strange and should not happen though.
Having white people play a character that stays another race is obviously problematic, but that is not what usually happens anymore. And as far as something like Emma Stone in Aloha, the character was supposed to not look Asian, that was the point. She was based on a real person who does not look Asian either, it was the whole point. I've had blonde and blue-eyed Latina friends who have gotten a lot of *beep* for not looking a certain way, and it has become a part of who they are and their experience. So even tough it was a specific background point of the character, people still had a problem with it, yet no one bats an eye when Jessica Alba plays black, white or Hispanic.
I personally, am very left-wing, but am by no means a SJW, and I truly think that some things have gotten way out of hand... If they choose to make this about Asian-American characters, that is fine with me, but if they choose to adapt it in another way, we should see no problem. White is by no means the only or best there is, but I do think that if they chose to adapt the characters into another race than white or Asian, that there would be less of a stink about it, and that is a problem too.
Diversity is important, and should be upheld, but diversity for diversity's sake is a huge error in judgement in my opinion. Intention is everything.

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